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Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite
In Ren Lexander’s Initiation, Brandi Jones awakens in a New York psychiatric hospital, trapped inside a body that will not respond after police find her holding a razor beside two dead men. Her last memory belongs to Los Angeles several weeks earlier, where she worked at Ciao Bella Café while caring for her younger brother Martin. As sensation returns, Brandi begins writing in her sleep through the voice of Pipek, a mysterious stranger who entered the café claiming he could smell human souls. His account leads her through demons hiding inside America as each recovered memory restores another part of her body. Brandi cannot tell what is real, though the police are preparing a murder case around the scene where she was found. She must reach the missing night and discover whether Pipek can prove her innocence.
Ren Lexander’s Initiation follows Brandi through a mystery that makes her mind the only route back to the truth. As a Black woman, Brandi gives this story a recognizably Black perspective throughout, and as a reader who is also a person of color, this is an incredible asset. Lexander has Brandi appear through the people in the psychiatric ward. Nathan is a distressed patient who repeats phrases, so Brandi holds his hand until he speaks quietly, then removes it whenever the repetition returns. The exchange shows how naturally she recognizes what will reach him. Brandi is a brilliant lead, and there's so much to her. Lexander has her so well fleshed out that we see her intelligence remaining present even when speech is unavailable. When Dr Maas argues for eugenics, she answers his certainty by writing “Blessed are the meek” on her board. With striking imagination, Initiation is a superb recommendation for readers drawn to contemporary speculative fiction and psychological mystery.
