Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite

In C.C.S. Jones’s Magic Rift, Lusa is believed to be the last mage in Aetherealm after the Mage Order has been destroyed. Izier has begun rebuilding, but strange weather starts spreading across the realm as crops fail beyond the capital. The imperial council sends Lusa toward the abandoned Mage Citadels, where she is expected to recover what remains of the order and prepare to restore it. Kaden Everwyn, the half-elf bounty hunter who has become her companion, is sent to Aeonia as Izier’s ambassador after signs appear that the land itself is changing. Their separate missions place them on opposite sides of Aetherealm as the disturbance reaches ancient magical sites. Lusa must learn what her unusual powers mean while Kaden searches for the source of the damage before the realm slips further out of balance.

C.C.S. Jones’s Magic Rift is an incredible fantasy adventure, and Jones has fleshed out Aetherealm through regional customs that give every location its own character. That comes through during Izier’s Lady Fira festival, where handmade lanterns drift along the palace stream carrying wishes toward the ocean. Lusa is fiercely compassionate, with an instinct to protect people that makes her easy to love. In Merravale, the isolated village she visits during her mission, Lusa quietly gives food to a hungry child. I love Kaden, whose stubborn curiosity suits his role as Izier’s half-elf ambassador. Weeks into his investigation, he searches bark-bound books inside Aeonia’s High Canopy archives. Still, it’s Jones’s near cinematic descriptions of landscapes that steal the scenes, from lanterns shimmering along Izier’s palace stream beneath towering spires, to Aeonia, where snow covers woven bridges between forest towers and the High Canopy rises from a living tree above the woodland. Wonderfully imaginative and bold, readers who enjoy mages caught inside a realm transformed by ancient power will adore this.