I ended up enjoying this book far more than I anticipated. I’d seen the mixed reviews and low average rating. And if it wasn’t for one thing, I think this book would’ve been a solid 4-Star read. Unfortunately, that one thing was the writing style, which is kind of important.

What I liked:

1. The premise. I love the idea that all of these people are misfits in some way. They come from different backgrounds and cultures, but come together to survive.

2. The execution of the story. I thought this story was very engaging. I didn’t want to put it down when I was reading. It’s fast paced and fun, even though fun may be a strange word to use to describe a book that gets pretty brutal.

3. High stakes. This book did not pull punches at all. People die, and the descriptions of fights and battles are blunt and somewhat gruesome. I liked the tension and sense of urgency that was created in this story.


What I didn’t like:

1. The writing. It really all comes down to the writing style for me. As addicting as the story was and how engrossed I wanted to be in it, I kept getting taken out of it by anachronistic dialogue and narration.

Now, I understand that this is a fantasy world and so the language isn’t *truly* out of its time because the author has a lot of leeway to create his own world. However, this is set in a time of Kings and Queens, before any real technological achievement. The ladies wear dresses, people ride horses...it’s not a modern setting. But then you hear these characters speak, and it’s like I’m reading a YA contemporary. Tilla is the worst offender, both is her speech and also her narration.

Some examples of modern words/phrases used in this book:

‘Partying’ pg 5
‘Make out’ pg 12, 26, 93, 233
‘Old fogeys’ pg 15
‘Snot-nosed brats’ pg 21
‘Just stay cool’ pg 25
‘He was hot.’ Pg 25, 246
‘Ate it right up’ pg 42
‘Mammoth’ pg 44 (this one may not be anachronistic, but this word exists because of the wooly mammoth. Did wooly mammoths exist in this fantastical world? If they did, then never mind.)
‘Get laid’ pg 51
‘Psycho’ pg 74, 117, 137
‘Crazy-ass’ pg 74
‘Same old shit’ pg 77
‘Straight up tried to kill him’ pg 77-78
‘Shut your face’ pg 78
‘Going at it’ pg 203
‘Hook up’ pg 229, 260

If I showed someone a list of these phrases and asked them what genre of fiction they belong to, I can’t imagine historical fantasy would be their first, second, or even third guess.

There were also several instances where entire sentences just struck me as very strange to see. They just seem too laid-back for this type of story.

‘She smiled at me and winked, actually, for real, winked. Pg 43

‘And I was still really pissed at him...’ pg 45

‘Lady Hampstedt was famous for her lack of tact, but come on, lady!’ Pg 53

‘“Exploded” doesn’t do it justice. It blew the hell up.’ Pg. 56
-This one is silly because to me if someone told me something blew up and then they said it exploded, I wouldn’t think one was more intense than the other. This just feels like the author trying to give Tilla a bad-ass edge. She swears a lot in this book and oftentimes it seems a little forced.

The unfortunate part of this is that the author is actually not bad at description. Right after the ‘blew the hell up’ comment he describes the explosion and how it affected them and it’s pretty good. It’s definitely evocative. But then he slips back into this modern style voice for this character and it just doesn’t work.

‘I wolfed down a handful of berries and they were, no joke, the most delicious things I’d ever tasted.’ 102

‘We’re so screwed.’ 114

‘I knew I was maybe overdoing it with the fantasies of Zell and me as Lightspire’s hottest couple.’ 237

‘He turned away from me with a shrug, and, holy shit, did that shrug piss me off.’ 238

‘You’re bullshitting us. You’ve never hooked up with anyone? Not even Lord Galen Hotpants?’ 260

I’m sure there are many people who will consider this nitpicky, and that’s totally within their right. But to me, it just took me out of the story.

2. Underdeveloped characters. Even though I liked the idea of the found family among this group of people, I do wish these characters were more developed. They all take on different archetypes and become a little one-dimensional, and the book suffers for it. I really wanted to like them, and there were moments that I did appreciate. But at the end of the day, I wish the characters were stronger.


Other odds and ends:

1. Lyriana has this whole speech about her first kiss and how it will be on her wedding day and how it will something sacred and special for her and her husband to share forever. Literally the next thing she says is that of course her marriage will be arranged because marriages are about politics and accruing power and not at all about love. I’m sorry, but these two things should be mutually exclusive. You can’t say that it will be sacred and special and then say that it’s political with no feelings involved.

2. There are a few inconsistencies with the characters. Tilla at one point talks about how strong she’s become and how when she was back at the palace she would’ve woken ‘half the castle’ with a stubbed toe. Literally nothing we’d seen or been told before that suggests that is true. For crying out loud, she oftentimes sleeps on a hard-wood floor by her brother’s bed in the stables because she’d rather be there than her fancy room in the castle. She is far from the pampered princess if we are to believe her in the beginning of the story, but by the halfway point we’re supposed to forget about that?
Also, Lyriana uses her heart magic early in the book, which seems to physical drain her, but when she does it later in the book she is fine. Doesn’t even seem to affect her. Maybe we’re supposed to believe her power has grown, but we’re never given any indication that it was progressing throughout the book.

3. I was only so-so on the romance in this book. Zell is interesting, but not well-developed. And Tilla was probably my least favorite character. I was more invested in a secondary romance that we barely got to see. However, I disagree with the people saying this book has a love triangle. Tilla is never interested in the other party. She is only interested in Zell the entire time. To me, in a true love triangle, there has to be at least some feelings on both sides.

I will be reading the next book. I liked this story quite a bit, and I need to know what happens next with these characters. I just hope I can settle into the writing style and just accept that he’s chosen to use modern language to portray his characters and the story.