Alchemised, by SenLinYu

SenLinYu published easily the best book I read last year in Alchemised, with the story continuing to live on in my mind all these months later, begging for a second read.

Told in three parts it is possible to read this novel two ways. You can take the soft road by reading parts two, one and then three, a good choice for those who struggle with darker story lines. Or, like myself, you can dive in and read this novel in order of it's parts, allowing SenLinYu to shock you as intended.

From the blurb;

'Once a promising alchemist, Helena Marino is now a prisoner - of war and of her own mind. Her resistance friends and allies have been brutally murdered, her abilities suppressed, and the world she knew destroyed.

'In the aftermath of a long war, Paladia's new ruling class of corrupt guild families and depraved necromancers, whose vile, undead creatures helped bring about their victory, hold Helena captive.

'According to Resistance records, she was a healer of little importance within their ranks. But Helena has inexplicable memory loss of the months leading up to her capture, making her enemies wonder: is she truly as insignificant as she appears, or are her lost memories hiding some vital piece of the Resistance's final gambit?

'To uncover the memories buried deep within her mind, Helena is sent to the High Reeve, one of the most powerful and ruthless necromancers in this new world. Trapped on his crumbling estate, Helena's fight - to protect her lost history and to preserve the last remaining shreds of her former self - is just beginning.

'For her prison and captor have secrets of their own - secrets Helena must unearth, whatever the cost...'

Alchemised is a story of false profits. A warning about how history can be rewitten, how religion can be shaped into a weapon, how power can blind and bind in equal measure. Beyond it's dark enemies to lovers romance, one that starts off dark enough to make even the strongest of readers wither, the underlying message of Alchemised is to think for yourself, to question everything your told, to trust your own power. Written with deft skill SenLinYu keeps readers hooked from page one, expertly painting her world into exsistance and throughout part one demanding that readers do not look away from the horrors Helena faces, that they hold strong at her side, that they question to subtle holes weaved into the story we're being asked to believe.

Part two, the longest of the parts, is an eye-opening dive into the past, answering our questions, opening Helena's mind, and revealing that the reality of this story is both more tender and darker than we could have possibly imagined. When we are finally released into part three it is with a war cry that we go, and SenLinYu does not dissapoint as she ties up this story with love, action and bitter sweet change.

Having personally not read the original Manacled, Alchemised stood on it's own two feet for me as a reader, grasping me despite the fact that I had no prior feelings towards either the story or to SenLinYu as a writter. Fans of the original version may argue that the loss of previous names and history for these characters weakens some of the emotional weight to the characters arcs, however I believe that the characters SenLinYu has created are strong and well developed in their own right, and that their stories and struggles should not be understated for prefferance of the original fan-fiction version.

There is emotional rawness to Alchemised that may come as a suprise to many readers. This is a dark romance, but also a story of two people who do not feel they deserve love, consideration or care. It is a story for those who have been trodden on. For those who have spent their lives as foot-notes in other peoples stories. In another authors writting Helena would have been the side character the history books of this world made her out to be, a healer, a person of little consequence, as most of the action and plot is happening outwith her involvment or contorl. SenLinYu however recognises that that same story, that same plot, none of it could happen without Helena. That her story, a dark and lonley road, the story of a immigrant pulled into a war she should never have had to face, is much more meaningful than any tale of failed heroics.

While Alchemised may have been too rich in it's portrayal of inner pain, real world torture, and brutal reality of war as seen from the hospital wards, for many readers, for those who can handle the emotional weight of brutality the rewards of SenLinYu's writting are stark. A story you will carry with you for quite some time.

I give Alchemised Five Stars

First published in Great Britain by Penguine Michael Joseph 2025

ISBN - 978-0-241-71433-1 Hardback Cover Price - £25.00