Overall, I really enjoyed this. I've been anticipating it for quite some time so I was super excited when an ARC came my way.
This book follows three characters in an established fantasy world that's still trying to put the pieces back together after a revolution six years ago. One is Lu, who's parents fought in the revolution, and was a soldier herself, even though she was a kid, she was sent to listen in on conversations, going unnoticed by Argridians. Now, her mother is the head of Grace Loray's Council. Vex is a pirate and heretic, one with no loyalty to any country or kingdom. But he's gotten himself captured by soldiers in Grace Loray. Ben is the crown prince of Argrid, a kingdom ruled by religion and the Pious God, but he wants nothing to do with the religion, and has a fascination with herbal magic, a sin in his kingdom. Now that the revolution is over, Grace Loray and Argrid are trying to reach some sort of peace, but it isn't going well.
What I didn't like about this book was the slow beginning. A lot of fantasy novels are like this, but there is a way to make it less slow and introduce action more quickly when writing fantasy. So that bothered me, and I hate that it'll turn a lot of people off. Because we're following three characters, all of whom at first aren't interacting with each other, there's a lot that get cuts off in favour of moving to another character and then backtracking when we need more explanation. Once the world is more established, this goes away, but the first 100 or so (the ARC is over 400 pages) are slow-going. Knowing that the ARC has more pages than the final copy, it makes me wonder if maybe stuff got cut out, or if the text is just smaller in the final copy.
I also didn't really like Ben. His problems were pretty minuscule compared to Vex and Lu. His relationship with Jakes kinda put me off, too. Jakes is wholeheartedly Argridian, he believes in the Pious God's path for him and serves his King. But Ben doesn't at all. He's completely against this religion, and it makes their dynamic incredibly unbalanced, and not very healthy. Without giving spoilers, this does get rectified. But I also hate that the only queer representation was this imbalanced relationship.
What I did like about this book, was that once it really got started, I couldn't put it down. Raasch is great with action, always leaving you guessing what might happen. And while I did find a few of my predictions being correct, there were more predictions that went out the window, she surprised me, even with all the hints, and that's great storytelling.
This world gave me Six of Crows and Shades of Magic vibes, so I think you'll like this if you enjoyed those, as long as your willing to go through the world-developing first.
I really liked the differences between the characters and their opinions and beliefs about the world they live in. They each showed a lot of character growth. Lu starts out thinking that Grace Loray is perfect, that everything they do is for the good of everyone. Vex helps her realize that just because Grace Loray fought Argrid for their radical beliefs, Grace Loray isn't all good, either. At the same time, Ben doesn't agree with his father's/kingdom's beliefs, but has to tiptoe around to make sure he doesn't put himself in danger. This look at politics is honestly really parallel to everything going on in both U.S. and Canadian politics right now.
Overall, I love that this is a duology, and I'll definitely be reading the second/final book.
4/5 stars!