Post by: Helena Trooperman
Dated: 5th September 2025

Isbn: 978-1-945009-90-7
Title: Catalyst, book 1
Author: 🇨🇦 Brandon Crilly
Narrated by: n/a

 

***** A trope busting fantasy read – loved it!

I always enjoy uncovering secrets. This phenomenal debut novel by Crilly delivers an unravelling of mystery after mystery. Mavrin, Eyasu, and Deyeri haven’t communicated for years. New circumstances and a deep seeded trust from their earlier student years, reforges their friendship. The worldbuilding is superb. Like many of the best epic fantasy reads, strap-in for a high learning curve about a world driven by Aelda, the Aspects, and the Winds that govern society. All becomes increasingly clear, making this a fantastic and absorbing read.

The Blurb

Official Paperback Blurb

Old friends. Older secrets. The truth is hidden under the Aspects’ gaze.

Street magician Mavrin Leed doesn’t believe in what he can’t see or prove. His performances are mere tricks; the only true magic in Aelda comes from the benevolent, god-like Aspects circling it. As long as They keep the Lifesphere intact, he stays out of Their way.

Labelled a heretic, Eyasu Temergon is convinced that Aelda’s true history was hidden, even from the Aspects. He scours forgotten shadows for proof of the Raw, creatures of energy tied to the fracturing of his world. When their sudden emergence leads to destruction and chaos, Eyasu puts aside his estrangement with his old friend, and hopes Mavrin can do the same.

Ex-soldier Deyeri Renn has a mystery of her own: why are her city’s leaders so interested in the Raw? She spent too long fighting in the Winds to let a myth harm her city, and too many years alone to accept the life-worn man who bumbles back into her home, with no right to ask for her help.

As Deyeri, Mavrin, and Eyasu unpack the secrets that once drove them apart, every seal in their relationship means one more crack that could unravel Aelda’s very existence.

Catalyst is the stunning debut by Ottawa author Brandon Crilly, a fantasy tale of magic, friendship, and holding a broken world together.

My Alt Version of the Blurb

Mavrin’s a regular street magician getting on in years, who parted company with his best friends Eyasu and Deyeri, many years ago. But in his final appearance of the day, he calls for a young assistant to help with his last trick. The girl has bare feet and shabby clothes. Mavrin realizing the child has little to her name, allows her to keep one of his three lucky coins for helping him.

Real magic doesn’t exist as far as Mavrin’s concerned.

Eyasu finds him in his room shortly after the trick. A brusk encounter after so long. Mavrin shows him his remaining two lucky coins, which shift through the air above their box. Eyasu’s claims are unbelievable. Nonetheless, Mavrin agrees to establish the child is safe.

Has Mavrin put the child in danger?

Eyasu in his strange wood panelled armour, covered in runes fights the coins back into their box and seals it. Mavrin is terrified by his estranged friend’s insistence the set of coins make up a Raw. A mythical and fiercely dangerous energy creature, thought to be tied to the fracturing of their world long ago and forbidden to be mentioned. They go after the girl to find her older sister has been possessed by a strange energy she can’t control. Using some ancient words Eyasu and Mavrin manage to push back the energy, but it’s still within the young woman held at bay for now. That’s where Deyeri’s knowledge comes in, but she lives in a distant city.

Can Mavrin and Eyasu get to Deyeri in time to save the young woman, stop the Raw uniting with Mavrin’s other lucky coins, and prevent it breaking apart their world?

Get this story now and discover whether Mavrin, Eyasu, and Deyeri’s rekindled friendship is enough to save the world.

Book Review Time

The world building is wild and inventive. Not to be missed.

I personally love Mavrin as a character. He’s not the usual young person that evolves developing his mystery powers. Instead, he’s rejected all the myths, his friendships, and the idea of real magic. He performs sleight of hand magic tricks on the street, in taverns, aboard ships, wherever he can, mocking his younger-self and choosing to remain isolated from all he knew before.

The idea of three friends that have lost touch really resonates. We all have friends from our past that we’ve moved on from. These key relationships bonded me to this intriguing epic.

When he does, it’s worth it.

In some ways, Eyasu is the hero, but this character’s reverence for his old friend has the reader waiting and rooting Mavrin on. Will Mavrin turn the corner and except his younger-self’s brilliance?

Everything gets turned on it’s head, time after time. Adventure upon adventure as Mavrin and Eyasu reaffirm their friendship on their way to the only other person they trust. Seeing Deyeri again opens old wounds for Mavrin and for her alike.

If you like reunited friendships, hidden identity, cool magical reveals, eloquent world building, absorbing mysteries and oodles of secrets to unpack, this is a top read.

Book two: Cast Off is available now. I can’t wait to get my copy.

Brandon may write epic fantasy but he also writes Hope Punk (Optimistic future sci-fi to you and me.) Check out 🇨🇦 Brandon Crilly’s Website for more: https://brandoncrilly.com/

Buy: Rakuten Kobo   Amazon Paperback   Amazon Kindle

Until next time, keep calm and read on.

NEXT MONTH… Ed’s Pick (RHS) Get your coat on for another debut novel that’s rocket paced and based on a planet called Snow, brrrrrr.