It takes a really talented pair of authors to take a subject I am actively disinterested in and transform it into one of the most fun and compelling books of 2026. M.A. Carrick is a pair of authors (Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms) who wrote the incredible Rook & Rose series, which I am obsessed with. When I saw they had a new series, I couldn’t wait to check it out until I read the plot synopsis. You say The Eye of Leviathan is a Fantasy reimagining of the colonial Spanish Inquisition? A seabound fae homeland? A changeling swap story? While there is nothing wrong with any of these subjects, none really tickle my fancy. Yet, it turns out if you do impeccable character work, with excellent pacing, very grounded stakes, and a captivating mystery, then anything can be anyone’s fancy.
Expanding past my vague allusions, what actually is The Eye Of Leviathan? Set in an alternate Spanish Golden Age, we gaze out upon a vast and brutal colonial power that has begun to encroach on the islands of the Otherworld: a mysterious fae land filled with countless treasures. The Council of the Sea Beyond has risen to unrivaled power by exploiting the Otherworld’s most precious resources for their own gain, and with every island they anchor into place, their hold on the faelands grows. Estevan, a humble tree spirit, watches as the fae lands are eaten away island by island, wondering what they can do to stop the encroaching tide of iron. They find themself in a rare opportunity–a human friend has a child she needs to hide from her abusive father. They propose a swap: Estevan will take the place of the child and grow up among the humans. Taking the form of a young boy, he will seek to uncover their secrets and bring down the council from within. In exchange, the young girl will be whisked away to the gentlest parts of the faelands where she will grow up sheltered from her terrible father.
A faerie pact is struck and Estevan and the young girl swap places. They both soon realized that their exchange has granted them powerful boons: each is immune to wonders, magic, and weapons of the other’s land because of the swap. Can they use their newfound power to navigate unfamiliar lands and strange happenings and figure out a way to stop Spain from conquering the Otherlands once and for all?
Right before I picked this book up, I was telling a friend how I was tired of fantasy inquisitions. Yet, despite all of my whining, The Eye Of Leviathan won me over very quickly and held me in its loving grasp like a warm literary hug. The secret ingredient? There isn’t one. The M.A. Carrick duo are simply masters of putting in the hard work of building well-fleshed-out settings, extremely rich and detailed characters, and interesting conflicts. Every chapter feels well planned and well executed as they add layer after layer of excellence to the story until it hums.
For example, take the islands of The Otherland. Usually when I read books on the fae, the worldbuilding is all hand-waved away, and we just get to see some sort of sexy court with hot faeries fuckin and being tricky. The Otherland very rapidly establishes itself as a place of varied wonders and horrors as we get to see multiple islands with very different cultures, challenges, leadership structures, and magic. The result is a place that feels like it straddles the line of real and grounded, and ephemeral and mysterious–a dichotomy that plays directly into the themes of the book as Spain tries to kill the ephemeral and build up the real. The Eye of Leviathan is a book that is very comfortable with placing the familiar and the otherworldly right next to one another and making the two live in harmony.
Spain itself is a very interesting character in the book, taking on a larger-than-life colonial persona that is explored in great detail. There is much discussion about the friction between the mandate of the masses and the personal disagreements of the individuals who benefit from the faceless crimes of a world superpower. Many individuals disagree on what “Spain” actually is, with multiple groups with different ethos claiming the will of the people. We get to see the tensions between a government that is committing atrocities to continue amassing power, that is also actively losing control of the pieces that define what the government is and who runs it. The true villains of the story are explicitly the inquisition and the Council of the Sea Beyond, an entity whose identity is formed around going to a place and colonizing it because they fear what is different. There is a very powerful thematic exploration of baptism as a symbolic mechanism of embracing the fae or embracing the church, both with their own benefits and drawbacks that are well explored. However, the exploration of this theme is one of the coolest and most powerful of the book, and I would rather leave the surprises of that exploration for your read.
Speaking of characters, at a more micro level, both of our leads are just delightful. Estevan and the unnamed girl thrust into the fae have a powerful symmetry to them. Their challenges are very different, but the pressures that shape them and how they respond feel like mirrors made from different materials that still create perfect reflections. Both Estevan and the Girl are characters with nebulous direction. Estevan wants to essentially take down the government and metaphorically kill god, an overwhelming task that he has no leads on and starts as a literal baby. The Girl essentially wakes up in a magical faerie land with no context other than she’s extremely different from all the fae and sees her “home” being shot up with muskets by horrifying inquisitors from the other world. Yet, despite the overwhelmingly monumental tasks in front of them, both protagonists never feel excessively aimless or adrift. There is a centeredness to their wandering and exploration that gives the narrative a building momentum. The key throughline of all of these qualities in The Eye Of Leviathan is that I constantly felt like I got to have my cake and eat it too.
The Eye Of Leviathan is not a “me” kind of book, and I still think it was one of my top reads of 2026. It feels like the direct result of an incredible amount of hard, directed work that was built from a clear idea and theme. The execution is excellent, and the entire thing is the best take on the religious inquisition that I have read in a while. M.A. Carrick managed to breathe life back into subgenres I was sure I was done with.
Rating: The Eye Of Leviathan – 9.0/10
-Andrew
An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts on this book are my own.
