FORMAT/INFO: A Forbidden Alchemy will be published on July 1st, 2025 by Saga Press. It is 480 pages long and available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: One simple test has the chance to change your life forever. In a matter of seconds, you discover if you are a magical Artisan or a non-magical Crafter. Nina and Patrick are just children when they undergo their test - and discover a secret that changes their lives forever. Over a decade later, the two are reunited as the country is embroiled in revolution. Nina is an Artisan trying to hide from both sides of the war, while Patrick is a leader of the Crafter revolution. After all these years, will their bond stand the strain of conflicting loyalties? Or will the sides of the war keep them apart?

A Forbidden Alchemy is a slow-burn fantasy romance that swept me off my feet. It takes its time to build up the dynamic between the two characters, first introducing you to them as children, when a formative event shaped their lives forever. When Nina and Patrick are reunited, you can feel the weight of history each carries. They’ve both done things to survive that they aren’t proud of. They're each living with the consequences of their choices that fateful day as children, and it has shaped them in very different ways.

It's the differences that keep the romance a slow dance between Nina and Patrick. Although they sparked a bond as children, they haven't seen each other in over a decade. Can they trust each other? Where do their respective loyalties lie? Would one of them put the other above their ties to any family or faction? While they figure out their hierarchy of trust and priorities, Nina and Patrick keep each other at arm's length. Watching those walls slowly crumble is what makes the eventual romance (and brief spice) worth it.

Supporting this romance is the moody and desolate world this story is set in. The bulk of the book takes place in an area that resembles a rural England mining town in the early twentieth century. It's the kind of town where the majority of men are involved in the dangerous work of mining, where people live in constant fear of hearing of a devastating tunnel collapse. The landscape is harsh and unforgiving, and full of windswept moors, the perfect backdrop to a romance fraught with tension.

While A Forbidden Alchemy is a fantasy story, it's a fairly low-magic one, largely due to the fact that it is primarily set in a non-magical Crafter town. The magical Artisans exhibit an affinity for manipulating some sort of element, metal, or other singular material. Nina, for instance, is an earth charmer (essentially an earth bender), while rapid communication throughout the country is facilitated by those who have an affinity for ink and can manipulate it across great distances. Their abilities are used infrequently enough that I sometimes found myself forgetting there was magic in this world, even though the clash between Artisans and Crafters drives the heart of the story.

But at the end of the day, the magic doesn't matter as much because the fight between Artisan and Crafter is really one of class warfare. The Crafters do the back-breaking work that keeps the nation functional, while the Artisans live in luxury, making occasionally useful things, but often things that are just pretty. It's the classic recipe for an uprising.

At the center of it all is Patrick, the heart of a workers' uprising. He's the cold leader of the town who will make the impossible choices so that life is better for the families that come after. He's brutal when he has to be and brooding most of the rest of the time, and yes, it's absolutely catnip for me.

Nina, on the other hand, is out for herself. Not in an actively malicious way, but in that passivity of "I don't want to rock the boat if it's going to mean bad things for me." To be fair, the more we see of her backstory as the narrative unfolds, the more we see how much she has lived in constant fear the last several years, despite being an Artisan. Gaining the confidence to work on behalf of others is as much about facing her own fears as it is about growing a conscience.

My only real flaw was the fact that I ended up having to yell at certain characters for naivete towards the end of the book. While I can see the plot reasons certain choices were made, I found myself banging my head against the wall as I foresaw the inevitable fallout from those decisions.

CONCLUSION: That said, A Forbidden Alchemy may be my first Stacey McEwan but it certainly won't be my last. I found myself completely hooked by the writing and was desperate to pick it up at every opportunity. Truly, my biggest gripe with the book? That it had THAT ENDING and now I have to wait many, many months to see where things pick up in the sequel. I'm ready for the next installment of inevitable drama and angst to be injected into my veins NOW.