Hope & Fire

The Anchor Trilogy: An Usil Solar System Series, Book 1

By: L. J. Black

Narrated by: Daphne Rivers

The old writer witch was dead. Nadia Oswald watched him die. She held his hand until the light left his eyes. She was a human, but in that moment as he passed from life to death, she inherited his power. A power she hides from her family who hates magic and all who possess it.

Aidan Montgomery was born a witch. He was born with the rarest form of witchcraft, a fact he keeps hidden to protect himself. As an anchor witch he couldn’t feel more disconnected from his abilities if he tried. His power feels opposite to who he is. How can he anchor the world if he can’t even anchor himself?

Unrest in the south ends their world’s centuries of peace. In the north, a group of scientists builds a spaceship, the first their world has seen, keen on visiting the neighboring planet and the species there. So much threatens to tear things apart or change them for good. But fate has a funny way of making people come together. And destiny has a way of changing everything. . . .

©2023 L. J. Black (P)2025 L. J. Black

I love the worlds this author creates. 

I always find the characters by LJ Black to be likable – characters that I want to see succeed. I also like the way that Black brings together science and magic, creating a reliable universe within which the characters live.

As with the previous book that I listened to, I wished for just a little bit more foundation on which some of the challenges within the plot were based. That said, because I listened to this book rather than reading it, and kept getting interrupted, that could entirely be “operator error!” 😆

During the introduction, I was worried that I wasn’t going to get into the sound of the narrator, but either my ear became attuned to her cadence, or she relaxed into the narration, such that I found her interpretation to be very enjoyable.