This was an impulse pick up in the new releases sections of my local library. Only regret is that it's the beginning of a series that is still being written. #fantasyreaderproblems

Kalyna’s family have been traveling soothsayers for generations, never laying down roots, making money off their Gift. Until Kalyna that is. She does not have the Gift but still has to support her ailing father and cantankerous grandmother. So she uses informants, educated guesses, her wits, and sometimes outright tricks to make her prophecies. Unfortunately, her skills are good enough to catch the attention of a noble. Kalyna is “voluntold” that her skills will be used to uncover threats against a king. Turns out, that doesn’t even scratch the surface. Kalyna and the royal court are about to get way more threats than they bargained for.

I did not expect what I got. There was a lot of world building and tons of political intrigue. But it wasn’t heavy handed in the way that some fantasy novels can be. We all know the ones. We dive in head first and so excited only to get stalled out by some long ranting description of area history. Spector didn’t do that. His world building was interspersed throughout the novel in small doses that made sense with the narrative. And while the book was only broken into large parts, each part has subchapters that made me feel like I was reading so fast.

Only thing that slowed down my reading on this one was pronunciations. I was so engaged that I felt like I had to get each character’s name just right so that meant I would sit there and say the name outloud a couple times until it sounded right. But then again, this is another fantasy reader problem and didn’t detract from the overall story.