The next winter holiday book exchange was my choice, An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows (fantasy, 437 pages).

“When Saffron Coulter stumbles through a hole in reality, she finds herself trapped in Kena, a magical realm on the brink of civil war. There, her fate becomes intertwined with that of three very different women: Zech, the fast-thinking acolyte of a cunning, powerful exile; Viya, the spoiled, runaway consort of the empire-building ruler, Vex Leoden; and Gwen, an Earth-born worldwalker whose greatest regret is putting Leoden on the throne. Pursued by Leoden and aided by the Shavaktiin, a secretive order of storyellers and mystics, the rebels flee to Veksh, a neighboring matriarchy ruled by the fearsome Council of Queens. Saffron is out of her world and out of her depth, but the further she travels, the more she finds herself bound to her friends with ties of blood and magic.”

THIS IS NOT A SPOILER FREE REVIEW

This book was another I had to special order, as it was not available in the brick and mortar store closest to me, but I first read about it on a post about queer main characters. I’m very glad I ordered it and that it came in time for me to ship it to Pennsylvania for the holidays. The weather across the entire United States right now is so bitter and cold that it’s the exact perfect time to stay inside and read 🙂

The main perspective shifts between Saffron, the main character who follows Gwen through the portal, Gwen, a middle-aged woman who has been world-walking for most of her life, Zech, a young woman with special magic, and Viya, a very spoiled consort’s ruler. Multi-perspective books can often be jarring for me, but this was a very smooth read, which I definitely finished in one day / sitting 🙂

An Accident of Stars is a very realistic portal fantasy, which also starts out pretty violent and dark, which I definitely appreciate. The main character is the prime example of “wrong place / wrong time” in chapter four, where she gets caught up in a fanatic’s religious ceremony, resulting in the loss of two fingers from her left hand, and this happens after all her hair has been shaved off by that same fanatic. I think one of the really good storytelling aspects of this novel is how once Saffron is disabled, she’s never magically healed. She has to learn to adjust her life and her expectations to her new situation. There’s no way for her to go home, not until the portal-maker is healed and rested enough to send her back to Earth. Kenan society doesn’t have doctors or a type of magic that can do anything your normal, healing body can’t, so no regrowing limbs. Oh, and there’s also no anesthetics, so she just gets to deal with the pain.

I think it’s positive to show characters dealing with loss and having to work through both the pain and the psychological trauma of events outside their control. Though, there aren’t any behavioral health experts in Kena and Gwen and Saffron both have to work together to come up with a story which will make Saffron’s life easier once she does return home. Saffron and Gwen both know Saffron needs to go home but her main priority for going home is actually to take care of her family. She knows her parents and younger sister are probably worried sick about her and she knows that their worry is both something that will negatively impact the rest of their lives and also something they would never have closure on if she never returned.

Even as Saffron and Gwen work to get Saffron home, so many other things keep happening to prevent her from going home any sooner. They are forced to flee their stronghold in Kena into the Veksh far north; a culture vastly different than Kena where Zech pulls a “trust me” and Saffron winds up in a life-or-death trial for both of their lives. While Saffron is successful in her endeavor, this is another event causing physical and psychological trauma. They both wind up with massive facial and body scars and Saffron also gets a tattoo. So many things she’s going to have to explain and deal with when she returns home.

I’m not going to lie – the end of chapter 22 was really, really hard. While this isn’t a spoiler free review, there are some parts of stories best left revealed by those who read the book for the first time. Even though this book has established that absolute miracles aren’t a thing, I kept hoping there would be a magic way to fix what happened. Obviously, there wasn’t, but I still held out hope for something better.

Reality isn’t like that, though. It never is. Sometimes, things just suck. And all you can do is keep moving forward as best as you can.

Overall, I enjoyed this book very much, even though the end of chapter 22 was rough. I’m curious to see how Saffron deals with being back on Earth and I’m going to order the next book as soon as I travel back to civilization again. I think this is easily a high three or even a low four on my rating scale. I’m happy I bought a copy of it, I will definitely reread it again in the future, and I intend on buying the other book in this series and maybe other books by this author.

Meadows, Foz. An Accident of Stars. Angry Robot Books, 2022.