thank you to angry robot books for an advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

oh man, i was really hoping i’d love this a lot more than i did. coming from previously reading a dowry a blood, a book that explores toxic relationships and polyamorous relationships all under beautiful prose, i had much higher hopes.

personally, the polyamorous relationship just didn’t feel developed all that particularly well. and dare i say… a bit toxic still. conversations between moira and rhys didn’t happen until after something occurred between david and rhys. and somehow moira was okay with that? even through she specifically mentions that he needs to be upfront about everything. i would’ve thought that would have meant before anything physical or emotional even began happening. i don’t know… maybe i’m overthinking it a bit but it just wasn’t my favorite way to develop the “V”.

rhy and david have a complicated, toxic past that they don’t seem to get over for a fair majority of the book. rhys and moira seem to have been undergoing marital problems at the start of the story too. for rhys and david to develop this relationship it felt almost bordering emotional cheating for my preference. david and moira's friendship felt like the most healthy development for the majority of the book! i was just heavily hoping for better communication from the start about feelings and intentions.

okay, now onto the actual story of the book. i think the magical world could’ve been explored so much more than what we actually got. with like a 1/4 til the book ends, we’re thrown a new type of magical sect, chaos magic. but then we’re told literally nothing about it?? and i think that’s how the vast majority of the magic systems were during this book. it was obviously so focused on the spirit sickness david was facing that it shirked discussing how any of the society was founded, structured, how magic came to be. how people have (or develop?) magic. maybe that’s the fantasy nerd in me that wanted more. and with the way the story ended i do think it could be explore a lot more,

if done correctly. so for that reason i’d probably still be tempted to continue on. but also because of the way it ends with clearly more story there. i assume duology? guess we’ll have to see.

alright, and this is a note that i’m hoping only applies to arc readers, but i guess a note before i mention this. i’m not usually one to mention spelling/grammar issues in an early copy because i obviously expect a few more passes. but usually there’s only like one or two here and there. this copy was rifled with them. at one point a chapter was even labelled with the wrong character name, which was so confusing to me for a good few pages. i really do hope this book gets a few more passes before may.

i should say, overall this may seem like i’m only bashing this book. but i’m not. i honestly see such potential for this story and where it can go. i think the concept is so unique. i love the characters individually. and with where we ended this first book with, they could easily become favorites of mine. it’s just these few gripes that made it tough to get through at certain points.