In Elle Tesch’s mesmerizing debut novel What Wakes the Bells, readers are transported to Vaiwyn, a sentient city where stone breathes, metal weeps, and the ancient legacy of the Strauss family stands between order and chaos. Inspired by Prague legends, this young adult gothic fantasy offers readers a uniquely atmospheric tale of duty, sacrifice, and redemption that lingers long after the final page.
Eighteen-year-old Mina Strauss is the youngest in a long line of Bell Keepers, tasked with silencing the Vesper Bells before they can ring thirteen times and awaken an ancient evil known only as the Bane. When Mina’s bell shatters this thousand-year peace by tolling its forbidden thirteenth note, she finds herself at the center of a crisis that transforms her beloved city into a nightmarish landscape where gargoyles hunt citizens through lamplit streets and the very buildings turn against their inhabitants.
A City With a Pulse: Worldbuilding That Lives and Breathes
The true triumph of Tesch’s novel is Vaiwyn itself. Not merely a backdrop but a character in its own right, this sentient city pulses with a unique magic that manifests in subtle and terrifying ways:
Buildings that heal themselves when damaged
Messages that travel through stone walls
A heartbeat that can be felt through the cobblestones
A history written in metals that weep down facades
The author’s rich sensory descriptions immerse readers in this unusual urban landscape. You can almost smell the dust of Lyndell Hall, hear the grind of clock gears in Mina’s belfry, and feel the city’s unnatural chill creeping through the pages. Tesch creates a lived-in world with a complex mythology that unfolds gradually, allowing readers to discover the dark secrets of Vaiwyn alongside Mina.
Character Dynamics: Family Ties and Romantic Entanglements
At its core, What Wakes the Bells is a deeply personal story about family relationships and identity. Mina’s strained relationship with her mother Imogen forms one of the novel’s most emotionally resonant arcs. Their interactions are painfully authentic—filled with misunderstandings, stubborn pride, and the raw, complicated love that defines many parent-child relationships.
The romance between Mina and Max develops with refreshing authenticity. Their relationship grows naturally from friendship to romance, with Tesch including thoughtful representation of demisexual attraction that feels organic rather than token. The relationship is characterized by:
A foundation of genuine friendship and understanding
Max’s patience with Mina’s boundaries and comfort levels
An emphasis on emotional intimacy over physical romance
A quiet strength that becomes crucial as the story progresses
When the romance takes a horrifying turn with the revelation that Max has been possessed by Bastian (the escaped Saint), the emotional stakes become even more wrenching. Mina must face the impossible choice between saving her city and saving the boy she loves.
Saints and Sinners: A Complex Mythology
Tesch constructs a fascinating religious mythology around the Saints who built Vaiwyn—divine beings with powers over specific elements who ascended to godhood but still walk among mortals in disguise. The gradual unveiling of this mythology provides satisfying layers to the narrative:
The existence of a sixth Saint (Bastian) whose history was deliberately erased
The tragic love story between Bastian and the Lost Alchemist (Elora)
The connection between the Vesper Bells and the Saints’ relics
The true nature of the Talus Pox as Bastian’s corrupting influence
The revelation that Elora’s soul has been residing within Mina creates an intriguing parallel to Bastian’s possession of Max, adding symmetry to the narrative and raising thought-provoking questions about fate and free will.
Gothic Atmosphere and Visceral Horror
Tesch excels at creating genuinely unsettling moments that lean into the novel’s gothic aesthetic. The set pieces featuring animated gargoyles hunting humans through mist-shrouded streets are genuinely chilling, and the descriptions of the Talus Pox turning victims to stone from the inside out are viscerally disturbing.
Particularly effective horror elements include:
The catacombs beneath the city, where Bastian reveals himself
The animated bones of the dead rising to attack the living
The moment when a constable is absorbed into a building’s stone façade
Mina discovering her bell has cracked and cannot be silenced
The atmosphere remains consistently eerie throughout, with Tesch balancing moments of intense terror with quieter, dread-filled scenes that build tension masterfully.
Narrative Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths:
The prose is richly descriptive without becoming purple, creating vivid imagery
Mina’s first-person present tense narration feels immediate and engaging
Relationships between characters feel authentic and complex
The pacing maintains tension even in quieter moments
The worldbuilding is unique and atmospheric
Where It Could Be Stronger:
The mythology can occasionally feel overwhelming in its complexity, particularly in the second half
Some secondary characters like Aida and Emiko would benefit from more development
The rules of Vaiwyn’s magic system sometimes feel inconsistently applied
The final revelation about Mina’s new powers comes somewhat abruptly
A few plot threads resolve too neatly in the final chapters
Themes of Legacy and Finding One’s Place
Throughout “What Wakes the Bells”, Tesch explores the weight of inherited duty and the struggle to define oneself beyond family expectations. Mina’s journey is ultimately about reconciling her duty to protect Vaiwyn with her desire for personal identity and freedom.
The theme of legacy plays out through:
The thousand-year commitment of the Strauss family to protect the bells
Mina’s complex feelings about taking over her father’s position after his death
The revelation that the Bell Keepers’ true purpose was partially built on lies
The cyclical nature of the Saints’ conflict playing out across generations
Mina ultimately forging a new legacy as she becomes something unprecedented
Final Verdict: A Resonant Debut
What Wakes the Bells announces Elle Tesch as a promising new voice in YA fantasy. While the mythology occasionally threatens to overwhelm and some character arcs could be more fully developed, the novel succeeds on the strength of its atmospheric worldbuilding, emotionally resonant relationships, and genuinely unsettling horror elements.
Readers who enjoy sentient settings like V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic or the gothic atmosphere of Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House will find much to appreciate in Tesch’s debut. It’s a novel that balances darkness with hope, horror with heart, and creates a world that feels at once familiar and eerily other.
Who Should Read This Book?
Fans of gothic fantasy with atmospheric worldbuilding
Readers who enjoy complex family dynamics in their stories
Those looking for authentic queer representation in fantasy
Anyone who appreciates cities that are characters in their own right
Horror enthusiasts who enjoy supernatural and body horror elements
Tesch has crafted a debut that lingers in the mind like the echo of a bell’s toll—haunting, resonant, and impossible to ignore. Despite some first-novel roughness around the edges, What Wakes the Bells marks the arrival of an exciting new voice in fantasy, and I’ll be eagerly waiting to see what stories she tells next.