Book Details:
Author: Andrew Beardmore
Release Date: 18 March 2026
Series: The Nessemiah (Book 2 of 4)
Genre: Epic historical fantasy
Format: E-book
Pages: 555 pages
Publisher: Ryelands Books (imprint of Halsgrove Publishing)
Blurb:
Book two of the gripping new historical fantasy series, The Nessemiah.
Is anywhere on Thera safe from Nessemi? Or the hell that lies beyond?
Read full book blurb
“I’m afraid there are good and bad everywhere, Emilya. It’s a fact of life that wherever you look, there are strains of malice.”
Emilya and Jake have separated to increase their chances of avoiding capture and execution for a crime they have not committed. While Jake and infamous highwayman, Harry Black, lead Prince Magnus a merry dance across Glennad, Emilya has landed in even greater peril at Kifsel Place Monastery, where amongst the peace-loving monks, there are others with sinister motives.
Meanwhile, unaware that their governments are preparing for deadly Nessemi, matters deteriorate for our other northern islanders at the hands of murderous smugglers, scorned exes, and ruthless Abolitionists. Four hundred leagues south, the Theran Empire is also preparing for Nessemi – by rolling out diversions on a massive and brutal scale. As well as the demographic cleansing that is Expurgatio, Emperor Calidius is also driving the deaths of thousands in Liatia’s fighting pits – where former Demonacian general, Draxaelen, battles to stay alive. But little does Drax know that time is running out for his revenge; in fact, time is running out for everyone.
Review
Cold Sanctuary, the second instalment in Andrew Beardmore’s historical epic-fantasy series The Nessemiah makes you feel as though the fictional world of the story has continued turning in your absence. Author Beardmore’s greatest strength remains the extraordinary scale and specificity of his world-building. Thera possesses its own geography, political systems, religions, social hierarchies and complicated history, and this volume takes everything established in The Strains of Malice and makes it darker, more urgent and considerably more disturbing.
The novel resumes the journeys of the characters introduced in Book One, now scattered across different regions and facing their own dangers as Nessemi draws ever closer. Will remains with Nate Turner, uncertain whether the man beside him is protector, captor or something more complicated than either. Emilya and Elyse continue their difficult passage through the Umbrican Mountains; Alicya dreams of building an ordinary life with Gawain; Madeleina struggles against a future being arranged on her behalf; and Emperor Calidius prepares his empire for catastrophe through increasingly horrifying measures. The multiple storylines are handled with impressive chronological precision, with dates, maps and locations reinforcing the sense that these separate journeys are gradually converging beneath the same celestial deadline.
What gives the novel its emotional force is the contrast between its enormous, world-altering threat and the painfully intimate concerns of its characters. The end of the world becomes far more frightening once we understand precisely what each person stands to lose. Will’s evolving relationship with Nate Turner is particularly compelling, shaped by a complicated mixture of gratitude, suspicion, grief and reluctant attachment. Emilya’s journey becomes one of the novel’s most harrowing, while Calidius’s storyline offers its bleakest examination of power. His preparations reveal how easily the language of survival can be used to justify authoritarianism, prejudice and state-sanctioned cruelty.
The title Cold Sanctuary proves painfully appropriate because nearly every refuge in the story comes with conditions. Homes, palaces, monasteries, prisons and even personal relationships may promise safety, but all remain vulnerable to betrayal, fanaticism and human malice. The novel is also considerably darker than its occasional moments of romance, humour and scenic beauty might suggest, containing graphic violence, sexual menace, religious abuse and cruelty towards both children and animals. The brutality serves a thematic purpose, although some prolonged episodes may prove overwhelming for readers who prefer violence to remain largely off-page.
Author Beardmore’s meticulous approach can occasionally impede the momentum, particularly when travel routes, histories and practical details receive more explanation than a scene requires. With so many perspectives, readers may also be pulled away from a storyline just as its tension reaches its peak. This is unmistakably the second movement of a larger narrative rather than a self-contained adventure, so reading The Strains of Malice first is essential.
Nevertheless, Cold Sanctuary remains an ambitious, emotionally involving and deeply unsettling continuation of The Nessemiah. Nessemi may be the greatest threat facing Thera, but by the end, author Beardmore leaves us wondering whether it is truly the worst.
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