Miasma by Jess Hyslop

I would like to thank Francesca from Luna Press Publishing for an advance copy of this novella in exchange for fair and honest review

Publisher - Luna Press Publishing

Published - 7/2

Price - £8.99 paperback £3.19 Kindle eBook

Living alone with his mother on the edge of an ever-encroaching swamp teeming with toxic magic, young Nereus Vestryn has grown up hearing stories about the feral people the 'miasma' has infected. 

So when one morning he finds his mother crawling sickened from the swamp, he has no choice but to summon a mage to help her. 

But mages are feared figures, reminders of the ways the swamp can twist people, and her arrival has greater repercussions than Nereus bargained for. 

As long-held family secrets are uncovered and an unexpected threat arrives on the doorstep, Nereus must ask himself: what really makes a monster?

One of the best things about fantasy is that we have to learn to learn the rules of a new world. Often we perhaps expect the same ones - medieval feudal system for example but a very good story gives us rules and also makes us question are the rules right. I really enjoy tales that drop us in the deep end and explain what we see and witness isn’t all the whole truth. In Jess Hyslop’s excellent novella Miasma we have a tale that mixes the new weird with a tale of hope and family that really captures the reader’s brain and heart.

Ten-year-old Nereus lives on his family home by a swamp one of many taking over the land. The swamps are dangerous places the gases created can kill; make you mad or just possibly make you a Mage. Nereus’ mother Lya has been caught by the gases and her life hangs in the balance. The only hope is the mysterious masked Mage known as Charis who arrives on their reptile beast who may for a price save her life. Unfortunately Nereus soon finds the price expected is for him to tell the truth about why his mother was out there and further dangers may await this family.

I loved this story’s ability to hold back the truth and immediately unsettle us. It feels like it should be a standard mysterious wizard tale but when we notice the steed used is a large reptile; that the Mage hides her scarred and dark veined face and hands we soon find ourselves in unfamiliar territory. The heart of this story is nothing is ever quite what it seems and therefore its useful we get an innocent child’s perspective to tell us the story of the other character’s stories too because like the child we have to decide what actually is true and the right thing to do. As well as the story of Nereus’ family we also get a tale where a young boy finds the world is far more complicated than he ever thought.

Nereus as a child deals with absolutes - the swamp is dangerous; Mage’s are useful but creepy and the world is protected by Cataphracts - the equivalent of knights with sacred duties and kind hearts who will do their best to save the world from what lies in the swamp. All of this as a famous Jedi once said is true from a certain point of view. What impressed me with Hyslop’s storytelling is that we start to unpick these facts. Charis shows themselves to be a person; Lya is not just a standard anonymous and helpless mother in a fairy tale and as we see kind neighbours and good knights may all make us need to be wary. Charis in particular has a tale of one village that shows us that this world is a crueller and more desperate place where people’s fear of the swamp may make them do horrible things where no justice will be found. It could easily have become just a bleak tale but at the centre of the tale is the family and the relationships between all the central characters which get explored and revealed in a really tender way despite all the strange weird exteriors to navigate.

This is a tale worth going in fairly without knowing too much and experiencing the wonders of the strange and best and worst of being human. Plenty of surprises and a tale that has heart made this a great read that really got my attention. Highly recommended!