Book Reviews
“is a grounded, realistic, and surprisingly dark book”
Legacy of the Brightwash
by Krystle Matar
About
Follow the law and you’ll stay safe. But what if the law is wrong?
Tashué’s faith in the law is beginning to crack.
Three years ago, he stood by when the Authority condemned Jason to the brutality of the Rift for non-compliance. When Tashué’s son refused to register as tainted, the laws had to be upheld. He’d never doubted his job as a Regulation Officer before, but three years of watching your son wither away can break down even the strongest convictions.
Then a dead girl washed up on the bank of the Brightwash, tattooed and mutilated. Where had she come from? Who would tattoo a child? Was it the same person who killed her?
Why was he the only one who cared?
Will Tashué be able to stand against everything he thought he believed in to get the answers he’s looking for?
My Thoughts
Legacy of the Brightwash is the debut novel by Krystle Matar, and it’s an excellent start to a richly detailed world.
Legacy of the Brightwash follows Tashué Blackwood, a former war hero, now an officer of the Authority. It is his duty to make sure the Tainted—people with powers beyond those of regular humans—are monitored. Those who register can live semi-normal lives, but even then many of their decisions will always be out of their control. They need to work in approved ways for the Dominion, stay under the supervision of Tashué and his colleagues, and may only marry and have children with approved people.
Yes, eugenics. It starts subtly enough, but it’s clear that that’s one of the Dominion’s main strategies for maintaining dominance. Find powerful Tainted, have them breed. If they’re registered, make sure they wed other powerful Tainted. If they’re not registered, or if they’re criminals, put them in the Breeding Program.
Tashué finds a mutilated corpse in the Brightwash, a major river in the city of Yaelsmuir. Her limbs are dismembered, she has tattoos, and no one knew who she was. That plot is the inciting incident of the book, but for much of the book it’s background noise.
Instead, Legacy of the Brightwash shows us the world. It’s a foul case, to be certain, but Tashué has other concerns as well. As a war hero and now an officer, there are discussions of him running for mayor for the city of Yaelsmuir. There’s his neighbour and one of the charges under his supervision, a Tainted whisperer (she takes other people’s pain) he’s falling for despite their power imbalance.
Legacy of the Brightwash starts with a thoughtful and grounded reason the lovers cannot be together. There’s no melodrama to the reason, no ‘star-crossed lovers’ vibe; it’s just a very realistic reason that two people who might have feelings shouldn’t be together. There really is a power imbalance between the two, which is a very valid reason, even if both are interested. Moreover, making the central romance one between two older people who are already single parents worked very well.
The other most important relationship in the book is between Tashué and his son. His son is in a special prison for Tainted who won’t register. For his son, it’s a matter of principle. He doesn’t feel tainted by his powers, and he won’t submit to the Authority, even as his father begs him.
Tashué knows what is best for his son, Jason—give up your principles so you can live. He knows that, and he can’t get through to Jason. Jason, meanwhile, respects his father less than anyone else, and not in an adolescent way. The scenes with Jason, two men on opposite sides of a prison, an officer and a criminal, a father and a son, a collaborator and a resistor, were the beating heart of the novel.
The characters are the highlight of Legacy of the Brightwash. The people in the story are almost all Tashué’s coworkers, or veterans from his war campaign, his family, or the tainted he’s supposed to supervise. They all have long, intricate, but very real relationships with one another.
When the plot does kick into gear, the tension comes not from battle sequences, but from those very human vulnerabilities being played against each other, and those human connections being used for support. The ending felt as if it was the only way this story could have ended.
Overall, Legacy of the Brightwash is a grounded, realistic, and surprisingly dark book, but it’s a book with a fundamentally moral lead that keeps the darkness from feeling gratuitous. I’d recommend it for fans of character-driven, low magic fantasy.
Check Out Some of Ryan’s Other Reviews
The Origin of Birds in the Footprints of Writing by Raymond St. Elmo Review by Ryan Howse
Review The Mold Farmer by Rick Claypool
Ryan Howse
I’m funnier without context.
Okay, you want context.
I’m a mid-30s nerd, married, with two kids. Also two cats–Cathulhu and Necronomicat.
I like, in no particular order, tabletop gaming, board games, arguing over books, ancient history and religion, and puns.
I’m unconundrum on reddit.
