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House of Open Wounds
An engrossing, imaginative novel set around an experimental hospital unit, House of Open Wounds explores weighty questions about the scars upon those who heal others.
In a medical tent near the Palleseen battlefields, a dozen medics treat the gruesome casualties of a war waged by an aggressive nation that seeks “perfection in all things.” The medics—a diverse group that includes foreigners from conquered and allied nations—specialize in alchemy, necromancy, sympathetic healing, and other magical crafts. They are “up to their elbows in the injured, those that can be cut and wrapped and stitched and otherwise profitably put back together.”
The medical team reports to Prassel, a disciplined Palleseen commanding officer who is wont to savor a good cup of tea. Among them are Ollery, a gruff, brooding alchemist who leads the medical unit and must triage the wounded; Jack, a former Maric priest with a gift for healing and a rickety box that smells of “decaying leaf litter” in which he carries discarded gods; and Alv, fallen from the Divine City, who practices “sympathy healing” by absorbing others’ injuries into herself. Alv’s own balance is “husbanded…precariously against every sleight of fate.” Meanwhile, Masty, an orphan from Brachinta, grew up as a “familiar of the camp”; he strives to make himself useful.
As these and other medics salve the “bloody bustle,” they cope with prejudice, exhaustion, and pressure from the “tidiness of mind” of Palleseen inquirers, who prosecute infractions at an unrelenting rate. Their story focuses on the grueling and absurd challenges they face—as well as on their own complexities, which shine in the “protracted twilight before the dawn of global Perfection.”
House of Open Wounds is a gritty, powerful novel about the horrors of war and the sacrifices made by those who work to heal the injured.
Reviewed by
Kristen Rabe
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
