BALAM, SPRING
Fantasy/Slice-of-Life/Mystery/Drama
Paperback/eBook/Audiobook
422pp
Illustration by Amir Zand
Balam is a sleepy town on the eastern coast of Atlua, surrounded by forest and sea. It's a village where nothing happens and everybody knows each other. But now, people are dying.
School is out for the spring, and schoolteacher Theodore Saen is ready to spend the next few months relaxing with his family. But when the town's resident white mage falls ill and several townspeople begin to show similar symptoms, they must call on a new mage. Aava has freshly graduated from the nearby mage academy when she is swiftly hired to deduce the cause of the unknown illness and craft a cure before the entire town is afflicted. Aiding her is an ex-mercenary named Ryckert who keeps to himself but has grown bored with retirement and is itching for a new investigation when a suspicious young man appears in the local pub the same night the sickness begins to spread.
On top of it all, whatever is causing the sickness seems to be attracting strange insectoid creatures from the surrounding woods, desecrating the bodies of the victims and tearing through anyone unlucky enough to cross their path. Theo, Aava, and Ryckert must come together to discover the cause of the illness and put a stop to it before there is nobody left alive in Balam.
Praise for Balam, Spring
"When I started reading Balam, Spring and found this beautiful, welcoming small town with quirky characters and a sense of normalcy, I was elated. (If you think I'm exaggerating, you should have seen me running around gushing about how perfect this book was to everyone). Balam, Spring is a book that you can just sit down and lose yourself in because not only is it a lovely small town setting, it also has an intriguing plot line to keep you hooked." - Forever Lost in Literature
"Balam, Spring is a genuinely unique whodunnit tale that is part mystery, part slice of life, filled with a suspense that refuses to release its claws. Right when you think you're coming upon a reveal, Riddle throws in another twist that leaves you back at square one with more questions than before. ... The world building in here is just absolutely beautiful. The descriptions were so vivid, I felt like I could close my eyes and upon opening them, I'd be resting under Balam's massive yunesca tree on an picturesque spring morning framed with the calming sounds of waterfalls." - Goodreads Review
"I hope we get more of this. We need more of this. Fantasy isn’t just magic, battles et al. It’s about the newness of things. About the strange things you’ll never get to see, to feel. To taste and to read. But that you can discover through a medium. And that’s why this is very much worth a read." - Goodreads Review