Kalyna the Soothsayer

Written by Elijah Kinch Spector

Narrated by Samara Naeymi

A plucky, sardonic con artist must "prophesize" her way out of peril—discovering along the way that power and politics are nothing more than stories sold as truth.

Kalyna's family has the Gift: the ability to see the future. For generations, they traveled the four kingdoms of the Tetrarchia selling their services as soothsayers.

Every child of their family is born with this Gift—everyone except Kalyna.

So far, Kalyna has used informants and trickery to falsify prophecies for coin, scrounging together a living for her deteriorating father and cruel grandmother.

But Kalyna's reputation for prophecy precedes her, and poverty turns to danger when she is pressed into service by the spymaster to Rotfelsen.

Kalyna is to use her "Gift" to uncover threats against Rotfelsen's king, her family held hostage to ensure her good behavior. But politics are devious; the king's enemies abound, and Kalyna's skills for investigation and deception are tested to the limit. Worse, the conspiracy she uncovers points to a larger threat, not only to Rotfelsen but to the Tetrarchia itself.

Kalyna is determined to protect her family and newfound friends, but as she is drawn deeper into palace intrigue, she can no longer tell if her manipulations are helping prevent the Tetrarchia's destruction—or if her lies will bring about its prophesized downfall.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781705097960

Reviews for Kalyna the Soothsayer

[mrkinch-254535 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Kalyna has become extremely adept at making lemonade because life handed her a truly terrible lemon and told her it's her fault. She's pretty amazing, and Eli writes her beautifully, handling a complex plot with perfect clarity. Fascinating world building, wonderfully queer. Read it!

[lunarsong · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Kalyna the Soothsayer is a long, meaty read full of political intrigue and dry humor, with a downright cunning strong female protagonist. Kalyna is a formidable main character with smarts and no magic in a fantasy world.THE PREMISE:Kalyna is a fake soothsayer descended from a long line of real soothsayers. The gift of seeing the future that runs in her family seems to have skipped her. With an ailing father and abusive grandmother to support, she took to faking soothsayer abilities using observation, deduction, paid informants, and the rarely coherent prophecies of her ailing father. At 27, she’s long since developed a seasoned con artist’s eye for reading people. Her family has always been nomadic because real or fake, seers tend to get run out of town (or worse) if they stick around too long. Apparently, she got a little too good at faking it and made a bit too good of a reputation for herself in travels. One day, she gets recruited (more like drafted or kidnapped) by the Prince to use her soothsaying to stop an assasination plot against the King. That is, the King of one of the four kingdoms that make up Kalyna’s bizarre Tetrarchic country. Kalyna’s supposed to do this before the next regular meeting of the four monarchs in about three months. Unfortunately, her father’s latest prophecy foretold the bloody destruction of their country in about three months too. This leaves Kalyna trying to figure out how she can escape the country with her family before it is destroyed or prevent said destruction. She also has to keep from being revealed as a fraud (which would probably get her executed). The court is full of factions, schemers, and different armies that most certainly do not work together. Pretty soon, Kalyna begins to wonder if it’s possible to save her country or even if she somehow triggers its destruction. THE MAIN CHARACTER:Kalyna is a rare strong female protagonist that’s truly cunning and clever without being immoral, sadistic, selfish, or unlikeable.She survives using her wits, guile, and trusty sickle. She’s crafty and clever and most definitely a liar. She may be a con woman, but she does it for the right reasons. She does it for the sake of her ailing father. She has a healthy sense of self-preservation and looks after her own first and foremost. And yet, she’s still empathetic. She thinks fast in a crisis. Sometimes she talks her way out of a fight. Sometimes she talks others into a fight. Sometimes she fights for her life. When she does, she fights dirty, not very skillfully, not too incompetently, and with everything she’s got. When she spins lies to talk people into or out of a fight in order to avert catastrophe, she does it with everything she’s got. Kalyna is cynical, pessimistic, and just a little bit petty in such a relatable and darkly funny way.“I formulated, and discarded, a hundred different ways to take Lenz hostage, or kill him, during the Ball. None were feasible, but all were satisfying to imagine.”Now that’s a reaction to being kidnapped and coerced that I can relate to.Kalyna’s got a trickster’s confidence and guile, the perceptive eyes of a conwoman, the loyalty of a loving daughter, the fighting spirit of a survivor, the fear of someone who wants to live, and the dry, black humor of a cynic who half expects to die. As a member of a nomadic family, Kalyna has ancestry all over the Tetrarchy and is seen as a foreigner everywhere. She has the empathy of an outsider and a traveler that has seen all walks of life. She’s been desperate and hungry enough of her life to empathize with those in desperate straights. She has the wisdom of someone that’s seen so much of the world, so many people, and paid attention. She’s smart and shrewd, but not always right. She sometimes misreads people or procrastinates. She makes some things worse while trying to protect herself and her father with clever lies. She struggles with her self worth after a lifetime of abuse from her grandmother, but saving an entire nation might just do wonders for self esteem (if she succeeds). She spends half the book not knowing a character’s name because it was far too late to ask. While her motives for being a con artist are good, she’s not immune to darker impulses: anger, jealousy, spite, the power trip of manipulating others’ with expert skill, etc. She’s not perfect and definitely grows as a person in this story.I want to see more characters like Kalyna! This story is told in first person and past tense from her POV. Since Kalyna is such an entertaining and cynical character, this book has a great, expressive narrative voice.“There was also a vine in the center that writhed as though it were trying to escape the palace: at least this vine understood me.”THE PLOT & WRITING:This book is perfect if you’re looking for a substantial read full of intricacies, details, fantastic would-building, intricate plots, and mysteries to ponder between sittings. And yet, it still manages to never be confusing, far-fetched, or predictable. If you’re looking for a quick read where you don’t need to think much, this probably isn’t a good choice.The complicated web of political plots and schemes gets quite convoluted, verging on satire. The story has an odd type of humor and a healthy dose of irony. For example, the Prince in the story goes to great efforts and scheming to stop the king from being assassinated just so he doesn’t have to become king himself and do all that tedious work that comes with the job. That’s an enormous amount of work to avoid work. The prince's specific schemes are both absolutely ridiculous and rather terrifying.There is fantastic worldbuilding and a richly complicated political landscape and intrigue that skirts the line between realism and parody of both humanity and society. It’s never too confusing. The book is set in Rotfelsen, one of four mostly independent Kingdoms that make up one greater Tetrarchic country. Rotfelsen alone has four separate armies, which all answer to a different part of the Rotfelsen government with a different agenda. Naturally, none of these armies get along or work together peacefully. Each of the four kingdoms fancy themselves the most advanced one and the only thing standing between the Tetrarchy and doom. All of this reflects human nature quite realistically. This is done in a hyperbolically ridiculous fashion that pokes fun at human nature.There’s a lot of brief bite-sized tangents that give you a sense of the political and cultural setting and are often amusing. These brief word-building tangents sometimes seem like weird digressions, but they’re never boring and usually turn out relevant to the plot. They occasionally slow down the pacing of the story, but only in the beginning of the book.There’s just a smidgeon of sapphic romance for Kalyna. Blink and you might miss it. In general, this book doesn’t have much romance at all. This book has LGBTQ+ rep with some bi and gay main characters (including the Kayna).The ending is fairly happy, but not a rose-colored glasses perfect fixall ending.This is an adult book with adult characters making adult decisions. Well, most of them are making adult decisions, I’m not so sure about the Prince. It’s still largely PG-13 though. It touches on serious issues, like xenophobia and homophobia.WARNINGS: Child abuse (physical and emotional), homophobia, xenophobia, violence, death, alcohol, kidnapping (but absolutely no stockholm syndrome type creepiness), blackmailI received a free digital advanced reader copy via NetGalley. I am writing this review completely honestly and voluntarily.