Thank you Netgalley and Subterranean Press for access to this arc.

The place and time are unknown but given the Nahuatl names, the mention of canals in the city and surrounding marshlands plus sinking buildings, I wondered if this was supposed to be a magical mesoamerican Tenochtitlan. The sorcery and magic are dark and gritty and often involve the use of blood. As Yalxi remembers things from her past, we get a glimpse of how precarious her life was with a Master, to whom she and two friends apprenticed themselves, who could praise them one day and make them worry he would drain them dry of their blood the next.

Yalxi begins the story seeking revenge for being overthrown by her former lover but it’s soon obvious that she has done some things she regrets. Her relationship with her nahual is contentious as well. At times it helps her – but for a price of her blood.- while other times it brings forgotten memories to Yalxi that she’d rather not see. I loved this bit as it binds Yalxi and the nahual together more tightly yet also provides some backstory that isn’t delivered in an infodump.

The pace of the book is fairly fast with little space wasted. Despite the revenge plot, the focus is on Yalxi and the choices she made plus the one she is facing. The ending isn’t quite what I was expecting but given the bloody aspects all through the story, I was pleased with the resolutions of two relationships. Though it’s complete, I would read further adventures with Yalxi and her nahual which is the sign that I enjoyed my time in this world. B

Thank you NetGalley and Subterranean Press for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

TW: The usage of blood magic (involves cutting oneself and feeding blood), violence, death, murder, graphic depictions of wounds

This was my first time reading from Silvia Moreno-Garcia and it certainty won't be my last. The prose is quick paced and enticing, easily drawing the reader in as we meet Xalxi, and follow her on her path for revenge. The incorporation of Aztec mythology and lore, only added to the richness and depth of the society while providing a bit of context for the reader. My only complaint is that now I want more, like a full-length prologue novel detailing the studies and adventures of Xalxi, Xellah, and Itzyul.

Despite, the brevity of this novella it was well-rounded, provided political intrigue and mystery, as well as the complexities of Xalxi's mind. The nahual was a fun, and essentially pretty reasonable addition to the cast of characters and they managed to present truth or, at least perspective into the realities of this world. Moreno-Garcia managed to feed us us bits of information in a timely manner, preventing information overload and not revealing too much as to mangle the impact. This enabled precision in how we saw the story and viewed Xalxi and her decisions, allowing us to piece together the events and formulate new conclusions. As long as you go in understanding this is a quick novella, I feel like this will be an enjoyable and sinister read.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia once again crafts an engaging story, albeit a shorter one this time. While that does make it harder to rate and review as a result, I still found things I enjoyed. I liked the more culturally nuanced take on swords and sorcery, and Nalxi was interesting, because she’s an older (in her 30s) heroine, which you still don’t see a lot, even in adult fantasy.

Yalxi is the deposed Supreme Mistress of the Guild of Sorcerers, betrayed when her lover stole the diamond heart fueling her power, and her throne. Yalxi must regain her magic and find a weapon capable of destroying the usurper. To do that, she'll have to turn to unlikely allies and relive unpleasant memories. She once forged her path in blood, and it's time to deal with the consequences.

The Return of the Sorceress was an amazingly fast read for me. There is so much vivid description, from the colors of items to the way magic pulls at the sorcerers using it for spells. Magic is something that takes incredible willpower and often sigils, words, items, or blood. Often sorcerers have spirits called nahual helping them, and the strongest have apprentices helping them. Long ago Yalxi, her lover Xellah and their friend deposed Teotah, their abusive master sorcerer. Yalxi took over from Teotah, and was almost as bad a despot as he was when Xellah seized power from her. He isn't as bad as Teotah was, and Yalxi wants revenge. It's vividly felt, from the first page to the last, and her journey is a visceral one. Magic isn't a lofty ideal in this book, but a skill honed with practice and blood.

Yalxi isn't exactly a friendly or fun kind of character, and she knows exactly what she is. She's a survivor, and the wrongs she did in the past gradually haunt her. There are consequences, ones she's willing to pay, and I really enjoyed seeing her story through to the end.

This book taught me two things. I don’t think I am a fan of novellas and I don’t think I get along very well with Garcia’s writing. This is the second thing I have read from her. I love her concepts, but there’s something within her writing that I’m unable to connect with and get fully immersed.

Normally short stories or Novella's are hard for me to get into because you get such a small amount of time with the characters. However, Silvia Moreno-Garcia can write such a great story that I was not going huh? at the end of the story. This one follows Yalxi who was betrayed and deposed from her title as Supreme Mistress of the Guild of Sorcerers. Yalxi seeks revenge against her fellow Sorcerer and hopes to destroy the power source that their evil master had created. Even though we are just dumped into this world with no prior knowledge I understood pretty well how the magic worked and even on a small scale the politics of the world. I also had a pretty good idea of who the characters were and their motivations. I loved Yalxi and her companion, they had a great chemistry. This story just helps solidify my auto buys for all books by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Thank you Subterranean Press and Netgalley for my gifted copy for an honest review.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and Subterranean Press for allowing me a chance to read this short-story.

I love Silvia Moreno-Garcia's stories. I think she is a fantastic author and this story continues to cement my joy of reading one of her works. There is something fresh, powerful, and magical when reading what she has to offer and I hope she continues to give us stories for years to come.

The reason I do not rate this story up three stars is that it was short but for a short-story I felt things were not quite explained as well as I wanted them to be. I don't want to say I could infer on the relationship of certain characters, but I don't want to outright say that the text didn't lie when it came to the relationship of the evil High Sorcerer and our hero. I just feel that there was not enough focus on who they were currently that lead them to the position that they were in with one another. I felt their childhood history with one another but in the amount of time and the bits when we gleamed what caused her to turn her back on him, I just felt that it didn't really echo what the author wanted us to feel.

Also, with the story being as short as it is, and with what it does mention/bring up, you can almost write a world, an entire novel about our main character.

I just feel that I was left with more questions than answers than feeling like a story began, happened, and ended as it was supposed to. Other people may come away from this feeling different, but my feelings were just mixed regarding this story.

If she plans on making a full novel or a series, I think there is something there but I do think that more is needed to make me feel.

I really enjoyed this one. I wasn't sure at first, because the main character is so hard and bent on revenge, but she changes as she spends more time with the nahual in her ring. This is a very short novella, but an awful lot happens. A lot of plotting and blood and magic and self-discovery.f

In a way it's a study of Yaxli and how she evolves after being overthrown from her position as head of the sorcerers guild -- and more importantly, having the diamond that had belonged to her master taken from her.

I found myself completely immersed in Yaxli's story, rooting for her despite her initial standoffishness and seeming cruelty, and she definitely grew on me as the story progressed. I loved her bond with the nahual and the reminders of their shared past as she rediscovered it.

If you love Silvia Moreno-Garcia's works, definitely give this one a try.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Subterranean Press for providing an e-arc for review.

a novella just over 100 pages, I am astounded with what Silvia Moreno Garcia was able to pack in here. By the end, I had grown to love not only the fast paced plot but also the character's. (Especially Yalaxi's Nahual.) This truly packs the punch of a full length novel in just 104 pages.
This keeps you on the edge of your seat from the very first page. I was so into the story that I pretty much read the entirety of this in one sitting. The plot is very fast paced but also felt complete and I felt satisfied by the end.
Also, oh my god, the characters!! They were so well fleshed out and so tangible. I grew very much attached to the characters in this story and wanted nothing but the best for them. They felt so real!
Silvia truly is a fantastic writer. I don't know how she made a novella feel like a full length novel but she did. Color me thoroughly impressed! I am very much looking foreward to reading more by her in the future.

This was sent to me by Subterranean Press on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you so much for the E-arc!

This novella ruminates on the costs of the brutal path of ambition and the tainted fuel of rage and vengeance. Justice and decency stand as alternate, challenging routes. Until the bitter end, I wasn't sure where I would find our protagonist traveling from this crossroads.

We follow the once Master Sorceress Yalxi as she comes to terms with her own rise and fall from power. She seeks an end to the bitter struggles that began in her own apprenticeship and cost the lives of many, both friend and foe, along the way. With the help of a magical companion once cast aside, she draws on her wiles and survival instincts against an overwhelming force. One way or another, it all ends here.

This novella is short and to-the-point, but it still manages to cover past, present, and a hint of the future. It's a story with both unique approach and universal plot elements. Moreno-Garcia shows all that can be accomplished without becoming bogged down in detail. Everything about the novella is brutal and efficient, but it doesn't lack in beauty. The world-building is fascinating, relying on showing rather than telling. Descriptions are bare but revealing, and relationships ring true with sketched impressions rather than fully explored backstory. In short, it accomplishes a lot with few words and provided an enjoyable read with a morally grey protagonist at the helm.

This was a pleasant surprise. Told with Moreno-García's token frank style and little dashes of magic, THE RETURN OF THE SORCERESS gives us a clear standalone story of revenge in two acts: the memory of an apprenticeship to a vengeful and power hungry master, and then the betrayal of an equal and former lover when power becomes more desirable than peace and respect.

What makes this story really work, in my mind, is the careful balance of past and present. Yalxi is bitter and enraged but is forced to confront memories of the idealism from her youth - as well as all her wrong decisions. Though I wish there was a bit more from named side characters - especially in the memories. I also found Yalxi's abrupt change of heart at the end to be, well, abrupt.

The nitty-gritty: Blood magic, spirit guides and powerful magic infuse this short and lively tale.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s latest is a very short but well crafted novella about a sorceress who is seeking revenge on the sorcerer who stole her power. You’ll only need an hour or two to read this, but it’s well worth the time. The Return of the Sorceress is beautifully written, just like all of Moreno-Garcia’s books, and the short length means she doesn’t have a lot of time to waste. The result is a nicely paced, more traditional fantasy than we’ve seen from Moreno-Garcia in the past, but still brimming with the author’s trademark Latin American sensibility.

Yalxi is a trained sorceress who has fallen on bad times: her former friend Xellah betrayed her by taking her power—a magic-infused diamond—and now she’s on a mission to get it back. Injured and broken, Yalxi returns to the home she left years ago in order to secure a magical pearl ring. Hidden inside the ring is a nahual, a spirit who can change into various animal forms and who agrees to help Yalxi as long as she feeds it—her own blood and tears. With the help of her dead master, a sorcerer named Teotah, Yalxi plans to draw Xellah into a duel, kill him, and take back the diamond.

But the power of the diamond corrupts whoever wields it, and the nahual urges Yalxi to destroy it instead—nothing good will ever come of it. Yalxi yearns to have that power again, but as she knows from the past, the diamond’s power is dangerous and deadly. 

The story is surprisingly fast paced and starts as a quest for Xellah and the diamond, but soon morphs into a tense sequence of chase scenes, as Yalxi and the nahual try to avoid the members of the Sorcerer’s Guild and the dogs who are tracking them. This story is quite dark at times, and I loved the scenes at the lake where the spirit of Teotah lives. The entire story, in fact, has a wonderfully dark and blood-soaked atmosphere that works perfectly with Moreno-Garcia’s writing style, although that darkness is tempered by the addition of the nahual and its relationship with Yalxi.

I love shapeshifter stories, and Moreno-Garcia takes a bit of Mesoamerican mythology in the form of the nahual and infuses it into her story. I absolutely loved the nahual! It can take the form of any small animal, like a cat, dog or bird (or butterfly—the butterfly on the book cover is the nahual) and it acts as a spirit guide for Yalxi, warning her of danger and helping on the quest to take back the diamond. However, that help isn’t free, and Yalxi must pay the spirit back by feeding it her blood. But as a sorceress who deals in blood magic, Yalxi seems quite comfortable with this arrangement and happily cuts her fingertips for the creature, or in one case when the nahual takes the form of a snake, lets it bite her! I thought their relationship was very sweet, and it reminded me a lot of the bond between Lyra and Pantalaimon in The Golden Compass.

The story dips back into the past to fill in some of the blanks about what happened between Yalxi and Xellah, including why they decided to kill their teacher Teotah, which resulted in another tragic death. Yalxi clearly has some ghosts in her past that she’s dealing with in the present. She’s torn between her desire to get back her former power and status as Master Sorceress and the certainty that all her friends are right: the diamond should be destroyed. It was interesting to see her emotional journey: at first, she’s quite arrogant and angry about the loss of her power, but as the story progresses, she begins to regret her past actions and seems to want to make amends. 

The final showdown was thrilling, and I loved the heartwarming ending. The Return of the Sorceress is a novella that actually works as a novella—the story is self contained, and for me it was just the right length. (And I’d love my own nahual, although I’m not sure about the whole bloodletting thing!)

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.

Thanks to NetGalley & Subterranean Press for the early copy in exchange for an honest review.

I've only read Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic and loved it but I was disappointed by this one, only due to it's shortness. I think this has a lot of great potential but it's hard to care about half the characters if you're thrown into the third arc of an intense story. Really cool ideas but I really feel like they should've made this way longer!

Yalxi is the former Master Sorcerer, betrayed by her former lover Xellah who has stolen her place at the head of the Sorcerers' Guild and the diamond she used to amplify her power. She's wounded and running for her life, and has only the most tenuous of relationships with her allies, all of whom see her as a liability in her weakened, disempowered state. All she wants is to take down Xellah and, perhaps, to destroy the diamond that grants so much power to its user. If she can resist the temptation to reclaim all that power, that is.

I liked that the story began with Yalxi at the nadir of her power, surviving through sheer tenacity. This is the story of a woman surviving on little more than her own cleverness and extraordinary willpower in a cutthroat world where the use of magic has heavy physical costs. Moreno-Garcia's style here is spare, as she dispenses her world building and Yalxi's backstory in small drips and drabs that hint at how the world works. She only gives the reader just enough to go on. It's a style that I don't normally enjoy much, but it's a testament to the author's skill that I kept reading to the end.

I'm a fan of the author's work and I did enjoy this, but it's one of her weaker stories. The world building that was included was fascinating, but I would have enjoyed this more if Moreno-Garcia had shown readers more of it. This is written in a different style than her other works that I've read, a Mesoamerican take on old-school sword and sorcery. She pulls it off here, as she pulls off everything she writes in various subgenres, but readers expecting the lushness of Mexican Gothic or Gods of Jade and Shadow might be surprised when reading this novella.

I’m hovering somewhere around 3.5 to 4, so I’ll just go with four.

Right off the bat, considering this is a 100 page novella, Moreño Garcia wastes no time with immersive world building and a magical backstory featuring a flawed heroine trying to right mistakes of from her past.

I was immediately drawn to Yalxi as a character and the fact that she isn’t afraid to admit the mistakes of her past or apologize for them but instead seeks to correct them was refreshing.

I loved the unbalanced yet comical relationship between Yalxi and her shape shifting companion that is fueled by her blood.

My only hesitance with this is that the novella built up to the epic battle but wrapped up a little too neatly for me. I definitely wanted to see more consequences of these actions that had played out over a decade.

I’d love to see this world expanded upon and revisited.

This was a very quick, but exciting read. I was a little lost with the worldbuilding at times, but with a novella as short as this one, that's to be expected. I absolutely adored the dynamic between Yalxi and her nahual and their interactions felt very complex, like that of an old friend. The sorcery was done in a really interesting way, and the other side characters still seemed fleshed out, despite having only a few pages worth of time. The ending was my personal favorite part of the story and I thought it was done really well and really captured the vibe of the whole story. It was definitely a good read and I'm very excited to read Moreno-Garcia's other works.

Return of the Sorceress is a short novella (maybe novelette) by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, out this June from Subterranean Press. As I've loved practically everything by Moreno-Garcia, it was an easy choice for me to request this when it popped up on Netgalley, and I read and finished it the same day I got it. Moreno-Garcia's work, as I've detailed in various other posts on this blog, is always fascinating and has covered a number of different genres and subgenres, so I was excited again to see her take on what was billed as a take on the sword and sorcery genre.

And Return of the Sorceress is short but fun, and a solid take, featuring a Mesoamerican inspiration as its protagonist sorceress has to try to recover from betrayal and losing her power by recognizing what wrongs she did to get that power in the first place. It's not anything super special, but it's very enjoyable for its short length and worth a read.



Quick Plot Summary: Yalxi barely escaped with her life...and may not have even escaped with that. Once she rose to become the Supreme Mistress of the Guild of Sorcerers, armed with the magical power of her predecessor - a Diamond Heart....but now she was betrayed by her lover, robbed of the heart and her power, and is bleeding out of her life. Her only hope is to track down the pearl ring she wore as a mere apprentice, containing a Nahual that was once her companion, long set aside when she first claimed the Diamond Heart and power it possessed.

But though Yalxi has long put it out of her mind, the Nahual remembers the young woman she used to be....and as it accompanies Yalxi on her path to regain her magic, it will remind her of the consequences of her old actions....and the promises she once broke.

Thoughts: Return of the Sorceress is a short novella (again it's closer to novelette length) but it works really well at its story, showing Yalxi as she's forced by both necessity and the Nahual to confront her actions of her past as she attempts to gain her power back from the lover who stole it. And along the way, she's confronted with the same question: when you promised to be better than your notably evil predecessor, who you claim would come back due to your lover, but you weren't really...why should anyone believe you'll be different this time? For it's not just that Yalxi committed possibly monstrous acts to get her power (as other versions of this story might emphasize), but that Yalxi betrayed the promises of those who helped her get there - the fellow apprentice who wanted to destroy the diamond and who trusted her to be better, the lover who had ideas but relied upon Yalxi to enact them for his lack of internal strength, the people who were suffering under their old master and trusted her to make a better world.

And then there's the Nahual, her old companion, a magical creature who can take the forms of animals and grows upon her blood, who she abandoned previously once she came to power. The Nahual's reminding her of what she did, and its real feelings for Yalxi - feelings she can't understand are there at first - really makes this story work, and is an excellent side character. And so while the story reaches a conclusion that readers will expect fairly early, all these elements make it work really well, far better than it should. So yeah, recommended, even if it never does really do anything special, it makes this archetypical plot work really well.

The Return of the Sorceress is short but efficient, proving you don’t need massive tomes or several-book series to tell an absorbing magical tale of sword and sorcery. In just a scant 104 pages, Moreno-Garcia packs in so much story and character, grounding both in a world that feels real and rich despite, again, a slim number of pages in which to develop it. It’s a tiny little gem of a story, compact but elegantly written in Moreno-Garcia’s distinctive style, and a must-read for her fans.

Thank you to NetGalley and Subterranean Press for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review!

"At its most rudimentary form, however, magic is willpower and though she no longer had much magic left, inside of her there was still her colossal willpower."

A dark tale of blood magic, revenge, and redemption, The Return of the Sorceress is a feat. With vivid descriptions, Silvia Moreno-Garcia says a lot in just about 100 pages while keeping a fast and engaging pace.

"If you prodded and poked beneath this veneer of normality you could sense something rotten, but it took a little while to taste the foulness."

It's rare that I read a novella where I'm not left wanting for more, but the author has crafted an evocative tale that satisfies my worldbuilding desires and cut away that which is unnecessary for Yalxi's journey. It feels like a complete story, and I love that it feels as if we've been transported into the middle of an epic tale with endless backstory and more adventures beyond the novella's ending.

This is a must-read for fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia, she's nailed it again!

eARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley for my honest review. This has not affected my opinions of the book nor the content of my review. Quotations are from an unfinished proof and are subject to change upon final publication.

A short novella, The Return of the Sorceress still manages to enthrall and delight. Yalxi is the deposed head of the Guild of Sorcerers in a fantastical land inspired by Aztec history and mythology. When we meet her, she's licking her wounds after a terrible defeat by a former lover. We follow Yalxi as she seeks out old allies to build her revenge…

This was practically perfect in pacing and delivered some nice reveals. And how refreshing to see a tired, thirty-something year old heroine!