The Burning Bandit by Lauren Louise Hazel

A sprawling and original adventure in a familiar magical paradigm, The Burning Bandit by Lauren Louise Hazel is a richly imagined work of high fantasy.

Sharing a bond borne from tragedy, Kai and Rayan are the outsider dynamos at the center of this novel, their entrancing destinies swirling around the other as the story unfolds. One is the heir to an empire, the other is a prisoner of war who climbs the ranks with the help of his innate powers of chi. When Earth and Heaven fall out of balance, power struggles threaten to tear the kingdom apart, and Rayan’s disappearance on an unknown mission only makes things worse. Kai is tasked by the Empress to find a rogue bandit terrorizing the realm, but what he discovers instead might set the whole kingdom ablaze.

Masterfully descriptive, the prose hooks readers by the end of the prologue, while the twists of the story probe questions of duty, integrity, family, and honor. The text needs one final proofread, as there are occasional missing words or tense slips, but the large-scale storytelling effort is clear, with the plot bounding along at an effortless clip.

Brilliantly creative and heartfelt, the storylines intersect and collide together dramatically, showing a true gift for draftsmanship, while the emotional exploration of paternal, fraternal, and non-traditional love makes this multilayered novel stand out from the majority of fantasy reads.

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