Echoing through the world of stone abbeys and iron-fisted warlords, the earth sings its relentless song.
Betrayed by his monastery brotherhood, Magnus is sent into a brutal desert on a mission intended to kill him — deliver an obscure relic to a ruthless warlord. The relic is a known forgery, but the desert is both real and unforgiving.
When the relic begins to speak to him, it promises Magnus happiness, inviting him into its strange magic. But its gifts are double-edged—sight to see the world's secret soul, the power of flight, and the terrifying burden of a healer.
From the corridors of a corrupt monastery to the sacred spring at the heart of a witch's garden and a home in the arms of a traveling musician, Magnus follows a rejected, wild magic which endures more powerfully than the world of human making.
An enchanting tale of nature, magic and love, The Relic treads a thin line between ecstasy and madness andasks, "How much courage does it take to truly belong in the world?"
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Kirkus Review
Kirkus Review
THE RELIC
by Lloyd A. Meeker ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 20, 2026
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/lloyd-meeker/the-relic-2/
A small, well-crafted treasure for cozy fantasy readers.
In Meeker’s fantasy novel, a gay neophyte sorcerer finds love, community, and justice under the aegis of a strange artifact.
Brother Magnus left sex work to enter a monastery, only to have the prior extort him for erotic favors. When the Prior tires of him, Magnus is sent on a perilous errand to deliver a holy relic to a fractious warlord, in the apparent hope that he won’t return. Small miracles along the way convince Magnus of the relic’s authenticity—or at least efficacy. When the unimpressed warlord has Magnus and the relic thrown from a tower and Magnus wakes up hours later, essentially unharmed, the monk errant considers himself freed from his obligations and hits the road. He meets a friendly witch, Zoya, who takes him in as a working lodger on her small but thriving farm (“This farm felt happy as well as peaceful, as though laughter hid in every bush, ready to play catch-me-if-you-can”). Unexpectedly, the relic works intense physical and spiritual transformations on Magnus, and when he wakes from a feverish sleep, he has two new complications to manage: He now has a degree of his own magical ability, and Zoya’s nephew Nuri, who helped nurse him, is extremely attractive. The men’s romance plays out against Magnus’ exploration of his emerging abilities and the increasingly tight noose the warlord and his stooges are drawing around the nearby market town. Magnus must determine how he can keep the people and places he loves safe without drawing attention to the quietly flourishing witchcraft on the farm.
Meeker’s novel is, cover to cover, a delight—cozy without being dull, deeply concerned with ethics without being moralistic: It’s the gay wizard romance readers didn’t know they needed. A particular strength is that some of the important conflicts emerge between characters who are sympathetic and trying to do good—not man vs. man, but witch and wizard vs. problem. The Spain-flavored fantasy world (the place names sound Spanish) is developed enough to feel real—readers only see what the characters do, and so become truly immersed in their world. A development late in the book, in which a key character transforms beyond easy recognition, functions as a loss in plot terms, forcing the others to reorient their lives in light of the change while avoiding the all-too-common bury-your-gays trope. (And it’s truly surprising: an incident that works perfectly in the context of the fantasy world will nonetheless completely blindside many readers despite fair warning given earlier about how magic can function here.) The little farm where the central characters live is nearly a character in its own right, giving the wandering men a place to really call home, and the descriptions of the food cooked and served there are especially rich. Evildoers reap what they have sown in a way that feels true to the moral universe the author constructs, and the characters don’t have to compromise themselves to give the readers some satisfying catharsis. Some readers may want a more action-forward approach to the story—while the narrative is far from uneventful, it still manages to feel leisurely—but others will savor the meditative pace, as slow and sure as growth and healing.
A small, well-crafted treasure for cozy fantasy readers.
Kirkus Indie, Kirkus Media LLC, 6001 W Parmer Lane Suite 370, Austin, TX 78757
indie@kirkusreviews.com