Petition by Delilah Waan

SPFBO9

A 2023 SELF-PUBLISHED FANTASY BLOG-OFF (SPFBO9) SEMI-FINALIST! In the Dominion of Aleznuaweite, anyone can rise to the greatest heights—if they are willing to pay the price. Failure is a luxury Rahelu can’t afford. Her family sold everything, left their ancestral home, and became destitute foreigners for the sake of her resonance skills. Now she can manipulate emotional echoes to discern truth from lies, conjure the past, and even foretell the future. But an act of petty revenge by her rival destroys her chance at joining one of the great Houses. Desperate to prove her family’s sacrifices were not in vain, Rahelu calls upon the most dangerous magic of all—altering fortune. A slight twist of fate is enough to restore her way forward…with deadly consequences she never bargained for. The Houses make a pawn of her in their bitter struggle for control of the Dominion. A shadowy cult grows ever closer to completing an ancient ritual. And Rahelu discovers that fulfilling her oath to her family might come at the cost of her mother’s life.

New Adult • Fantasy/Epic and High • Fantasy/Sword and Sorcery • Diversity Representation/BIPOC • Diversity Representation/BIPOC/Own Voices • Diversity Representation/Own Voices

Content Warning: Abuse (emotional, physical, verbal), bodies/corpses, classism, death (including murder), mature language (including profanity), mental intrusion/emotional assault, self-harm (cutting), sex (masturbation), sexual assault (attempted), slavery, and violence (including blood/gore/sex). Full listing by chapter available here: https://www.delilahwaan.com/books/petition/#content

lamichi author

I felt very respresented by the protagonist's personal struggles as a fellow immigrant, the buddling romance was also quite nice. Did feel shoving the names of so many similar sounding noble houses out of nowhere to be very confusing, but the rest of the book is quite good.