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The show where your favorite authors tell you about the fantasy books they love!
In this episode, author Katharine E. Wibell discusses her “The Guardian’s Speaker” books and reviews Akithar’s Greatest Trick by Jason Dorough. Also mentioned are Dragons and Aces by J. G. Gates, Wild Reverence by Rebecca Ross, and The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.
Transcript
J. G. Gates
Hi and welcome to Authors Review Books Fantasy, the show where your favorite authors share the books that they love. I'm J.G. Gates, bestselling author of over a dozen novels. Most recently, you may have heard of Dragons and Aces, which is about a biplane pilot and a dragon rider from enemy nations who, you know, fall in love. So it's got enemies to lovers vibes, mistaken identity, it's got some spice and... It may be the book for you, so check it out if you're looking for a fantasy read.
Our featured new release today is Wild Reverence by Rebecca Ross. True Love is more divine than any ruthless god. This is a standalone fantasy novel that features a goddess and a mortal with familiar characters from Ross's Divine Rivals series. that is our new release for the day. And by the way, if any of the books that are mentioned on this show sound like your next favorite read, there will be links in the show notes and captions where you can find them.
And now let's welcome our guest, Katharine E. Wibell is a high fantasy author, artist, nerd, extrovert and speaker. Her first series, The Incarn Saga began in 2016 with Ishura's Claws. Soon three more books completed this fast-paced new adult shifter fantasy. Currently, The Djed Chronicles, a noble bright YA portal fantasy series will release its sixth book in 2026. She also creates and hand-paints TTRPG miniatures based on her characters, which is super cool, along with creating the accompanying gaming material. So, Katharine, welcome.
Katharine E. Wibell
Hi.
J. G. Gates
Yeah, thank you so much. So I know you have a book you're going to review for us today, but first I want you to tell me a little bit about ⁓ your latest book.
Katharine E. Wibell
Well, I-- I'm gonna throw it for loop. I'm actually, instead of talking about the latest book, which is part of the Djed Chronicle series, my YA series, I did want to kind of focus on The Guardian Speaker, which for people who like, especially in the darker side of fantasy or mythic based retellings, this may be the one for you, since The Guardian Speaker, as of the end of last year, is now a complete series of 16 novellas and they're pretty much a deep dive in Nordic myth. You follow the point of view character, this young female essentially
Viking character who was born with the ability to see and communicate with everybody's animal-shaped guardian spirits, but because of her ability is so rare that people look at her talking to herself and pretty much think she's a little crazy and so she's been ostracized her whole life and shunned out of society and so she lives on the fringes of the village and where she thinks at that point of her life that she's okay just doing what she's done. That is, until she meets another person who has a similar though different ability and but he is brought in as a person in bondage and he also brings in with a warning that he has realized there is a threat on humanity and his particular ability may allow him to help stop this oncoming plague that's coming out towards them. So she does the first big decision of her life and frees this man, and in doing so and the repercussions that follow send her and her family on essentially a Viking Odyssey throughout all nine realms of Nordic myth. So that's my series in a little nutshell, and I'm really excited about it. The first, as I said, they are novellas. come out independently, and then originally I bundled them in sets of four. So… print versions but what's really exciting for me is in November, I'll be launching my special limited deluxe edition of the series. And they're going to be bundled in a set of one through eight and a set of nine through 16. And they're going to have the works, the sprayed edges, the foiling. I have worked with a variety of artists. So you're going to have character art and beautiful scene art and everything you kind of hopefully want in a special edition. So for me, that's really exciting. And so that will be my last kind of gearing up release for the year. I'm really just thrilled
J. G. Gates
Love it Nordic Odyssey and you know beautiful fancy books. You gotta love that. Is it gonna come to Kickstarter? Is that what you said?
Katharine E. Wibell
Yeah, so this will be a Kickstarter launch and I'm aiming usually for the third Tuesday of the month, though if you ask me what date that is right now, that is so far in advance because I am right now just working behind the scenes of setting up that Kickstarter and then that means after I hopefully fund the project, we'll be releasing these beautiful books to the world early next year.
J. G. Gates
That sounds super duper fun. I love it. I'm gonna definitely check that out. cool. Now you have a book I believe that you are going to review for us today. Is that right?
Katharine E. Wibell
Yes, of course. So, there were so many books in the world I could have chose. Today I decided to pick one of mine that when I read it a couple years ago, I was just stunned. It was just so phenomenal to me. And this is Akathar's Greatest Trick by Jason Thurow. And if you like these kind of these vast sweeping epic style fantasies with huge cast of characters, so many things going on, so many plots and so
plots and counter plots going on. This book is probably the one for you. There's that heist, there's this magical element and it pretty much the story in a nutshell for this one is it's set in a world where magic is outlawed and only the ruling person of this region can control magic and so anybody who's born with the gift of using magic is hunted down.
Now, in this one little town called Coolbridge, if I pronounce it correctly, there is a famed magician, the stage magician, and so magicians are okay as long as you're using technology and sleights of hand that's for showmanship, but he is so good that it brings the suspicion to him that is he actually just using tech or is he using magic? And so the Empire sends people to investigate and so the books called Akathar's Greatest Trick, The Stage Magician of course is Akathar himself, the great, and it's just this phenomenal book. Again, you think you know what's gonna go on and you definitely don't. There are, I don't remember if there's like over 20 POV characters, huge of everything from you have that wonderful antagonist, you have multiple different kind of protagonist, everything from the villains you love to hate to those that you sympathize with, you have some obscure characters that you think they're just gonna give you a little bit a glimpse of the world from their point of view that end up being very impactful in the end and one of my favorite favorite things about the book is that the main character arguably the main character Akathar the Great is actually not a POV character. His whole story is told by everybody else. So this was the first time I've ever read a book where the main character is not the one who tells his own story. But yeah, so I have a little cover here and that's Akathar's Greatest Trick by Jason Derowe.
J. G. Gates
Yeah. That's super interesting, you know, and it's funny because I feel like I'm good friends with Jason because I've seen so many of his TikTok videos. I have never talked to him before, but like if you say Jason Dora, I'm like, oh yeah, my buddy Jason. It's like, you know, he just gets such great, you know, thoughts in his TikToks and stuff like that. I just.
Katharine E. Wibell
Mm-hmm. yes. He's a very insightful person and I will have to say I'm a little biased because we get to see each other at least once a year and we've been booth partners for a couple years over at DragonCon. But despite that, or on top of that, I genuinely love his book and it's probably one of my favorite fantasy books that I've read outside of this wonderful series where there's dealing with luck gods because it's such a creative magic system, you know?
J. G. Gates
That sounds familiar, yeah. Yeah, it sounds very familiar. So going back to Akathar's greatest trick, I know that a lot of readers tend to think in tropes. And so you kind of touched on some of the tropes, but what are some of the big tropes that readers can expect in this series?
Katharine E. Wibell
Well, there is definitely a heavy aspect of found family with the magician troop that goes around Akathar and you get that. It is it's not a shy trope that it's in your face there, but there is definitely again these Sub subtle aspects of heists and the whodunit aspects. So if you like kind of those mystery plays There's definitely some of those tones in there as well again the banished magic trope they catch me if you can There's a lot of political intrigue if you like those kind of political based stories, this one definitely has those layers in it as well. So there's a lot going on for this book and depending on what you want, you probably find stuff, even subtle tones of various romances stir out as well.
J. G. Gates
Yeah, that's the next thing I was gonna ask about is romance. it's got some romance, it sounds like it's not like a romanticy, right? But it has some romantic subplots, is that right?
Katharine E. Wibell
There are so many characters, are various characters at different stages of various relationships. Some, it's the new relationship, others have been a long term couple and that just kind of goes into play of when you have these big epic style fantasies where you have so many POVs. Love is always going to be part of it, but in this one, yeah, no, this is a zero spice fantasy, you're not going to get that, but if you like just... you love the aspect of love, you're going to get some of that in there as well. But it is not the focus because it's a little bit more again on the whodunit and these layered plots of is Akathar an actual magician and using magic? Is he not? And if he is, can he escape the grasp of the government that's trying to pretty much eradicate magic from the land?
J. G. Gates
Yeah, I love that. It sounds awesome. So which character would you say jumped out at you the most? Is it Akathar or you said there's a lot of characters in there. So maybe, you know, which one or which couple of them really stood out to you?
Katharine E. Wibell
There are... Well, Agathaur again was fascinating because the story was told by everybody else and you really didn't get into his headspace till the very, very, very end. Now in the other book that changes, but I thought that was a fun little trick. But when it came to characters that you can kind of get into their head, there are two that I would say that are...
on the opposite ends of like the types of characters. One is a character called Fairy. She's this young girl. She's part of this group of street urchins that kind of do petty thefts to get by and you are introduced to her you think okay she's just gonna be one of these you know these kind of side characters that you get in a little glimpse of what's going on and move on but as her story unveils she becomes this very pivotal character and from what I heard from lot of the other people who've read this book a very big crowd favorite so she's a fun one there's also on the I guess you could argue antagonist side of things as a character called Nira and she's doing what she's supposed to do she's assigned to kind
sniff out magic and you know get rid of it and so the way she is Ren Yuu sympathize with she's trying to do what is honorable in her mind she's doing what's best but she's definitely a big opposition to the main characters and what they're trying to do in their lives so she's an interesting character because she's layered
J. G. Gates
Yeah, love a good layered character and we love a good street urchin. Something about a street urchin, you gotta love them, right? You gotta root for them. Yeah, that's awesome. So what are some other books that you would compare this one to, right? Like if you loved X-Book, then you're gonna love Akathar's Greatest Trick.
Katharine E. Wibell
Yeah. Okay, so this is always a hard one for me because I will tell everybody the way I fell in love with reading and everything, I went to ancient epics and only in the recent years I'm reading more concurrent and iconic stuff. So my repertoire of names to use is far shorter than probably it should be, but again, if you like these epic big sweeping multiple POVs, a little bit like Wheel of Time where there's so much going on and so many counter plays, there's a little bit of that in there as well because there is some undertones, a little more classic stuff, big sweeping cast. On the other hand with these elements of these magic kind of in question heist, Six of Crows is another one I would say that would link in so and that's a little more modern for people to recognize.
J. G. Gates
Yeah, and as you were talking about it, it evoked some name of the wind thoughts to me as well. I love it. I think it's wonderful. And if you like this one, then maybe check that one out. But it evoked some similar ideas for me. So yeah, yeah, very good. Yeah, exactly. it truly is. It's so hard when you're writing your own books as well. It's like, I understand. I read as much as I possibly can, but like...
Katharine E. Wibell
I haven't read that one, so... Put that on my list. The endless TBR.
J. G. Gates
It's hard, there's only so much time in the day. So we mentioned what books it reminds you of, but what makes it different? What makes this book unique from others in the genre?
Katharine E. Wibell
Well, I'll definitely go back and I'll repeat this as much as I can because I found this fascinating. The main character doesn't really have a say in his own story. is you see him from everybody's point of view and of course based on the characters own kind of agendas and relationships to him or know, prejudices against him, you see him from everybody's point of view and as a reader you're trying to figure out and pick apart what is the actual truth of the main character and who really is he and what is his real end game and is he a good person, is he a bad person, does he have magic, does he not? And so I thought that was again just a wild and very creative way to tell a story was you're telling a story of a character through everybody else's eyes.
J. G. Gates
Yeah, I love that. That's a really neat and interesting device. That's really cool. Final thoughts, anything we haven't touched on that people really need to know about this book?
Katharine E. Wibell
Akathar's Greatest Trick is a first book of a series. It is a series that's going to be a longer one, but I will admit because I know there are people out there who wait till the end of a series being published, it's not gonna be finished for a while. If you like that interim and just excited about getting into it, I highly advise it. There is a prequel. It's definitely on the heist focused of the obscure character and then the sequel, the direct sequel, Lysandria's Deepest Fear recently released last year. So, and they're big books. We're talking about this is the smaller one of the series and it is, I don't remember if it's just shy of 600 pages and the other one is I think about 800 pages. So it's gonna give you a moment to read but I would say I enjoy them, I would advise them and don't be shy of a big book. I love big books.
J. G. Gates
Absolutely right yeah just more more time in that world. Since you know Jason a bit do you have any idea how many books he's planning for this series?
Katharine E. Wibell
can't remember if it's eight or nine. Like, this is going to be like the highlight of his thing. But one of the reasons why he takes so long is his stories are exceedingly intricate. So very much like ⁓ J.R. Martin when he was working on Game of Thrones, the song on Ice and Fire. You know, they are very layered and that complex I would compare. So I can see why it takes him a while to write them and plot them out and create them. But they're great.
J. G. Gates
I love it, you're gonna get your money's worth with this big, big epic fantasy world. That's so fun. And finally, so I could probably guess, but we have to finish off with how many stars would you give this book out of five?
Katharine E. Wibell
Yes, definitely.
I mean, I would give it five unless I can give it more, again, this one along with probably Circe by Madeline Miller have been my favorite books that I've read in the past few years. And I've been working my way through some of these more iconic books as well, but this one definitely is a five star.
J. G. Gates
I gotta read Circe, I’ve got that on my TBR as well, so awesome. And of course we're gonna put links in the show notes so that you can find all the books that we've talked about today. Katharine, thank you so much for joining us, really appreciate it. And everybody out there, don't forget to like, subscribe, get on our email list, and keep up to date with book reviews from all your favorite authors like Katharine. And so until next time, this has been J.G. Gates with Authors Review Books Fantasy.
Katharine E. Wibell’s website is: https://www.katharinewibellbooks.com/
Find her books: https://buy.bookfunnel.com/o2wmx67eqw