The Facts

• Published: 2025
• Original language: English
• Genre: Dark fantasy, novel, gothic fiction
• Number of pages: 1040

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SPOILER ALERT!!!! TW Alert!! Alllll of the alerts!!!! Please read with discretion.

Keep in mind this book is kind of inspired on The Handmaid's Tale and Harry Potter.

The Gist: 

“Love isn’t as pretty or pure as people like to think. There’s a darkness in it sometimes. I made him who he is. If he’s a monster, then I’m his creator.”

Helena Marino is a prisoner and the necromancers have won the war. A book rarely begins in such a hopeless tone, which is what immediately sets this book apart from absolutely anything I’ve ever read. The book's divided in 3 parts: in Part I, Helena has no memories and is a prisoner of Morrough. In Part 2, we read about those months during the war before she awoke in captivity. Meaning, the gist of the novel. And part 3: what happens when she recovers her memories while still in captivity.

Part 1 — Helena Wakes Up

• The novel begins with Helena waking up in a dark, disorienting stasis: she’s been imprisoned for over a year.
• She soon learns she’s in the custody of the ruling powers of the land (after a brutal civil war). The regime is controlled by necromancers and corrupt guild families, who emerged victorious, and the previous order (the Resistance + alchemist healers) was crushed. Helena used to be a healer — but now her abilities are suppressed.
• Her memories, especially those of the final war months, are gone. The captors suspect that Helena might be hiding something important about the Resistance’s final maneuvers.
• Because of this, she is handed over to Kaine Ferron — the “High Reeve,” a powerful necromancer and enforcer for the new regime, and former academic rival of Helena’s from their prewar days.
• Kaine’s mission: use magical interrogation (called “Transference”) to unlock Helena’s buried memories. In these sessions, Kaine enters Helena’s mind; Helena suffers severe brain inflammation, seizures, and mental torment each time;
• Helena repeatedly tries to end her life — she feels that death might be better than being used as a tool or weapon. Each time, Kaine prevents her, because killing her would defeat the captors’ purpose: they need what’s hidden in her mind.
• Gradually, Helena begins to have faint flashes of memories, and also discovers new remnants of magical ability she didn’t expect. She learns that she’s not just an ordinary healer — she has alchemical/vivimancy/animancy powers: she can influence souls or heal in ways beyond normal healing.
• Meanwhile, we see Helena’s psychological journey: fear, despair, self-hate, suicidal impulses — but also odd, conflicting emotions towards Kaine: hatred, fear, but also confusion and something like attraction. The boundary between captor and and prisoner blurs every single day.
• At some point, Morrough (the ultimate villain, think Voldemort) orders Helena and Kaine to conceive a child within a certain period — part of a “Repopulation Program.” Helena’s sterilization (done earlier) is reversed — without her consent. This is accompanied by rape and repeated sexual violence.
• The pregnancy becomes a turning point. Two weeks after conception, as Helena becomes physically and mentally fragile, her suppressed memories begin to resurface. The cracks open, and past trauma begins flooding back.

Part 2 — Flashback: Helena’s Past Before Capture

• The narrative rewinds roughly four years before the events of Part 1. We meet Helena before the war, when she was an alchemy-student/healer at the Alchemy Institute (think Hogwarts), allied with the group known as the Resistance. The Order of the Eternal Flame is the organization behind the Holdfasts, the family chosen to be the leaders of Paladia. Luc Holdfast (aka Harry Potter) is now the Principate, after his father Apollo's death caused by Kaine Ferron, which started the war.
• During the war, Helena worked to heal and help at the hospital, but also proposed radical ideas — involving necromancy and reviving fallen soldiers to counter the enemy’s growing undead/immortal forces (the “Undying”). This idea was considered heretical by some in the Resistance, reason why she became getting shunned and people started mistreating her.
• The Order/Resistance instructs Helena to become Kaine's handler, as Kaine begins spying for the Order in order to defeat Morrough.  The goal: gather intel on Undying and necromancer plans.
• As Helena and Kaine spend time together, they find they have a lot in common and feel attraction towards each other. Despite knowing he might be disloyal, Helena begins to feel compassion for him. They develop a complicated relationship — mutual understanding, support, and eventually intimacy. Their bond becomes both an emotional refuge and a source of guilt, because Helena feels she is betraying the Resistance and betraying her ideals.
• Over the course of their alliance and secretive efforts, Helena and Kaine uncover truths: that Murrough draws power from the Undying; that the war wasn’t fought for idealistic, noble reasons but for greed and power consolidation by corrupt guild families and their necromancer allies. That the Holdens are basically farce, and they're going to lose the war.
• They fight side by side in several battles, grow closer, and promise to protect each other. Their love — tainted, morally ambiguous, and built under duress — emerges. Helena chooses Kaine over ideological loyalty.
• In order to save Kaine from being discovered, Helena blows up a research facility where Bennet (a necromancer doctor allied with Morrough) experimented with prisoners. The Order of the Eternal Flame loses the war, everyone gets caught, Helena gets imprisoned but managers to semi-escape death and enter a statis tank. In the tank, she forces her own brain to erase everything about Kaine so that, when she gets interrogated, the Necromancers/Morrough won't know Kaine aided the Resistance. That's why Helena wakes up with no memories: she completely changed her own brain and rewrote her memories in order to protect him. WHAT A WOMAN, HUH.

This flashback reshapes our understanding: Helena’s past wasn’t as clean-cut as “good healer vs evil,” but morally gray, full of desperate choices under war’s pressure. The good guys are actually not so good, and Kaine, the "bad guy" is actually the hero. We LOVE Kaine in this house.

Part 3 — Memory Recovered, Reckoning, Escape, and Semi-Happy Ending

• With her memories fully returned, Helena now knows who she was, what she did, and what she lost. She now understands the full extent of the atrocities: what the war did, what The Resistance did, what her enemies planned, the full breath of the chaos.
• She also discovers that the regime (Morrough + necromancers) have stolen a fragment of Kaine’s soul — that Kaine’s life (and his humanity) is tethered to Helena’s suffering. To save him, Helena resolves to retrieve and restore Kaine’s stolen soul fragment. This act becomes their chance at resistance.
• The soul-restoration ritual (or process) works: Kaine survives, though deeply changed; Morrough’s power is weakened. The regime’s hold begins to falter as Kaine and Helena plan to escape.
• Helena and Kaine — now lovers, survivors, outcasts — flee. They escape to a remote island, along with another friend/ally (from the past) Lila Bayard. For a time they live in hiding, attempting to heal from trauma and build a life away from necromancer control.
• The plot doesn't end with simple peace: time passes. The repressive regime still looms, and eventually people realize Morrough is also bad for the neighboring countries. To end the threat once and for all, Lila (with Kaine’s training and Helena’s magical or alchemical help) decides to assassinate Morrough. She builds a bomb — they commit to a final confrontation. The other countries FINALLY decide to help Paladia; this speaks about the international community's responsability and how the war could've ended so much earlier if only they'd stepped in.
• The plan succeeds: Morrough is killed, his necromantic dominance dismantled. The evil regime collapses. Paladia is back to being... well, Paladia.
• In the epilogue / denouement: Helena and Kaine settle on the island and raise their daughter, Enid Rose Ferron. Years later, Enid returns to Paladia to study with Pol (Luc and Lila's son) and become an alchemist herself — suggesting a new generation, a renewal, perhaps a different future from the one Helena and Kaine lived through.
• Enid sees a book about the war and finds a picture of her mom, Luc and Soren at the end, where the capture of thepicture says Helena was "a non active member of The Order of the Eternal Flame and did not fight" when THIS WOMAN WAS LITERALLY THE ENTIRE REASON WHY THEY EVENTUALLY WON THE WAR. BUT OKAY.

Thus the novel ends on a bittersweet note: survival, memory restored, love and family, but built on scars, loss, trauma — a broken world healed slowly, imperfectly. Best book I've read all year, okay.

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The Characters

• Helena Marino — the main protagonist. A promising alchemist and healer in the Resistance movement during a war, Helena survives the war only to wake up imprisoned. She has lost crucial memories from the war’s end: she doesn’t remember everything about her past, what happened to her allies, or exactly why she’s being held. Her memory loss is magical/medical, not natural. She's basically an immigrant from another nation, and looks very different from everyone else in Paladia, reason why she was shunned until Luc Holdfast became her friend.
• Kaine Ferron — the man tasked with unearthing the deepest secrets of Helena’s past. He becomes central to Helena’s (traumatic and morally fraught) path of recovery and self-discovery. Once a promising alchemist at the Institute, Kaine starts the war by killing Apollo Holdfast, the Principate and Luc's father, to please Morrough and the necromancers. He later becomes the High Reeve, the most feared general of the Undying, but in reality Kaine is a spy for the Resistance and wants to bring Morrough down, which is how he starts having more closeness with Helena.
• The Order of the Eternal Flame (aka, the Order of the Phoenix)
  
  • The Holdfast family
  • Shiseo: Alchemist from the Eastern Empire, secretly related to that country's royalty, worked closely with Helena at the laboratory. He became a double agent for the Resistance/Necromancers and, while he seems to be in Morrough's side, he's actually helping The Order/Helena until his death (aka, Severus Snape)
  • Falcon Matias: spiritual healer, council member of the Eternal Flame
  • Jan Crowther: Head of Intelligence, Helena's semimentor, council member of the Eternal Flame (sort of based off of Kingsley Shacklebolt)
  • Matron Pace: Head nurse atthe hospital, Helena's supervisor (aka Madame Pomfrey)
  • General Althorne: council member of the Eternal Flame
  • Ivy Purnell: Healer who worked with Jan Crowther on interrogations
  • Elain Boyle: Healer, originally brought in to relay Helena at the hospital.
• The Holdfast Family
  
  • Luc Holdfast: Principate of Paladia, leader of the resistance/Order of the Eternal Flame, Apollo Holdfast's son, close school friend of Lila, Helena and Soren (aka Harry Potter)
  • Apollo Holdfast: Luc's father, former Principate of Paladia and head of the Alchemy Institute. His murder by Kaine Ferron sparked the war (aka Albus Dumbledore)
  • Ilva Holdfast: Luc's great-aunt, council member of the Eternal Flame
  • Orion Holdfast: First Principate of Paladia and founder of modern alchemy, who faught against the first Necromancer (aka Cetus aka Morrough)
• The Bayard Family
  
  • Lila Bayard: First Paladin, Luc's deputy, mother of Pol Holdfast, Morrough's killer.
  • Soren Bayard: Second Paladin, Lila's twin brother (aka Ron Weasly)
  • Titus Bayard: Father to Lila and Soren, former general of the Resistance (aka Arthur Weasly)
  • Rhea Bayard: mother of Lila and Soren Bayard
• The Undying
  
  • Morrough: the High Necromancer, leader of the Undiying, is actually Cetus an ancient alchemist/sibling of Orion Holdfast. His entire movement is just a revenge against Orion.
  • Kaine Ferron: Th High Reeve, see above. Master of the Iron guild.
  • Atreus Ferron: Kaine Ferron's father (aka Lucius Malfoy)
  • Enid Ferron: Kaine's mother (aka Narcissa Malfoy)
  • Aurelia Ferron: Kaine Ferron's wife
  • Dr. Stroud: Doctor, head of the Repopulation program
  • Mandl: Supervisor at the outposts, captured Helena at the end of the war (aka Dolores Umbridge)
  • Dr Bennett: head research doctor for Morrough, created the chimaeras, experimented with prisoners of war to commit horrible crimes, is the one responsible for experimenting on Kaine and creating the array on his back.
  • Erik Lancaster: Former student at the Institute, member of the Necromancers, Aurelia's lover

Because the story fully rebuilds from earlier fanfiction roots, nearly every character — their relationships, moral stakes, loyalties — are newly defined. That means Alchemised should be treated as an independent world rather than an adaptation of any existing universe.

Key Terms

• Alchemy: Process of turning one metal into another; the magical ability to manipulate certain metals. This is the central factor or core of the entire magical system of Paladia.
• Necromancy: The channeling of vitality into. adead body to reanimate and subsequently control it for use.
• Vivimancy: a rare form of resonance that affects other humans that is used primarily for healing, but can also manipulate bodies for other purposes.
• Animancy: a rare kind of resonance which allows someone to examine and alter memories and emotions.
• Pyromancy: a kind of resonance which allows someone to manipulate and create fire.
• Arrays: An arrangement of symbols in a pattern that creates a stable channel for complex resonance manipulation. Eliminates the need for physical contact by an alchemist.
• Alloys: The fusion of two metals.
• Resonance: Essentially the alchemised version of magic. The energiy an alchemist uses to affect metals, inorganic substances and, in rare cases,human bodies (vivimancy and necromancy)
• Nullification: Stripping a person of their magical or mental capacities.
• Binding: Magical locks used to tether powers.
• Toll: The degenerative consequence of using own's own vitality for healing or necromancy.
• Transference: The transfer of a soul into another living body.
• Repertoire: the types. of materials an alchemist can influence with their resonance. The Ferrons, for example, have iron mastery, but the Holdfasts have gold mastery. Helena Marino has the largest repertoire, having mastery of all metals.
• Chimiatry: The processing of plants for medical purposes (basically chemistry)
• Lich: a type of undead creature with magical powers. Meaning, if someone inhabits a dead body, that is a Lich.
• Necrothalls: an enslaved, dead person whose corpse is manuipulated by a necromancer. A necromancer vcan have an army of thralls.
• Lumithia: goddess of war and alchemy
• Lumithium: element associated with Lumithia which causes people to have resonance

Manacled/Alchemised Explained

• Manacled and Alchemised are NOT the same thing.
• You do NOT need to read Manacled to understand Alchemised, nor viceversa.
• SenLinYu wrote Manacled in installments on Archive of Our Own (Ao3) between April 27, 2018 and August 19, 2019. The fanfiction was completed on the latter date at about 1,000 words.
• Manacled is a Harry Potter fanfiction that takes place after The Deathly Hallows Part I, and creates an alternate version where Voldemort won the war and Harry Potter died. Manacled is one of the most famous fanfictions centering around "Dramione" - a term coined for the Draco Malfoy/Hermione Granger ship.
• When Manacled became so popular, SenLinYu was offered a book deal with the condition that she'd rewrite the whole thing in a different world setting. While Manacled and Alchemised are similar, and the skeleton of the story is similar, they're completely different stories.
• The way I read it: I read Alchemised first, knowing absolutely nothing about the Manacled background, and then after reading Alchemised 4 times I decided I needed to check out Manacled. I also read Alchemised in chronological order, meaning Part 1, 2 and 3, but other people have started on part 2, then Part 1, then Part 3.

The Opinion:

This is one of the best books I've read for the following reasons:

• The order in which the book is written makes ALL of the difference. I love that we start Part I not knowing anything, and being just as lost as Helena Marino is. Her lack of orientation sets the tone perfectly, and knowing so little almost reduces the full breath of the intensity of the situation, which is good knowing how dark this book can get. By having amnesia with Helena, the author is able to gradually immerse us into the darkness of the story.
• The story has the same building blocks of most classic hero stories, with the good and the bad guys, but it gives a completely different take on the typical trajectory. What happens when the good guys don't win? In real life, the good guys rarely win, and the people who tell the story (and write history) tend to be the oppresors. Alchemised shows perspective on the way we interpret history, and the aftermath of a war. Is the conflict truly over when one side waves the white flag?
• While this book is fantasy, it touches on very real subjects. What is the international community's responsibility when a country is at war? What does it mean to be morally correct or incorrect? Are wars truly as simple as good versus evil? Who are the people in the backgroungd, not the flashy names in the history books, but the people who actually went into the trenches to fight for someone's ideology?
• This book, while fantasy, delves so much into psychology, PTSD, philosophy, trauma, etc. You have to read it more than once to see the beautry of every single sentence, bvecause every sntence, every word, contains a multitude of worlds and ideas. It's so freaking loaded.

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For this book's release, SenLinYu commisioned art for a lot of the scenes by Avendell, her friend and illustrator from her Manacled days. I highly recommend you guys to check out her visuals while reading the book, it makes the read so much better. Below, some of my favorite images. Go to SenLinYu's instagram or Avendell's to check out more.

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LMK If you have questions, thoughts, concerns. I could easily yap about this for DAYS.