RELEASE DAY REVIEW: Light Weaver – Lusine Torossian

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When eighteen-year-old relic thief Satya steals an ancient resurrection artifact from the Golden King, she uncovers his dark secret: he's a puppet to a soul-harvesting sorcerer who is building an undead army-one that includes her fallen family.

Her escape through the treacherous Sophene Highlands leads her to Rei, an enemy warrior whose haunted history is intricately woven with her tragic past. As forbidden love blossoms amidst a divine war, Satya discovers that the legendary relic holds dual powers. Now she faces an impossible choice: resurrect her family by sacrificing her soul, or save the kingdom and lose them forever.

Caught between gods and demons, love and duty, Satya must decide what price she's willing to pay for the dead.

Some legends refuse to stay buried. Some choices demand everything.

Light Weaver draws deeply from Armenian mythology, reimagining ancient figures from fairytales and folklore. This coming-of-age fantasy-adventure follows a young woman who embarks on a deadly quest to save her family. On her journey, she must transcend personal and cultural trauma to discover the resilience woven into her spirit by generations of female ancestors.

Light Weaver is a book, in which Satya and her Father start the journey of the young woman with a case of theft. Despite Satya’s father considering the adventure to serve the recovery of relics to help return their family members who were gone since the massacre, Satya knows the punishment for stealing from the Golden King. It could mean immediate death. What kind of horrifying death was not clear to her at that time.

During this ‘adventure’ Satya loses the rest of her childish illusions, and her family, meets the true ‘Golden King’, who is anything but golden and learns to deal with a side she did not know she would ever see. The side that should make her feel cradled is not what it should have been… it’s not even the opposite. It’s worse. It is far beyond what she would ever have expected… it is not only dark… it’s dead and rotten.

When she returned to her village, with the help of a magic she didn’t know she could use, she knew she needed help. There was no way she could get her family back all by herself. So she turned to her old teacher. With his help, and one of his and her mother’s circle, Mona, they are finally prepared to face the darkest phase in Satya’s life, and the cruelest one, too…

I would like to go on describing what happens next, but I’m indeed scared I’d be giving out too much information and entirely spoil the read, which I would hate to do.

Lusine Torossian weaves ‘old Armenian’ history and sagas into her book, according to herself. Be it that as it may, I didn’t check that if it’s a fact. It might be, but that did not change anything to the story, at least not for me.

Light Weaver is a dark book, full of war, of hatred, mostly hatred between people who live within one kingdom, only because they speak a different language, prefer to wear another traditional clothing or pattern… does that sound familiar? The hate, the killing, the dark, black magic, the contagious death, that suspiciously resembles the one of the ‘Zombie-decease’, disgusting and nightmarish, devilish, evil… a nearly almighty horrifying evil ‘wizard’…

And here Satya is facing all these opponents with her helpers… but she is the one in the very center… an untrained ‘Light Weaver’ (of course, her mother was one, too) without any kind of education all of a sudden she masters the most difficult spells and magical tools and becomes a goddesses’ vessel…

Satya is without a doubt, brave, strong, adventurous, and empathic, and she takes risks, even risks herself and her own well-being to save others… but she is still very young and untrained, and despite the story being ‘fantasy’, even to a teenager this might become a bit questionable.

The writing of the story itself is good. There are well-written, organized passages that are extremely enjoyable to read. Other passages are slightly chaotic. I do like the character development, they go through quite a progress during the story, except maybe Satya’s old scholar. He’s a wee-bit of a wimp. But then, that could only be my opinion. As for Satya, she is at times stubborn, and a bit of a self-righteous, and arrogant know-it-all, which at times goes on my nerves. Over 400 pages, that’s not a particularly good thing for a protagonist.

My personal favorite character is Rei. I’m not going to blurt out too much about Rei. But he is a calm strategic thinker, reliable, and the anchor in the entire book, from the moment he shows up he carries the story.

The idea is creative, the book is written decently, even thrilling at times. At other passages it’s dragging a bit, but it’s not bad. I consider the writing style a bit better in the beginning than toward the end, but I doubt this is a teenager-approved book. I doubt a 13-year-old should read that story, I’d leave it to 16+. It was not much missing to the 4 stars… but the fact that the book is too dark for the target audience cost it half a star…