The best way I can initially describe Five Broken Blades is that its not the book thats sold through the blurb. I went into this thinking there was going to be some real sneaky shit, some espionage, some real intrigue but instead it was an InstaLust Fest without any actual smut.

My issue with this is not only the miss sell but the simple fact that if you're going to make this a story about loveable rogues finding love, then at least put your big girl pants on and actually follow through. For three separate couples to have slow burn that just fades to black is extremely childish. I dont care how childish that makes me sound for wanting it lol but it basically set the book up to be a tease. It starts out with content warnings for fuck sake and nothing about this was remotely worthy of a warning sign so I was really annoyed by the set up to not actually follow through.

I didnt go in with any expectations or knowledge of what this was so for those expecting romance, it might not have been such a let down. For those like me who thought it would have more substance, then i was left a little confused if i'm honest. A big thing that let this down was the repetitive nature of the writing. It was quite immature and all very obvious with more telling then showing. We knew what was motivating them all the time, there was no real mystery about anything. Even the reveals at the end were fairly predictable and I'd guessed all but one by the end which while isn't terrible, just felt a bit unfulfilling.

What I did like however was the play on the title. Five Broken Blades is not any physical blades being broken but the broken psyche and lives of the killers of the story. I liked that all of them had some kind of backstory/past that was fuelling them towards taking part in this heist. The plot itself was fairly straightforward although a little repetitive as mentioned.

There are quite a few characters in this and even though i listened to the audio, it was actually difficult to really differentiate between the characters. Mikhail, Euyne and Tiyung all sounded the same. Only Royo made me laugh and his way of speaking really messed me up haha so funny. I actually laughed out loud so many times with him that it really made helped me stay around for the rest of the story. Aeri was really childish and even though this was explained by the end, it didnt really help after disliking her so much at the start. She just felt silly.
So much more could have been done with Sora being a Poison Maiden aka an assassin but not much was shown of that either.

There was an overall negative gaze on women throughout the novel which wasnt really set up well enough for me. Sure, men didnt really like women a lot in this world but it was never explained...why. So there was just random misogyny for no reason which didnt help me connect to the world in the best way.

Overall it was just a little lacklustre for me.