Alchemised

De: SenLinYu

Narrado por: Saskia Maarleveld

In this riveting dark fantasy debut, a woman with missing memories fights to survive a war-torn world of necromancy and alchemy—and the man tasked with unearthing the deepest secrets of her past.

“What is it you think you’re protecting in that brain of yours? The war is over. Holdfast is dead. The Eternal Flame extinguished. There’s no one left for you to save.”

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, holds 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.

©2025 SenLinYu (P)2025 Random House Audio

So good!

Such an amazing read. No need to read anything prior. I just wish it was narrated Duet.

Epic story - modern classic

Breathtaking story, writing, and narration. Cannot recommend this highly enough to any fan of fantasy. Themes are dark and heartbreaking. Take a grain of salt with some of the depictions online - this is not a romantasy. It will leave you wrecked, in the best way.

This is my Roman Empire.

This is my Roman Empire. Senlinyu give us a masterclass in writing morally grey characters. Beautifully written. Masterfully crafted. Performed flawlessly. Emotionally resonant. A true work of art. The characters and story will stick with you forever. 5 stars. Highly recommend.

Epic dark gothic fantasy with toxic enemies-to-lovers and phenomenal world building

This is a must read, keep you on your toes, keep you up late at night and have you in tears. It’s a well crafted and thoughtfully written story. I did a quick reread of Manacled before this release. I love Manacled but this was equally epic. The world building is phenomenal. The necromancers, vivimancers, animancers, necrothralls, the magic systems, alchemical array…. It’s all new, intricately complex and intriguing. I love that SenLinYu maintained the toxic enemies-to-lovers (ETL) romance. It’s not simply ETL, but the main characters do bad, unspeakable things for the other. Helena Marino and Kaine Ferron are two morally grey/black characters. There is goodness in them but faced with the atrocities of war, they do what they must to survive. This is a standalone dark gothic romantic fantasy, see the authors note for triggers.

The relationship with the side characters is the weakest part of this story. It needs more depth but I can let that slide for the epic love story. The difference between this work and Manacled is it’s missing 7 years of emotional connection and motivational drive. Helena’s commitment to the “good” side and its people is blind and stupid. But it does fuel the longing, angst and “choose me” feelings between Helena and Kaine.

As part of the rewrite of Manacled, I feel there is an amalgamation of several distinct HP characters into new characters. This made Jan Crowther and Matron Pace both bad characters who often says contradictory things. I would have preferred a one for one replacement for the five characters these two represents (Crowther = Alistor Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Severus Snape; Pace = Poppy Pomfrey and Minerva McGonagall). There is a Snape substitute, Shiseo, but he doesn’t have the role of role model and father figure. Helena lacks any parental figures in this book to tie her to the “good” side. It seems her loyalty is solely for her relationship with Luc but we don’t get to see that. It’s all assumed that they were super close friends and he is the first real friend Helena ever made.

Anyhow, I still loved this story and highly recommend everyone read it. Immersive reading is ideal as there is a lot of details you can miss from simply listening. That said, I enjoyed the audiobook. Saskia Maarleveld did a very good job narrating. She employs unique voices for each character. Her pacing is even so it works well at whatever speed you want to set the audiobook to. I was listening at 1.5-1.7x.

TROPES/ THEMES: prisoner of war, necromancy, Stockholm Syndrome, double agent, Noncon, dubcon, SA, possessive MMC, metal work/transmutation, healer, good vs evil, morally gray, sacrifice for the greater good, unreliable narrator, noncon for MMC and MFC, magic, necromancy, experimentation

You look tired. The enemies didn’t become lovers until 2 am, Steve.

I didn’t think it would surpass Manacled. I was wrong. Absolutely worth it. Really nice blend of the story line we loved, threshed out inside a whole new universe.

Absolutely amazing

I'm just as destroyed emotionally as with Manacled. I can't wait for more books from her

Dislike the narrator

Story is a 5 out of 5. Loved it. Narrator not so much. The narrator practically whispers until a character speaks. Then she uses her whole voice, which is considerably louder. The changes in volume were driving me crazy. She also pauses for an unusually long time between sentences, which ruined the pacing of the book for me. I had to go buy a hard copy and finish reading it that way. Was really disappointing because I’ve been anticipating this audiobook for so long!

Perfectly Narrated

Saskia was the perfect choice to narrate this. My expectation for the narrator was high and Saskia did not disappoint.

No Words Through The Sobs!

I have no words. Actually, I do. Don't like the size of Alchemised or the threat of emotional wreckage stop you from reading!

I did read Manacled in 2022, and I never forgot that book. That being said, I will never forget Alchemised. The author successfully removed all HP from the plot. All of the best parts - the emotions, the angst, the characters - they were still there. The story was told present, past, present as she did in Manacled. Helena is a healer. Kaine is the High Reeve, and Helena is his prisoner. She couldn't remember the past but Kaine knew, and he had to impregnate her. He was controlled to do evil things, but Kaine would not stop protecting her. There were some changes to events and plot points, but it added to Alchemised and helped it stand on its own. I loved how she wrote Kaine and Helena. There were parts that made me sob, especially that ending!

Now I'm going to eat some chocolate a cry some more.

My Rating: All of the Stars

The Audiobook = Chef’s Kiss 🤌

While I haven’t finished the book yet, I wanted to shout to the world that I’m so glad that the audiobook released at the same time as the physical copy! (And it’s amazing quality! 😭🙏) I sometimes struggle to sit down and read, but I’m able to take audiobooks with me around the house or on my long walks. Thank you for considering the accessibility of this book for people who can’t stay focused long enough to visually read the entire thing. Even though it didn’t come with the new book smell 🤣, this audiobook is tremendous and I’d recommend it to anyone who is okay with the dark content it contains.

No, you do NOT need to read the popular wizard series to understand this book. I promise. 😤