The Midnight Land: Part One: The Flight

The Midnight Land: The Flight by E. P. Clark is an impressive debut novel in scope and talent. Part one in a fantasy series influenced heavily by Russia and its lore, The Midnight Land: The Flight follows the journey of Slava, the Empress’s younger sister. Gifted with clairvoyance and the ability to see into people hearts and reveal their true nature, she is both powerful and powerless. Suffocating under the Kremlin’s brew of toxic emotions when offered a chance to join an expedition off to map out the Midnight Lands to the far north she takes it and begins to grow into her own. Still, out in the wilderness, she will have more to contend with than just the cold.

I really enjoyed The Midnight Land: The Flight by E. P. Clark it’s an original, and ambitious fantasy, perfectly executed. It starts off slow, but not ploddingly so, and Clark does enough to grab your interest and hold it from the very first line. She sets it in a matriarchal culture, but does it in a way that really brings to light some of the embedded aspects of our own male-centric culture while peppering it with a range of strong and assertive female characters.

Slava herself is quieter, used to life in the Kremlin and living in the shadow of her sister, but she almost seems to go through a coming of age arc, as she gets stronger in her magic and more confident in herself. I often thought she was younger than she actually was until the story progressed further. A great story that part epic saga, part fairy tale and part fantasy, The Midnight Land: The Flight and one that I can’t wait to read more of.