This book went in a direction I didn't quite expect - it almost feels more like a prequel than the true first book in a story, and our main character Jeni is an unusual heroine, though not in a bad way. We see the whole story from her perspective, but at least for the story contained in this book, she is a secondary player in much of the action, the "sidekick" if you will. It's very clear she holds much more than that, and both she and her "cousin" Sisi (there's some stuff to unpack there and I've got to say that even an unrequited crush on a non-blood relative is making me itch a bit... I'd love for fantasy stories to stop making pseudo-incest happen when they could just.... not) know that she's formidable in her own way. But the climax of the story, the potential consequences and the big choices, largely center around Sisi and not Jeni, which may be why I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Jeni to become the central actor. She didn't quite, but I am intrigued about where this story is going - it seems to be clearly leading towards a sequel, one I'd definitely love to pick up. I tore right through this book, and was intrigued - I just felt too much was missing (including that I don't quite think the villain was defeated, like, at all... and it wasn't mentioned as much as I thought it should be) and will wait for the next installment of the series to decide if the parts that were missing were on purpose and will be handled later, or if they were simply overlooked. I did love a queer fantasy story that wasn't centered on a reciprocal romance, but I will note that although an interesting queer story, this is not a queer normative world, but flush with deep seated heteronormativity.

Thanks to NetGalley and GenZ/Zenith Publishing for the ARC!