The Reign of the Departed: Book 1 of the High and Faraway

This ambitious but flawed first installment in Keyes’s High and Faraway series veers into puzzling and convoluted territory without enough backstory to keep it anchored. After attempting suicide, Errol Greyson wakes to find himself trapped inside a wooden body, his human form lying comatose in the hospital. His spirit has been married to the automaton by Aster Kostyena, who’s compelled to restore her father’s cursed memory and needs Errol’s help to travel to the magical Kingdoms and find the water of health. Joined by a cast of mystical characters, Aster and Errol traverse the dangerous terrain, narrowly evading the Sheriff of the Marches and a number of his allies as he pursues them in hopes of settling his own debt. Romantic side plots inundate Errol’s story line; this contrasts bizarrely with repeated depictions of underage female characters being sexually assaulted, and with the introduction of a pedophilic antagonist. Keyes (Lord of Souls) often deliberately withholds vital information, but this tactic breeds more confusion than interest in reading further, and most readers will give up and drift away well before the end. (July)