This book wasn’t at all like I thought it would be, to great effect! It’s a unique blend of SFF in that it’s both an ancient Asian culture milieu fantasy world but also a science fiction future with technology. Kind of like some anime, maybe? A kind of historical fiction, I guess? Whatever it is, it works pretty well. There’s some hand waving in the worldbuilding but I honestly don’t care to get into the granular details of settings like that as a reader regardless.

Primarily, it’s a character study set in the tensions of war time, within a traditional and regressive mountain town. We follow a mother and wife with a past and her son, and through that lens the rest of the cast. It highly effectively explores hard subject matter through that gaze—on top of actual war—such as toxic relationships, not just rooted in masculinity but a myriad of ways in which tradition is both good and bad.

It has some seriously fantastic cohesive themes and character work. I would have been happy with just a family drama exploration. I was enthralled from the get go.

With the addition of war and physical conflicts, which are written hauntingly well, this book manages to hit incredible heights of excitement and sadness. The magic system and world building is developed enough that you feel like every interaction is grounded and flows and follows what preceded it well.

Sometimes it feels overwritten and hand-holdy, especially with some interactions. I think the author could have trusted the reader a bit more, given it’s an adult fiction book. It felt like it was coming from YA sometimes because of the specifics of innocuous details or the reiteration of things you already know.

However, this would have easily been a 5 star review for me if it hadn’t felt like the conclusion had been reached after the chapter The Duel. It was just such a perfect chapter and tied up so much of the themes and plot, that at most maybe one more chapter to tie a bow on it would be good; except that it kept going long after the emotional punch had landed, and then used up the momentum to kind of tie things together that didn’t really need it, at least for me. Also seemed like it set up a plot line for later, but most of it could have been the opening chapter of an entirely different book that picked up where this one ended.

Regardless, it is a fantastic read and my expectations were trounced. Highly recommend it. Very moving. Sometimes incredibly horrific, but not for the sake of shock and awe.
Content warning for domestic abuse, violence against children, rape, Graphic Gore.