by S. A. MacLean
496pp (Trade Paperback)
My Rating: 5/10
Amazon Rating: 4.3/5
LibraryThing Rating: 3.36/5
Goodreads Rating: 3.98/5
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Set in a magical zoo teeming with mythical beasts from dragons and unicorns to kelpies and krakens, The Phoenix Keeper is a fierce joy of a cozy fantasy novel with a soul-restoring queer romance at its heart, for fans of The House in the Cerulean Sea and Legends and Lattes.
As head phoenix keeper at a world-renowned zoo for magical creatures, Aila’s childhood dream of conserving critically endangered firebirds seems closer than ever. There’s just one glaring caveat: her zoo’s breeding program hasn’t functioned for a decade. When a tragic phoenix heist sabotages the flagship initiative at a neighboring zoo, Aila must prove her derelict facilities are fit to take the reins.
But saving an entire species from extinction requires more than stellar animal handling skills. Carnivorous water horses, tempestuous thunderhawks, mischievous dragons… Aila has no problem wrangling beasts. But mustering the courage to ask for help from the hotshot griffin keeper at the zoo’s most popular exhibit? Virtually impossible.
Especially when that hotshot griffin keeper happens to be her arch-rival from college: Luciana, an annoyingly brooding and insufferable know-it-all with the face of a goddess who’s convinced that Aila’s beloved phoenix would serve their cause better as an active performer rather than as a passive conservation exhibit. With the world watching and the threat of poachers looming, Aila’s success is no longer merely a matter of keeping her job…
She is the keeper of the phoenix, and the future of a species– and her love life– now rests on her shoulders.
The Phoenix Keeper, S. A. MacLean’s debut novel, was one of my most anticipated 2024 speculative fiction book releases because I loved the idea of a book set in a zoo filled with mythical creatures written by an author with experience in ecology and environmental science. However, I ended up having mixed feelings about it: although I adored everything to do with the animals, I was underwhelmed by the human characters, plot, and writing. Furthermore, main protagonist Aila was my least favorite character who wasn’t a villain.
The story takes place in a contemporary setting in a secondary fantasy world, and although other places are mentioned, it’s mostly confined to the zoo with an occasional foray to another location in the same city (Aila’s apartment, her best friend’s home, her family’s restaurant, etc.). I loved that this was a zoo dedicated to preserving creatures from endangered fantastical species and educating the public about them. It served as a wildlife sanctuary for some varieties of dragons, phoenixes, griffins, and birds, as well as unicorns and a kelpie, and it had animals that were there due to injuries that kept them from being able to survive in the wild, who served as ambassadors for their species. There were also some animal shows for visitors’ entertainment, an issue that caused some tension between Aila and another zookeeper who wanted her phoenix to perform in them. Aila felt that being able to watch the animals existing should be enough for people to take an interest in them, but the performances garnered a lot of attention and were a big factor in visitors wanting to support wildlife.
A clear love for animals shines through The Phoenix Keeper, and its best parts were those centered on the zoo and its inhabitants. These characters were imbued with personality, and although I loved all the animals, I especially adored the mischievous archibird. He had saliva that acted as an adhesive for shiny metal objects, which he built into a tower in an attempt to impress the females of his species, and was overall a menace, stealing items that caught his eye and irritating his keeper (all while being too adorable for her to stay upset with him for very long). As someone who has had impish birds before, I felt S. A. MacLean successfully captured their essence, and this one was easily my favorite character.
Aside from the animals, The Phoenix Keeper didn’t really work for me, though. Aila and her third-person perspective lacked the sort of charm I was hoping to see in a cozy fantasy novel, and neither she nor the prose stood out as compelling to me (even if I did admire her devotion to her animals). Our phoenix keeper is primarily characterized as an awkward, anxious introvert who loves her animals and is knowledgeable about them, would do anything to help them, and works hard on their behalf. She has realistic, relatable struggles as someone dealing with anxiety and a fear of public speaking, but she often feels like an overdone caricature of someone who isn’t great with people considering just how consistently and badly she ends up with her foot in her mouth. Aila is also frustrating because she is infuriatingly wrong so much of the time: she misjudges people and overlooks the obvious a lot, and she gets so wrapped up in her own problems that she doesn’t even notice the struggles of those around her, including those of her supportive best friend. Her main character arc involves learning to get outside of herself, and though it’s not unrealistic that someone would go through something like this, it is a long journey given that Aila is flawed in an annoying, straightforward way rather than in a fascinating, complex way.
The plot mainly focuses on Aila’s work at the zoo, particularly with starting a new phoenix breeding program. Given the rarity of the species, her female Silimalo phoenix does not have a mate, but Aila sees an opportunity to procure one for her after another zoo’s female and young are stolen. Aila has to overcome her fears and anxieties enough to convince others that the best move is transferring the remaining male to her zoo in hopes that he’ll bond with her phoenix, which means rebuilding their long out-of-use facilities—which she can’t do on her own, or even with the help of her best friend, forcing her to enlist the aid of others in the zoo like her nemesis from their college days. I liked the parts that involved the birds themselves, but like the characterization that tied into this plot, the rest of it was a bit simplistic for me. It’s also pretty clear what the climactic scene is going to involve long before it happens, and though predictability doesn’t have to be bad, this wasn’t the type of scene I eagerly anticipated or had fun reading. It was just a relief when Aila finally realized what had been obvious all along, and there were some parts that came across as cheesy to me throughout this sequence.
Though The Phoenix Keeper is described as having a “queer romance at its heart,” those who are primarily reading for the romance might be disappointed by how long it takes to get there. (If you’re looking for stories where queer characters don’t have to deal with obstacles and microaggressions, it does deliver on that front, though.) There isn’t exactly a love triangle, but there are two separate romantic subplots involving a male zookeeper and a female zookeeper. The endgame love story is cute, but there isn’t really a lot of focus on this romance and it’s immediately clear that the other love interest isn’t right for Aila, even setting aside what’s in the book description. I thought the relationship Aila had with her best friend, a trans woman named Tanya who also worked in the zoo, was both more central to the story and better done, even when I was frustrated on Tanya’s behalf.
The Phoenix Keeper is a difficult book for me to summarize and rate: I only finished it because of the zoo and its residents, and though they’re a large part of the book, so are the things I found less appealing such as the main protagonist’s blunt character arc and the novel’s overall lack of finesse. By the end, the aspects that didn’t work for me seemed more prominent, but since I did love the animals, I’m going with a middle-of-the-road rating.
My Rating: 5/10
Where I got my reading copy: Finished copy from the publisher.
