I am sorry for the inconvenience but I don’t have the time to read this anymore and have lost interest in the concept. I believe that it would benefit your book more if I did not skim your book and write a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.

It was an interesting science fiction novel with great world building that kept me interested. Thank you for the early copy

It’s my first Kate Elliot book and I wanted to give this novella a try before I deep dive into her sci-fi series. But this one just wasn’t for me. The writing was very dry and boring, and the short length prevented me from forming any connections with the characters.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me access to the free advanced digital copy of this book.

Esther is a mother and grandmother. Her son has been kidnapped and she's headed to The Beyond - an alien landscape between worlds. Time and space react differently here. The Beyond would be difficult enough to traverse but Esther and her Hex (think 'traveling D&D party of wizards') have been banned from The Beyond the the ruling council, known as The Concilium.

But Esther hears the cries of her son, calling out for help, and she'll do anything, go anywhere, face off against anyone, to rescue him.

The Concilium isn't the only danger in The Beyond. Dragonlords and Darkness may defeat them before they can rescue Esther's son. Most troubling though is an old crime come back to haunt her - the reason she's been banned from the region in the first place.

This is about as average a scifi/fantasy read as you can get. I thought we might get a fast-paced, rollicking fantasy given its brevity (this book is under 200 pages) but I never felt as though I was involved. The characters were strangers to me through the entire book and the quest, while understandable (a mother who will do anything for her child) just wasn't exciting.

There's a lot of time spent world-building, which was moderately fun, though a 'world in between' is a pretty old scifi trope. The world building means that we get a lot of information dumped on us early (there isn't time to let it come to us slowly) which may be why the characters didn't mean much to me - I was too busy getting the low-down on the space instead of the people.

This did nothing to make me want to read any more adventures with Esther and her Hex nor any more from Kate Elliott, though I wouldn't turn such a book away if a friend gave one to me.

Looking for a good book? The Keeper's Six by Kate Elliott is a very average scifi/fantasy that uses common tropes and very unremarkable characters.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

This is a portal fantasy about a team that's been banned from going through the portal, but must travel one more time nevertheless. It's about a mother trying to save her son. It's about a leader who has a fractured team.

This book has dragons and in this book dragons hoard more than just gold. They hoard books, people, work, information. The interstice between worlds, which is where most of the story takes place, is utterly deadly. There's the unsurvivable Bright with its annihilating light, the Dark with its deadly predators, and the Gloom in-between that's relatively safe to travel.

Esther and her team (her Hex) each have a special power. Esther can emit light and there are other people who can Ghost, can open Gates, can use their Voice to make themselves understood by anyone.

I didn't rate the book higher because there wasn't a lot of suspense. Esther deals fearlessly and masterfully with a dragon. Her team never feels like it's really in danger. Esther spends as much time wondering if she's attracted to a new guy as anything else.

The world itself was very interesting but the story that took place in it wasn't so much.

Fun fantasy sci-fi novella full of humour and diverse characters. It's been a while since I'd read the companion novella 'Servant Mage' and I'm tempted to re-read it now I've read the very different 'The Keeper's Six' to compare and see if I've missed anything portal/dragon related...

(ARC provided by publisher via NetGalley)

I enjoyed this thoroughly. From the use of pronouns that differ across species to the mechanics of the world, it’s classic Kate Elliott and I am crossing my fingers that there are more books like this coming.

The world building in this was fantastic but I felt like the characters were lost to me. It was also too long? Which is weird to say about a novella. But it took me a bit to get into it. I am interested in checking out more from Kate Elliott though.

On the surface, this sounded fascinating, and the snippets of detail we get about the world in the opening were intriguing, but somehow it took me so long to get into it: it took me weeks to plod through the first half, which is fatal in such a short book. After that, I sped through it, and found the payoff quite satisfying -- which makes the setup even more frustrating, honestly.

Assessing it from this vantage point, what did I think? Well, Esther is the most clearly drawn character -- Esther, and Marianne, who is antagonistic toward her and whose motives we never fully understand. The world is fascinating, the way the Hex is formed and the roles they play, the dangers of the between-worlds that they need to traverse to reach other worlds. The worldbuilding felt like setup for a novel, but the characters didn't: I mostly remember the names of the characters, since I finished it yesterday, but I don't have real opinions on any of them except Esther and Marianne.

It feels like there was a lot of potential that just didn't work out for me. I'm curious to read Elliott's longer-form work to see if that gives the right payoff for that kind of detail: sometimes people just aren't good at working in miniature, and there was a lot here that did interest me.

[Review will be live May 15th.]

It took me so long to read this and it really is not the book's fault. Or maybe just a little? The world-building is very dense, but 100% enjoyable; the prose is that lovely solid fantasy that Elliott writes so consistently. If anything I wish it was longer, so we could get to know the other members of the Hex a bit more, because the whole concept is really interesting. I enjoyed all of it, anyway. Rounded up the rating because I liked Esther so much; she's competent, but will make mistakes/take risks to do what's right, she loves her family fiercely (wish we'd gotten to see more of them too), is a late middle-aged grandmother but still pretty horny tbh and that's always nice to see in any narrative. Hope Elliott revisits this setting.

I really enjoyed the story! It was a new and unique concept to me and I thought it was well executed. The characters were enjoyable and I appreciate that they are older characters, not all teenagers as so many books these days, I liked the world building and hope that the author continues more books in this world.

I really wanted to enjoy this novel because it seemed like it would feature a strong heroine. However, the novel was too long. It seemed to be very drawn out. I also did not care for the characters. They seemed very distant. However, the world-building seemed very original and complex. The writing had gorgeous prose. I recommend this for fans of science fiction!

Kate Elliott has her heroine Esther pursue her kidnapped son Daniel who has been taken by a dragon. Her magical traveling hex is tasked by this dragon to find and return Kai. However Kai is the beloved of her son and they have progeny on earth. Twisty plot and tricky landscapes. Great read.

I couldn’t get past the beginning set up, and never really fell into the story of this one. :( I felt the characters were too much and I want pulled into the drama.

I loved the way this was written -- the flow of prose, the worldbuilding implications, the general whiplash between the things that are so familiar and things that are so different. It was a really rich, decadent book to be reading, a real visceral pleasure. I truly was interested by the the characters and loved the weird magic-walking of the Keeper's Six/the Hex, with the interconnected realms.

That said, in terms of narrative, I often found things a bit too -- unestablished? Like, there were just enough details to indicate how much I wasn't able to see because the book was uninterested in showing it to me, and it made it hard to tell how much of the deduction of the central story was even possible, because all these mysteries were presented with the same level of partially-but-not-fully-there, so it was difficult to tell what was setting and what was incidental and what was central. This conflicted weirdly for me with the fact that every actual plot point hinged on people having not talked to each other and refusing to ask each other questions. In most cases, this was simply either "they didn't want to talk about themselves" or "they were too respectful to dig deeper", which are fine character traits, but it can still be a bit frustrating when you could have skipped from the beginning directly to the end had characters who were apparently super-close ever talked about things that seemed very relevant to their lives, and was resolved simply by someone else talking about it instead. Obviously, the path to reveal this information was key, it just felt like... it would have been nice if Kai had been more involved in that, since kho's own reluctance to reveal the information was why it had been hidden, I suppose.

A compelling read, though. 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4. Thank you to Tor for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This short fantasy book had some delightfully inventive ideas, but as with a lot of Kate Elliott's work, I feel like she needs more than a novella to really dig into the full depth of her worlds, so there was something lacking for me in terms of connection to the characters. That being said, it's wonderful to see an older woman, and a mother of grown-up children at that, as the lead in a very fantastical tale, and I loved how Esther's character really felt like that was part of her, rather than her being a young woman's character in an old-person suit. There was plenty of excitement and intriguing worldbuilding. I'll be interested to see if there are more linked novellas to continue this series - it could certainly sustain them!

Score: ⅘

Pros:
Bold, confident world-building;
A unique protagonist perspective uncommon in SFF books;
Cons:
Mid-point exposition dump;
Minimal development of side characters;
Antagonist’s motivation left frustratingly unclear.

I recently had the chance to read and advance copy of The Keeper’s Six, by Kate Elliott, and I can sum up my feelings about it very simply: LOVED this book. It’s extremely rare to see a SFF book that both possesses a world as intricate as this one and deploys it with the confidence of The Keeper’s Six. From the beginning, Kate Elliott moves directly into the meat of the story without hesitation and only deploys information about the world a nugget at a time, trusting the reader to use those to comprehend the world without wasting time on lengthy lore-dumps.

Further, and perhaps more importantly, The Keeper’s Six, boasts a unique and well realized perspective in its main character Esther. While many (or perhaps even most) SFF books focus on a character in early adulthood, The Keeper’s Six finds Esther late in life, a sixty year old mother with four treasured grandchildren and a storied career as a magical mercenary. This serves as more than just set dressing - Esther’s age and experience inform her character on a fundamental level, presenting a compelling picture of a hyper-confident professional who’s seen it all…and is still haunted by it.

As much as I loved Elliott’s work, it’s not without its flaws. At one point about half way through the book, the self-assured world-building that had served as a central strength of the book breaks down temporarily, leading to a section that largely amounts to exposition disguised as a conversation. While this segment is somewhat redeemed by the context it takes place in (one of the characters is new to the treacherous and deadly realm Esther and her team travel through) and the events that follow, it’s hard not to view it as a fault, particularly relative to the resounding lack of such moment prior to this one.

Also, because of the books laser-focus on Esther, many of the supporting characters are left unexplored, despite being extremely interesting in their own right. Perhaps this will change in the future, as the ending of The Keeper’s Six, while satisfying in itself, does leave the door open for expansion in the future. Finally, the motivation of the antagonist is left somewhat vague, making the resolution of the central mystery of the book slightly less than satisfying.

All that being said, The Keeper’s Six is an easy recommendation for a fan of the fantasy genre. Newcomers my find themselves somewhat frustrated by is lack of explanation, but genre fans who are willing to let the world unfold one tidbit at a time will find a fascinating world and the compelling story of a confident woman who will face down any threat to reunite her family.

In my other life as a reviewer, I frequently get to cover brand new books sent to me by publishers. When Tordotcom offered me an early look at Kate Elliott's saga of a mother whose adult child has been kidnapped by dragons, I jumped at the chance to read it. The novel is just as excellent as its hook. Esther, a prickly and headstrong woman with adult children (and young grandchildren), is magically alerted to the danger that her son Daniel has gotten into. In order to save him, she has to bring together her old realm-wandering team, her Hex, who were forced into retirement because of a decision that Esther made. The dynamic in the group is tricky for Esther to navigate; she wouldn't change her choices, but she doesn't like the consequences all of them have had to face. The world that Elliott creates in a very short word count is captivating, but it's really Esther who's the reason to keep reading. She's a fully fleshed out person, not defined by her motherhood, or her career, or even her faith, though all those aspects make her who she is. She's also faced with a budding attraction to a man she just met at a time she really doesn't want to think about romance. That Elliott brought in all those aspects makes Esther utterly relatable, and I'd love to sit down and have coffee with her sometime. This novel just came out in January 2023, so it's likely to still be on the "new" shelves at your local bookstore or library!

Elliott delivers a highly entertaining romp across the multiverse in The Keeper's Six.

Esther leads a Hex, whose combined magical talents allow them to cross space and time in the perilous Beyond.

As the story opens, she awakens to a call for help from her Keeper son Daniel, who's been kidnapped by a dragon lord. Of course, she sets out to rescue him.