The West Passage by Jared Pechaček introduces a marvelously strange cast of characters struggling against outsized forces in a world both reminiscent of medieval Europe and unlike anything readers will recognize.
Pechaček's teenaged protagonists are Pell, an apprentice to the Mother of Grey, and Kew, apprentice to the Guardian. One has trained in stories, songs, history, and rituals for births and deaths, the other in protection from the Beast. They live in Grey House, one of the five towers in an enormous palace that can take days to cross. Upon the deaths of the Mother and the Guardian, both Pell and Kew are thrust into positions they aren't quite prepared for. Before the Beast rises again, for the first time in an era or more, they must each quest beyond Grey to save the world they know.
Kew departs first, striding fearfully with his books and little else down the West Passage. In just the early pages of his adventure, he meets a sort of trout-person and a creature with rabbit ears, battles with jackals, and rides in a lantern that moves to a whistle. Pell encounters apes and a crazed tutor, befriends a Butler Itinerant riding a hollowman, and collects an unlikely stowaway.
The effect is often disorienting but always fascinating, and despite extreme variations from the "real" world, questions about power structures and agency remain relevant. Pell and Kew have been brought up to uphold tradition, but to save the world, they must grapple with the possibility of change, and of choice. The West Passage is an absorbing tale of political intrigue, touching comings-of-age, and a mind-bending phantasmagoria. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia