The Bookish Mindset

Overview:

Title: The Killing Spell
Author: Shay Kauwe
Published: April 2026
Genre: Fantasy
Themes: Family, Heritage

One sentence summary: A first of it’s kind: Hawaiian inspired fantasy with a magic systemic focusing on the importance of language.

One sentence review: This was a lot of fun and fans of Babel will definitely enjoy this.

Review:

Kea has been smithing her whole life, despite never taking the exams, it’s in her blood. With Hawaiian not registered as an official smithing language anyway, she can’t see the point. 

But when a government official is killed off by an illegal killing spell, supposedly from her Homestead, she’s dragged into the middle of the investigation. And understandably, chaos ensues as she’s caught up in the mayhem of something much deeper.. 

So this was a lot of fun! 

The magic system was clever yet easy enough to follow along, think Babel in terms of the importance of language and the preference of colonial tongue. I loved learning about the Hawaiian language – it wasn’t over explained, just a note in the front about pronunciation and then I spent the rest of the book googling and translating words. 

I really appreciated the cleverly woven colonialism themes in this one too, much like Babel as well. I loved the Hawaiian heritage that shone through. There’s also lovely messages about inner strength, family and standing up for yourself which tie in really well. 

The pace was mid to fast and I found myself eager to pick it up every time I put it down. The romance element didn’t take over the plot which I really appreciated too, the perfect balance for me. 

The Killing Spell is released on 23/04, let me know if you pick up a copy!

If you’d like to get yourself a copy, you can support local bookshops and my work while doing so on Bookshop.org here or as an audiobook here.

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And don’t forget to check out my other blogs and reviews – you can find books with similar themes in the same folder link below, or click back onto blogs to see the whole offering.

Last updated 20/04/2026