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Reviewed by K T Bowes for Readers' Favorite
Darkness and Blight by Dap Dahlstrom recounts the troubled childhood of Leisil, a little girl isolated within her dystopian community. When Leisil is selected as an archer for the Resistance, fighting against the abominations of the Underworld, she steps into a predetermined fate. Destined to become a Shaman, she holds the key to success in the battle against the creatures unleashed through the separation of heaven, earth, and hell. With that responsibility comes great cost for Leisil, causing her to morph into the dangerous and bitter Lydarc and become host to a fearsome and uncontrollable spirit animal. When the man who broke her heart arrives at her tribal home, begging for her help to find the family he once rejected her for, her settled life is turned upside down once again, and all hope of finding peace seems irrevocably lost. Leisil must venture into the underworld to rescue a girl she doesn’t know on behalf of a man who abandoned her. Her greatest quest might be her last.
I enjoyed Darkness and Blight and its complexity. The thing I liked most is Dap Dahlstrom’s amazing, three-dimensional characters, beautifully crafted to display both their flaws and their strengths. Lydarc's personality evokes both sympathy and cringing within the same sentence, and I appreciated the skill used to invoke such a range of emotions. The narrative theme is that nothing is as it seems. There is little solid ground, in keeping with the time and space, which changes without warning. This high fantasy immersed me in its clever world-building, high-stakes battles, and a quest that at times seemed too great even for its capable protagonist. The plot is epic, with a pervading sense of hopelessness as the main characters tackle a vicious and insurmountable enemy. There are snippets of wisdom within the fabric of the story. My favorite quote is, ‘To attempt to see all paths is madness. To see only one is blindness. The shaman must be both mad and blind and yet walk the single correct line through chaos.’
