I really loved Olivia Atwater’s The Witchwood Knot, so I was willing to try this even though the premise is a bit outside my general area of interest.

This feels more like SciFi than Fantasy, which was a bit disappointing, though it does incorporate some solidly crafted fantasy elements. I didn’t love the setting, which is a must for me in successful Fantasy novels, and this had a bit too much of a tech-y feel to it despite not actually using a lot of real technology.

The humor is decent if a bit sparse, and I wish we got more backstory on the central characters, because they felt a little thin. There’s a lot of action or action-driven plot here, which is fine though not to my taste in a book like this. I also thought this was overlong, and probably needed to he edited down a bit, especially in all the extraneous dialogue that doesn’t really add much to the story and didn’t need to be there.

That said, it’s a fun ride, and will likely work well for an audience that likes this kind of world building and setting more than I do.

This book is a chaotic, swashbuckling blast from start to finish. Set in a world of ghosts, goblins, and crumbling empires, it’s a fast-paced steampunk adventure that never takes itself too seriously—but still delivers emotional punch where it counts. The characters are bold, quirky, and unforgettable, especially the goblin airship captain, who steals every scene.

You can feel the author’s passion on every page—this is storytelling done with soul and flair. If you enjoy irreverent fantasy with rich worldbuilding, witty banter, and a hint of chaos, Echoes of the Imperium will keep you hooked.

"I was too young and selfish to mourn Pelaeia—a city I barely knew, full of people I'd considered enemies. In that moment, I mourned the death of the image I had crafted of myself: a brave and righteous soul, labouring under the unfair yoke of the world's prejudices. I cried because I was not a noble soul, but a thoughtless child soldier, idolising butchers in my dreams. I cried because I had to bury my heroes upon the slopes of Palaeia."

Plot: ★★★★
Characters: ★★★★★

I would read literally anything that had Olivia Atwater's name attached to it, even books written by her husband where I am most certainly not the targeted audience. And I'll have a great time doing it.

This is a great book. In the afterword, Nicholas Atwater admits that he and his wife, Olivia, began brainstorming Echoes of the Imperium by flipping typical book stereotypes upside down. This is a great way to describe the novel. Take everything you would expect from a fantasy novel, and turn it on its head. And, somehow, it works, while providing heartfelt and meaningful messages about found family, second chances, and imperial oppression.

My only drawback is that there were moments when I wondered where the plot was going. We eventually got there, though, and I felt satisfied towards the end and ready to pick up the next book. Also, the spelling of Aesir's accent kills me.

I highly recommend this novel if you are a fan of Olivia Atwater's writing, goblins, steampunk fantasy, or are just tired of the typical fantasy novel. I think this book would be a great hit with the D&D folks.

Thank you, Nicholas Atwater, Olivia Atwater, Starwatch Press, and NetGalley, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. 4/5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Nicholas Atwater, Olivia Atwater, and Starwatch Press for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I'm a fan of Olivia Atwater's works. The summary of this book was intriguing, but I felt like the pacing moved a bit too slowly. It could be because it is the first book in a new series. I couldn't get into this one. I can see why others are enjoying it. It wasn't for me. I don't plan on continuing this series at this time.

This would make for an excellent turn-based video game. There are loads of characters, majestic flying ships, a powerful magic system, and back-to-back battles.

As for a fantasy novel, I had a really difficult time staying engaged after the halfway mark. Once the battles never died down and all of the character development hinged on fighting I lost interest quickly. The plot was weakened by this because it made the characters feel superficial and one-note. I did appreciate the world building, and the political landscape contributed to the story quite a bit. The scenes did drag on though, which is odd considering how action packed this book is.

I was hoping for more of a connection between some of the characters like in Olivia’s books, so I’m sure that was one of my main letdowns when reading this book. Olivia is one of my favorite authors, so I’ll just stick with her solo works from now on. Nicholas is a great writer, but he’s just not for me.

This book hooked me right from the start, which was really surprising since pirate stories aren’t really my cup of tea. The way the prologue throws you unapologetically into the action while it gives you details about the world was really compelling and I thought I’d love the pacing.

But, unfortunately, I was wrong.

I’ll start with the fact that when Olivia Atwater was involved in this, I thought we’d have more character development and plot, and while I think pirate stories need amazing sea battles and explosions, when that’s all that it is, it becomes old very fast.

This book misses quiet moments. While fast-action is good, when those are the only moments we have to see the characters interacting, it gives you a hard time emotionally connecting to them, since they’re only being treated like tools for the events. More than once I had to squint at myself to try and remember who that one character was since they just became names and not faces in my head.

The lack of plot was also frustrating. I know some stories are there just for the sake of adventure but if this is the case, I couldn’t find a care in the world about what these people were doing and because of that, the adventure itself wasn’t interesting to me as well. I noticed things were bad when I’m usually excited for the moment when the FMC would show up and even when she did I was already bored out of my mind.

However, I need to add that the diversity with race and languages was really nice and I know the reason I don’t hate this book it’s mainly because of that. We can see the effort with worldbuilding leaking through the writing and I can tell that this book must’ve been really hard to outline, so I hope one day I can read something of this author that isn’t about pirates. I’m sure I’ll love it.

To summarize, I can see people who like action-packed stories and pirates loving this book and I know the main reason I didn’t enjoy the reading it’s simply because I’m not its target audience.

Good luck to the author, I’m sure this will be a blast amongst the pirate lover folks.

Thank you NetGalley, Olivia Atwater, and Nicholas Atwater for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I thought this was a delightful romp and really scratched an itch for me—pirate fantasy!!! One that I gelled really well with!!! Yay!!! I love the Atwaters’ character work and I think they built action nicely throughout the story. Also, I love steampunk, and I felt this delivered really well. This is funny and easy to read, and while I haven’t read the novella set in this world yet, I’m definitely eager to pick it up. I appreciated how real the characters felt and the general high octane nature of the story, and I will definitely re-read this when I’m looking for a fun pirate story.

So at first I was putting off this book because I had to wait forEVER for my library hold on the prequel to come in. (It was really fun, I'm glad I waited)

But now I'm in a pickle.

See, the first book in this series really reminded me of Firefly if it was fully remixed and mashed up and you threw in goblins and fairies. And now I'm reading Echoes and it's EVEN MORE Firefly... which I just genuinely don't know how to feel about. Like the literal "Red" Reavers and how they're described exactly like Firefly's reavers.... idk man

I think I need to put some distance and come back when I'm in the right headspace to meet this book where it's at, cause right now I'm fully struggling not to perceive everything through a Firefly lens.

One thing I can’t get over is how quickly the characters feel so real. You know how you read a book, and you love the drama, and the characters are sooo good—but you also can’t even begin to understand why they make the choices they do? The Atwaters naturally provide a peek into why characters make decisions, even when they aren’t the most logical choice—and it’s so very real. The characters are what shine in this book, easily fitting us into this swashbuckling steampunk fantasy world.

There are moments where I would have loved a little more depth to the action at key moments to match the rest of the book, but Echoes of the Imperium is a really interesting introduction to what promises to be an epic series.

A ragtag crew of steam punk pirates travels through post war territories while smuggling contraband cargo in their airship - battling aether-ghosts and those who are trying to bend that aether to their whims.

Captain William Blair, a goblin and past oathbreaker of the Imperium, agrees to a job exporting a highly caustic cargo into rough terrain. Little does he know that he’s carrying the very fuel source that could be used to bring back the Imperium-the last thing that Blair and his crew would ever want. Blair and crew must battle to save each other and their beliefs from a rebuilding empire.

This is the most fun I’ve had reading a book in so long. The story is fast paced and the characters are well developed, complex, and likable. The book speaks of redemption, friendship, forgiveness, and faith while somehow being filled with explosions, airship gun battles, and quirky characters. I loved every minute of this book and cannot wait for book two, Winds of Fortune.

Thank you to NetGalley and Starwatch Press for the opportunity to read this book!

This is the first book I've read by Nicholas Attwater, but it won't be the last.

Echos follows a ragtag crew aboard the Iron Rose, captained by Willian Blair, a goblin. There are very few books which feature goblins in anything other than a menial role, so to find one in charge, and making decisions which affect all his crew, is refreshing.

Seelie and Unseelie aether plays a big part in this tale of ghosts and pirates, where the armies and commoners of the past still haunt the places they were killed. William Blair accepts some dubious cargo and an even stranger passenger which starts the ball rolling on this page turning epic.

If you enjoy magic, pirates, ships and all sorts of other mayhem, this just might be the book for you.

It’s the end of the year, and I’m looking for something amusing and Fantasy to pick up to get me into the first bit of 2025. I was perusing synopses, and one caught my eye: pirate goblin with a ragtag group of swashbuckling/steampunk adventurers.

Yeah, I was hooked.

The engaging thing about Echoes of the Imperium is that it hit the ground running and spalled off lore, history, world-building and character development while we were in the throes of getting this adventure going.

William Blair is a goblin who went from being a lowly young cabin boy to the captain of his own airship: the Iron Rose. Wil, and his very eclectic crew have a very unique history and are attempting their best at trying to eke out a living in a post-Imperium world that isn’t always the most sympathetic to their cause.

Wil’s closest friends, and confidants, however, are his ever-supporting crew, and they will do just about anything for their captain.

The real adventure in Echoes of the Imperium kicks of in a two-fold action that gets the Iron Rose in a bit of a pickle. First, Wil agrees to deliver a “no questions asked” shipment of “something,” while, at the same time, takes on a mysterious passenger who seems to need to be getting out of town rather quickly: Miss Hawkins.

Oh, this is very important to know going into this. This world revolves around subservience and worship of the Seelie Fae. That little twist really carries a lot of weight on the history of this realm, as well as to the impending future of survival and conflict.

I’ll cut right to it: I loved this book. The characters were all beautifully developed, and a lot very likable. There were sufficient flaws that helped drive the story along while not being the typical cliches that often get thrown into High Fantasy. The dialogue is very diverse, and random enough to build a nice, tightly woven, story with an excellent variety.

To me, the characters were very autonomous. I never felt that I was on a predestined path, aside from the few parts that were actually intended to be that way.

Echoes of the Imperium is, already, one of my top reads of 2025. I cannot wait for the continued adventures of the Iron Rose, and I’m really dying to see what kind of pickles Wil and his crew can get into going forward.

The epilogue, alone, set the state for much more sinister things rising up in the future. I’m here for it.

Thank you #netgalley for the review copy.

I discovered this book by way of Olivia Atwater’s Regency & Victorian Faerie tales and her newsletter. It’s in an entirely different series, Tales of the Iron Rose and it’s authored by Nicholas Atwater and Olivia. Despite this book also featuring faeries and having Olivia as a co-author this book is not very similar to the Regency or Victoria Faeries tales at all. It’s an adventure story, think more tales of swashbuckling pirates and less P&P lite with fae.

This book has a lot of things I enjoy, airships, found families, gays who don’t get fridged, non-human people, and a potentially ace protagonist. I’m also a sucker for stories involving a steampunk sort of vibe so this book didn’t have to work terribly hard for me to like it. Now that I’ve read Book 1 I want to read the prequel and of course will eagerly await Book 2.

If I enjoyed it so much why not 5 starts? Well, that’s due to having to search back a few times for better explanations of different elements in the world and struggling to visualize them. It’s a Book 1 in a new fantasy series which means there is a lot of world building and explaining going on to situate the reader…. We are all new here and need to know how the Fae which we have seen a zillion times in a zillion different books work in this universe and more importantly understand the magic system. While the Fae introduction is done pretty well, I swear I have re-read the sections about aether and wargear about ten times and still have questions. Because the book does everything else I look for nicely, that’s why it gets 4 starts from me…if it had lacked in any other area I would have ranked this in more the 2 stars category as I really really really dislike when I don’t understand the magic system or major aspects of the world due to what seem like missing paragraphs.

It's fun, well-paced and well-written. Longer review to come soon, when I have more time to sit and write it.

A swashbuckling steampunk fantasy with airships pirates, fae, goblins, and more!

I stepped outside of my comfort zone on this one, and I am so glad that I did. Reading Echoes of the Imperium was like getting swept up in a pirate-y, steampunk-y RPG world (to my gamer heart's delight!). The characters are unique and lovable, even for swashbucklers that I wouldn't have considered to be very "cuddle-y" characters in person (if such characters existed in real life). We get tons of action right off the bat, and the pacing was quite good, for the most part. You can tell that a ton of thought went into both the plot and the character development, which made the book very immersive. It was a dense read, for me, due to the unique use of language (in a good way), so it took me a while to get through the book, but it was certainly worth it. What a talented couple (literally) of authors!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review!

I so wanted to love this book, but I don't think it's right for me. At least not right now. I've been chipping away at it for about 3 months between reading other books that are more the pace I like, and I've decided it's time to give it a rest at about halfway through. There are a lot of things to love about this book, but it's just not working for me for the time being. I hope, one day, my brain will be more patient and I can sit down and really enjoy this book the way it deserves to be enjoyed.
I loved the characters of Echoes of the Imperium. They're a varied bunch with interesting motivations and quirks, and I can imagine them like old friends.
The world is very solidly built and full of war and struggle. The magic system is carefully devised. Because of this, there's a lot to learn and digest. This is where it kept losing me. I'm not good with intricate world-building. At some point, my brain no longer wants to follow.
I'm the same vein, I was often lost during the flashbacks. They're very important for building characters, and giving background that drives so much of the story, but, at times, they felt tedious and unnecessarily long to me.
I love Olivia Atwater's other works, but this book is a very different tone, and didn't lend itself to the qualities I usually enjoy in her work.
Something to note is that this book is quite long. I'm a slow reader, which doesn't help. However, if you like long books with lots of world-building and large casts of lovable characters, you'll love this book. And bonus points if you're a Treasure Island fan.
I truly did enjoy what I read, but I hate to hold an ARC hostage for so long after publication without reviewing. I know I'll read this whole book one day, and I look forward to the glowing review I'm sure I'll give it when the time comes.

Thank you to Starwatch Press and Netgalley for the ARC.

I love Olivia Atwater's novels and when I saw that she had a new series with her husband, I was immediately drawn to request the book - even though space opera steampunk is not my thing. (Comparable: I LOVE Jim Butcher's Dresden Files but have never been able to read Cinder Spires even though I adore the way he tells a story.) Still, I was intrigued and thought it worth a try.

I should not be surprised that I didn't enjoy the concept. I should also not be surprised that a joint venture would not be written in the voice of a single one of the authors participating in it but would rather be a joint voice. I was surprised by both of these things - particularly by how aggressive and dark the opening scenes of this one turned out to be. This is not the Olivia Atwater of Regency or Victorian Faerie Tales, that's for sure! I can't really speak to it as an exemplar of its genre, as I neither know the genre nor finished this one - it was too much not-for-me for me to continue, despite my best attempts.

If you're going into this looking to have a gap-filler until the next Olivia Atwater comes out, you may find yourself disappointed. If you do into it for itself, you will likely have much better luck, at least according to what I'm seeing from other reviewers!

I really enjoyed this book!

I found this to be a wonderfully fun read, deeply atmospheric steampunk vibes that enhanced my enjoyment. I loved the characters and the found family trope was done really well here.

I admit I was more invested in the characters than the plot at times, but that by no means the plot was bad, just that the character's are what I felt drove the story forward.

Overall, I thought this was well written, enjoyable and just a very fun read. I am looking forward to more from these authors.

4.5/5 rounded off to 5 stars.

Thank you to Victory Editing and Netgalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own and I am posting voluntarily.

steampunk fantasy, flying ships, action packed and character driven.

Echoes of the Imperium was a very fun romp with non stop action and adventure, but with a cosy, found family dynamic to it.

I really enjoyed this one and I hope there will be more to come!

3.5/5, rounded up

I requested this book on a complete whim. I hadn't read either of the authors before, but was interested by the steampunk and airship descriptors. There is a sort of humorous and cozy-adjacent tone to the story. It isn't low stakes, but there's a motley crew led by a spirited goblin captain who is more endearing than menacing, knitwear, and broken teacups that give it a lighter atmosphere. Despite this, Echoes of the Imperium is packed with a surprising amount of meaningful and heavy topics. Consequences of war. Reckoning with a problematic past. Seeking redemption. Working through grief.

Personally I found the pacing a bit uneven. There were parts that lulled where I struggled to stay engaged - I ended up skimming a few small sections. I also wanted more clear worldbuilding. The characters were the focus. It's a fun, diverse, and distinct bunch. They all have their own quirks and pasts that I imagine over the course of the series will be further expanded on. I really enjoyed the found family. There's all kinds of different family dynamics explored.

Thank you NetGalley and Starwatch Press for the copy!