Early Review – The Otherwhere Post by Emily J. Taylor (5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 416 pages
Publisher:‎ G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
Release Date: February 25, 2025
ASIN: B0D6645HXQ
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: eGalley for Review from NetGalley
Rating: 5/5 stars

“Seven years ago, Maeve Abenthy lost everything: her world, her father, even her name. Desperate to escape the stain of her father’s crimes, she lives under a fake name, never staying in one place long enough to put down roots.

Then she receives a mysterious letter with four impossible words: Your father was innocent.

To uncover the truth, she poses as an apprentice for the Otherwhere Post, where she’ll be trained in the art of scriptomancy—the dangerous magic that allows couriers to enchant letters and deliver them to other worlds. But looking into her father’s past draws more attention than she’d planned.

Her secretive, infuriatingly handsome mentor knows she’s lying about her identity, and time is running out to convince him to trust her. Worse, she begins to receive threatening letters, warning her to drop her investigation—or else. For Maeve to unravel the mystery of what happened seven years ago, she may have to forfeit her life.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got this on eGalley from NetGalley for review.

Thoughts: I really loved this. The writing is exquisite, the world-building is incredibly interesting, and the characters are well done and easy to engage with. There is a very well done mystery here and a unique sort of magic as well (in the form of scriptomancy).

This book follows Maeve, who lost everything when her father committed a crime so heinous he literally destroyed a world. Maeve is trying to do her best to make a living and stay under the radar. Then she gets a letter delivered that has been lost for years; the letter implies that her father was innocent. Maeve decides to infiltrate the scriptomancy college in an effort to both track down them mysterious letter sender and try to find information that will clear her father’s name.

As mentioned above, I really loved a lot about this book. It is beautifully written, with an amazing world and characters. The mystery is very well done, and I loved the unique magic throughout.

I really have only one small complaint about this story; our main heroine spends quite a bit of time blacking out, being rescued, and waking up in random places. She seemed pretty smart, but she made a lot of poor decisions. If she had trusted a bit more and planned a bit better, she would have been conscious for more of the story. This kind of niggled at me throughout the book, but I loved the world, characters, writing, and story so much that it wasn’t that big of a deal.

My Summary (5/5): Overall I really loved this book and everything about it. This makes me want to pick up Taylor’s other book “Hotel Magnifique” to read as well. The writing here was beautiful, the mystery engaging, the characters a delight, and the world so much fun. Definitely recommended!