Across the Sorrow Sea by Anthony Ryan is the latest book in the Seven Swords series of novellas, set to release September 30th, 2023. If you’re unfamiliar with the Seven Swords series, The main premise is the existence of seven cursed swords, each of which has a demon from Infernus (the demonic plane of this world) trapped inside and the nature of the enchantments binding the demons to the blades also curses whoever holds mentally linking them with the demon within, providing interesting unique powers, an immunity to aging (though still fully capable of being slain), and in inability to break contact with the weapon.

Beginning this novella, our main character Guyime and his compatriots possess 4 of the 7 swords, and believe if they can make it to the Shimmering Isle, a mobile island containing the workshop of Arkelion a long dead sorcerer responsible for the creation of the swords, bringing other demons into the world, and believed to be the one who created the enchantment making the shimmering isle so elusive. The hope is by finding this island, and Arkelion’s workshop they will be able to find the rest of the swords, a past companion who holds 1 of the 3 outstanding swords, and break the curse, freeing them of the connection to their swords’ demons.

The series as a whole feels a lot like a Dungeons and Dragons campaign to me (in a good way). There are aspects of Ryan’s writing style I’m not a fan of, it is a bit stiff in some places, and the two fights I was looking most forward to at the end felt very blasé. Well.., that’s not totally true, the start of their fight with the pirate king was badass, I just wish it kept that energy instead of almost instantly dropping the energy and ending the battle with a sudden straight from D&D, rogue first turn crit flooring the boss in one hit and ending combat just as fast as it started. Clocking in at 120 pages this novella like the other 4 before it are quick easy reads and if you struggle with reading longer books like I sometimes do or just need a few light reads, then I would recommend these books to you. I wish this was just a little longer, that another couple pages even were added to the end to button up this arc of the groups journey. Even being left wanting as I was I don’t think I can give this book any less than 7 stars, it wasn’t exceptional but it was compelling, and held my interest well enough that I read the whole thing in one long sitting.