Rakesfall

Annelid and Leveret meet as children during the Sri Lankan civil war, and a single act of violence in a demon-haunted wood binds their souls. Their story is carried across many lifetimes, in bodies and under names that keep changing, from an ancient mythic past to a far-distant, post-human future.

Vajra Chandrasekera's second novel is dense and ambitious, concerned with war, empire, reincarnation and how responsibility is carried from one life to the next. It stands alone and is set in the author's wider world.