The Phoenix Keeper
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Set in a magical zoo teeming with mythical beasts from dragons and unicorns to kelpies and krakens, The Phoenix Keeper is a fierce joy of a cozy fantasy novel with a soul-restoring queer romance at its heart, for fans ofThe House in the Cerulean Sea and Legends and Lattes.
Aila has spent her entire life dreaming of saving phoenixes.
She pulled countless all-nighters at uni just to sneak a toe in the door of the breathtakingly competitive field of conservation, stumbling through failed romance and disastrous class presentations thanks to social anxiety, while also surviving a ferocious class rivalry with the (unbearably beautiful) insufferably hotshot Luciana.
Somehow, she actually did it: landed her dream job as head phoenix keeper at the world-renowned zoo that inspired her as a child, tasked with rescuing the critically endangered Silimalo phoenix from the brink of extinction.
There are just two or three (thousand) impossible problems.
1. She can't act sensibly around the charming dragon keeper, Connor.
2. Her plans to revive the phoenix programme are more precarious than ever, after a poacher attack at a neighbouring zoo.
3. Her best chance at success means teaming up with the star of the zoo, the universally adored griffin keeper, the hotshot showmaster of the most popular exhibit . . .
Yes, of course it's Luciana.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
MacLean's tepid debut, a cozy queer romantasy, follows Aila Macbhairan, head phoenix keeper at a zoo for mythical creatures. Her lifelong goal is to save her beloved Silimalo phoenixes from extinction, but the phoenix breeding program at her zoo has been dormant for a decade. Though Aila excels at magical animal science, she becomes overwhelmed with anxiety around other humans. Asking others for help is harder than fighting an archibird off of a shiny object. But after a phoenix is stolen from a nearby zoo, Aila musters her people skills and all the help she can get to prove that her dilapidated complex is up to the task of taking over their conservation program. It's a cute setup and the fantastical creatures are a delight, but the worldbuilding is disjointed, with extensive new information dropped in sporadically. The characters, meanwhile, are thin sketches, making it difficult to invest in their plight, and the eventual romantic subplot, while sweet, feels almost perfunctory. This is a rocky start.
