Day’s YA: IMMORTAL GAME

IMMORTAL GAME by Allison Saft
9781250404763
8/4/2026
Wednesday Books
Ages 13-18

E-galley available on Edelweiss and NetGalley

It’s been six years since Shea’s sister was whisked away by the High King of the Irish Otherworld, Midir, into the dangerous yet glittering land of fae. Shea is desperate to bring her sister back, but the Iron Veil that separates the human world from the fae world has always made that impossible. Ever since that traumatic day, she’s dreamed of rescuing her sister. Her days are spent honing her chess skills in hopes that one day she will get the chance to compete in Midir’s elite chess tournament, which only happens once every one hundred years. Now a grandmaster, the famed invite has finally fallen into her lap, and if she can beat the High King, he will grant her one wish—her chance to save her sister has come. But being invited to compete and winning are two very different matters, and dark magic and cutthroat opponents are going to make victory difficult. If Shea wants to make it to the end and survive the other competitors, she’ll have to form an unlikely alliance with Ciara of Bri Leith, the youngest princess of Faerie and her longtime rival (who is also beautiful, might I add). With everything at stake, including her own life, Shea must be careful, as losing means losing her sister forever.

IMMORTAL GAME is the most perfect high-stakes sapphic love story that brims with competitive tension and sisterly love, all set against a lush Irish folklore-inspired fantasy world. The story combines our current, mortal world with that of the fae, and seeing the relationship between the two worlds was fascinating. I’ll admit that I know very little about chess, but that certainly did not prevent me from feeling the energy and tension of the tournament all the same. The games were so vivid that reading it felt like I was physically present, sitting on the edge of my seat with bated breath. Every competitor involved was on their own individual journeys and had their own reasons for risking everything at the tournament, which only made the stakes and emotions even higher.

Ultimately, at the core of this story is the bond between two sisters. As someone with many sisters, stories of sisterhood are often my favorites, and this one definitely hit deep for me. The lengths to which Shea will go to save Aideen and bring her home are immeasurable, and her determination to do so means that she continues and perseveres through anything and everything. She’s spent years blaming herself for Aideen being taken, and it is finally time to fix what she has always felt responsible for. I’d also be remiss to not mention the stunning romance—this is a rivals-to-lovers sapphic romance, and it just so happens that rivals-to-lovers is one my all time favorite tropes. From the very first scene where we meet Ciara, I was instantly invested in their relationship, and as the story progresses and the tournament grows more intense, you can feel the tension between them slowly start to break apart as they learn to trust one another. Just as you learn the other characters’ motivations for competing, you slowly unravel more about Ciara’s story and what she’s endured, which only made me fall in love with her just as I fell in love with Shea.

If you were a big fan of The Queen’s Gambit, this will be the perfect story to give you your chess fix. It’s a story I would highly recommend to readers who loved the immersive world of OUR INFINITE FATES, the heart-wrenching love story of A FRAGILE ENCHANTMENT, or the rivals-to-lovers trope of CHECK & MATE.

Happy reading!
<3 Margo

Day’s YA Archives