Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy.  I run this segment in conjunction with the Can’t-Wait Wednesday meme that is currently running at Wishful Endings. Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them. For this week I look at The Obsidian Tower, the first book in the exciting new upcoming series from Melissa Caruso, set in the same universe as her outstanding Swords and Fire series.

The Swords and Fire series was an amazing debut trilogy from Caruso that in my opinion featured some of the best fantasy novels of the past three years. The Swords and Fire series is set on the continent of Eruvia and follows the battles and adventures of mages and politicians from the two nations on the continent, the Serene Empire and Vaskandar, and features some cool storylines and inventive magical elements. Made up of three excellent novels, The Tethered Mage, The Defiant Heir and The Unbound Empire, this was a great series, and I previously awarded all three of these novels a full five-star rating.

As a result, I have been eagerly awaiting the next body of work from Caruso and was excited when I saw that The Obsidian Tower was announced for mid-2020, especially as it appears that it will be set in the same universe as the Swords and Fire series. The Obsidian Tower is the first book in a new series, The Gate of Secrets, and a plot synopsis and a fantastic book cover have already been released.

Goodreads Synopsis:

The mage-marked granddaughter of a ruler of Vaskandar, Ryx was destined for power and prestige at the top of Vaskandran society. But her magic is broken; all she can do is uncontrollably drain the life from everything she touches, and Vaskandar has no place for a mage with unusable powers.

Ryx flees, seeking a solution to her deadly magic. She falls in with a group of unlikely magical experts investigating the disturbance in Vaskandar—and Ryx realizes that her family is in danger and her domain is at stake. She and her new colleagues must return to the family stronghold to take control of the artifact that everyone wants to claim—before it destroys the world.

After reading this synopsis, there are quite a few things about The Obsidian Tower that I am looking forward to. Not only does it look like Caruso will continue to explore the awesome and creative world that she introduced in her previous body of work, but it looks like she will spend more time examining the intriguing magical nation of Vaskandar. The scenes set in harsh Vaskandar were some of the best parts of The Defiant Heir and The Unbound Empire, and I look forward to seeing it as the central location for this new series. It will also be cool to see it from the perspective of a character who has spent their life there, rather than an outsider from the Serene Empire, like the protagonists and point-of-view character from the original trilogy.

It will also be interesting to see where this book falls within the chronology of the first trilogy of books. I assume that it is going to be set at some point after the events of the Swords and Fire trilogy, and it will be cool to see if it features any of the characters from the original series and shows. I personally really hope that Caruso includes the enigmatic Crow Lord, a Vaskandran Witch Lord with his own agenda, who could appear even if this book is set in the past, as he and the other Witch Lord characters are near immortal.

I am very much looking forward to this new book from Caruso. Based upon how awesome her first series was, I am sure that The Obsidian Tower is going to be another incredible and enjoyable read. I am especially happy that she will continue to be exploring the world first introduced in the epic Swords and Fire series and I am exceedingly confident that this is going to another excellent novel.