Allison Saft’s Immortal Game is an Irish folklore-inspired sapphic fantasy following a chess grandmaster who must team up with her fae rival to save the person she loves the most – out now!

Title: Immortal Game
Author: Allison Saft
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance, LGBTQIA+
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Release Date: August 4th, 2026
Blog Tour: Colored Pages Book Tours

About The Book: 

In #1 New York Times bestseller Allison Saft’s enthralling new romantic fantasy, a chess grandmaster will go to any length to save the person she loves the most.

Six years ago, Shea Fury’s sister was whisked away by the High King of the Otherworld, the ruler of the treacherous land of fae. Although Shea has spent the years since dreaming of rescuing her sister from captivity, the Iron Veil that separates the human world from that of the fae has made it only a wish. That is, until an invitation to participate in a once-in-a-lifetime chess tournament in the Otherworld arrives on Shea’s doorstep. The winner of the tournament may ask the High King to grant one wish, and Shea is finally within reach of hers.

But entering the tournament and winning it are two different matters. Dark magic lurks around every corner in the Otherworld, and Shea’s cutthroat opponents are willing to bend the rules to make their own wishes come true. To make it to the end—and to find her sister—she is forced to strike an alliance with her longtime rival, the sharply beautiful fae princess, Ciara of Bri Leith. One wrong move, though, and Shea could lose more than just the competition: She’d lose her sister, her dignity, and maybe even her life.

In Immortal Game, Allison Saft has written a high-stakes sapphic love story brimming with competitive tension set against a lush, Irish folklore-inspired fantasy world.

Purchase: Amazon | B&N | Bookshop.org

About The Author: 

Allison Saft is the New York Times and indie bestselling author of A Far Wilder Magic and Down Comes the Night. After receiving her MA in English Literature from Tulane University, she moved from the Gulf Coast to the West Coast, where she spends her time rolling on eight wheels and practicing aerial silks. She lives with her partner and an Italian greyhound named Marzipan.

Connect With Allison: Website | Goodreads | Instagram

Review:

*Note: This is not a spoiler free review! Please read on with caution! While I did try to be as vague as possible, there are some specific moments of the story that resulted in me feeling how I feel, and that is mentioned clearly. Again, do not read further if you do not want to read spoilers. For a spoiler free experience, please check out my post on Instagram.

Me in the first half: omg I’m eating this up who knew fantasy could make chess so fun and interesting?!
Me in the second half: Jesus fucking Christ how is this not over yet?! I had no idea chess could get any more boring yet every chapter I am more bored than the one before.

Is it the book’s fault? Or is it my lack of knowledge about chess? I have no idea. This was unfortunately far too slow for me. It started to gain momentum, and then quickly went back downhill for me. There was a lot of chess, which duh. But I have never even touched a chess piece, so maybe I would have had a better appreciation for this aspect if I had. I was enjoying it so much so in the first half that I even posted on threads that I was gobbling it up. But it started to feel like the book that would never end.

I started out feeling like this was such a unique story, but honestly….. the entire second half felt like I was reading Caraval again, except with Chess. And honestly, I didn’t like that book much either. I get that family bonds are deep and blah blah blah but at a certain point – take a hint. You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. And I had zero positive emotions towards them as sisters. Let it go. It was frustrating as hell. I went into this thinking it was going to be a sweeping sapphic romance – one built despite this competitive, cutthroat competition – especially with the cover the way it is. And while there is some romance, it is barely even secondary. It was bland and didn’t feel like it was ever really going anywhere. There was a kiss… and then a betrayal…. and then that’s it? A little more pining after?

I didn’t realize how disappointed I really was, until I started writing this review. And I am, very disappointed. I feel like we were teased information for the whole book, and it just didn’t give me enough payoff in the end. The majority of the competition was cutthroat and interesting and then they just… resign…?? And then they realize there’s more to it than that and it just…? It just all kept falling into place too easily? Again, I felt like there was no worthwhile payoff. All of the high stakes just…. Didn’t end up feeling that high after all. And that was disappointing. We were teased the entire book that there was more to the story with the sister and it felt super anticlimactic. A slowly paced book just to have everything quickly resolved and tied up with a little bow in the end.

I did receive an ALC of this as well, so I was able to immersive read it. The audiobook was really well done. The narrator did a great job performing this. There was just one – Kristen Sieh – but she did such a great job with the different accents and voices that I genuinely thought this was at least a duet. It was impressively well done.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and Wednesday Books for providing me with a gifted copy to read early, and thank you to Colored Pages Book Tours for allowing me to be a stop on this tour. All opinions are my own.

Rating:

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