DNF at 27% 

I had high hopes for Reforged and I was drawn in by the "fealty + feelings" tagline but after a quarter of the book, I had to give up.

I really wanted to like this one but I found my eyes glazing over more than once right off the bat because of long paragraphs of convoluted in-world explanations of geography and kingdoms and roads and titles. I could have ignored that if the rest of the book had drawn me in, but sadly I didn't find the characters nor the plot very compelling.

Most of Zavrius' and Balen's decisions made little sense to me. Just a few examples: 

- Zavrius' entire family was recently murdered and he still insists he doesn't need a proper security escort causing one of his guards to get killed. Zav seemed more concerned about his instruments though so I guess that didn't actually matter to him?
- Speaking of all his siblings, all royals, heirs to the throne, getting murdered because they crossed a border into a neighbouring country - does Zavrius as the new king not even care to investigate? He maintains friendly relations and just accepts that these murders happened because his siblings should've known better?
- Balen nearly misses the biggest event in his life thus far because he lost track of time somehow, not exactly making him seem determined or qualified for the position of the most powerful and best (Prime) Paladin.
- He's Prime Paladin yet he thinks both he and Zav should go to sleep in the woods right after an assassination attempt, not sleep in shifts to keep watch.
- This then allows Zavrius to run off while Balen sleeps because… he lives to make it impossible for Balen to protect him? He also signed them up for a fighting match for some reason even though they're supposed to blend in and stay undercover
- When they get back to the city where they strongly suspect at least one, if not more, guards have betrayed them and were in on the assassination attempt in the woods, Balen lets Zav skip off into the palace with any number of possibly corrupt guards while he goes and does other things because why stay with the king he's sworn to protect?

I'm assuming the romance between the two leads comes later in the book because in the part I read, it was mostly just Zavrius continuously being passive aggressive about Balen previously having broken off their prior relationship, acting jealous, and trying to get Balen to agree to get back together. The inherent power imbalance between them made this seem kind of off to me but maybe it gets addressed later in the book.

I was so excited to read this book but it sadly just didn't work for me.

Thanks to BookSirens for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.