2.5 stars

tw: torture; gore

While this book had a good premise, the execution of a lot of the elements was lacking. This felt like a second book more than the first book in a series. It felt like it started in the wrong place. There could have been a whole other book before this that laid a foundation, built character motivations, and made relationships more believable. That would have made this story stronger in my opinion.

The first 1/3 of this book is very slow, and I almost gave up on it because of how little I cared. The later half of the book is much more court intrigue, which I enjoyed more. However, our main character of Renata is... frustrating. She makes a lot of decisions without any reason to back it up, and largely ignores the hints that are right in front of her face. Even by the end, some of her reactions to things don't make sense. Because we also don't have a lot of time with the side characters, those relationships don't feel very fleshed out as well.

Additionally, the world-building was much more flat than I expected. There are multiple elements that are not at all explained when it could be a very cool part of the story.

Ultimately, although I enjoyed some thing about the middle and end of this book, I don't think I care enough to continue on with this series.