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Katharine E. Wibell reviews Akithar's Greatest Trick by Jason Dorough
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 bec...
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By J. G. GatesIn 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 bec...