Reader’s Favorite has given The Step and the Walk a five-star review! You can read it in full here.

If I were to condense it into a back-cover blurb, this is what I would do:

Kristina Elyse Butke’s The Step and the Walk is an outstanding gothic dark fantasy, with real imagination behind the world […] Readers who love fantasy built around alchemy should absolutely read this book. Very highly recommended.”

–Asher Syed, Reader’s Favorite

I’m so relieved to get this kind of feedback. The Step and the Walk was very challenging to write, and I’m so grateful Syed wrote in regards to Andresh that “His journaling voice is excellent, letting his own words tell us far more about him than he realizes.” Capturing Andresh’s voice authentically was very important to me, not only because he’s a multifaceted character with many secrets, but he’s a bisexual man, and I’ve never written from that POV before, ever. I also wanted to make Andresh unreliable–of course you’re supposed to believe everything he says, but…are you?

Anyway, I don’t have much money for more editorial reviews unless a miracle happens…the next one will be with Literary Titan, but I have to wait for next paycheck for that. I hope that one will be positive, too. This book was quite a risk.