The story begins when Lorena’s long-held secret is discovered by the Heir to the Crown, Alistair Wyrslaine, after he witnesses her using her abilities to deter the soldiers who have come to Felhollow to serve a sacrificial warrant on her fiancé’s father. However Lorena has remained under the radar, growing up in the Wallows where her mother toiled under poor working conditions that caused her eventual death, then later moving to a small town known as Felhollow, the better to keep her dangerous secret hidden from those in power-she is a dualwrought, meaning she is able to use both Noble and Vile magic. The former sacrifice from themselves to power their magic and the latter use sacrifices from others, leading to strict bindings put in place by the court and council to ensure they’re leashed and under control to perform only approved forms of magic.
Our protagonist Lorena lives in a post-apocalyptic world in which humans long ago threw over their immortal tyrants-the Noble and the Vile-by consuming them to take their magic which later led to the birth of the noblewrought and vilewrought, their descendants who are born with the ability to use magic through sacrifices to the fragments of the immortal spirit residing in them. In What We Devour, Linsey Miller highlights our modern class struggle which is represented here in a recognisable (if exaggerated) fashion through the ruling class literally serving up the lower class for ritual blood sacrifice. But fantasy novels can also turn the lens back onto our own society by reflecting popular beliefs or common social dynamics that have been transformed and replicated in this fictional world, whether it’s as subtle as the Christian themes presented in The Chronicles of Narnia or the more obvious political allegory of The Hunger Games.
Fantasy novels are a great form of escapism, transporting the reader to new worlds with greater possibilities and adventures than they’ll experience in everyday life.
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