SEVENTHBLADE, Indigenous author tells powerful anti-colonialist fantasy

SEVENTHBLADE
TONIA LAIRD
ECW Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$19.95 trade paper, available now

The author shared her maps on her website! : https://tonialaird.com/2025/06/18/the-maps-of-seventhblade/ These are included in the final book.

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: For readers of N.K. Jemisin and Rebecca Roanhorse, a fast-paced, anti-colonial action-adventure fantasy that explores twisted power dynamics and the effects of settler colonialism

After the murder of T’Rayles’s adopted son, the infamous warrior and daughter of the Indigenous Ibinnas returns to the colonized city of Seventhblade, ready to tear the streets asunder in search of her son’s killer. T’Rayles must lean into the dangerous power of her inherited sword and ally herself with questionable forces, including the Broken Fangs, an alliance her mother founded, now fallen into greed and corruption, and the immortal Elraiche, a powerful and manipulative deity exiled from a faraway land. Navigating the power shifts in a colonized city on the edge and contending with a deadly new power emerging from within, T’Rayles must risk everything to find the answers, and the justice, she so desperately desires.

Loaded with complex characters and intricately staged action, and set in a fragmented, fascinating world of dangerous magics and cryptic gods, Seventhblade is a masterful new fantasy adventure from a bright, emerging Indigenous voice.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Losing your child is torturous. Losing him but not having a way to achieve closure on your grief? Never think that will not turn any parent into a giant ball of rage.

T’Rayles uses that rage, and a unique bond with her sword's beinghood, to hatch revenge plots involving a god, a world of hurt, and the end of her people's colonial subjection. She's going to do it all with the directed participation of Elraiche, cost her and the world what it may.

Proof to me, all that, that the most fun-to-read stories are those that center people with super-clear motives, goals that do not admit of defeat, and the rizz to command the help they need. T'Rayles is morally grey in her quest for revenge, in her need to make the world over so what happened to her never happens again. Her deal with Elraiche does not get made innocently, she expects damage, as much of it collateral as is not...but the goal is paramount: Revenge.

At times Author Laird, a most eloquent writer with a solidly developed command of evocative imagery, uses it more freely than the demands of plot can support. Her other work in the comics and games industry makes that unsurprising. There are some combat scenes halfway through that do not move at the pace one hopes to find in those times (surprisingly). The first third has more of Elraiche than seems needed, you might wonder why we're getting his PoV as much as I did but trust Author Laird. The way he is included pays off at the end.

The ending is...impactful. I found myself putting my device down and just thinking through what I'd read. Looking for my emotional teeth after Author Laird pounded 'em outta me. Whatever issues I'd had, particularly around Elraiche and around Dellan (the dead son's father, who had very little time with the reader), failed to diminish my impressed appreciation for the complicated but inevitable resolution I was offered.

I'd offer a full five stars had I had a map [UPDATE: The author shared her maps: https://tonialaird.com/2025/06/18/the-maps-of-seventhblade/ These are included in the final book.] of the world created for this story, especially since it's ripe for a sequel; and had it felt...fresher...less like a beautiful cart but one in a line of the many traveling revenge road.

The Indigenous inflections of the anti-colonial message put that half-star back. This story might not break new ground but it builds a beautiful new home on the Earth it occupies.