Spoilers are in this toward the bottom.
The way this is set up you can buy it on for your Kindle for 99 cents. OR you can sign up on his website to receive an email to get the ebook for free. Once you've read the first one and review it on Amazon, you can get the second book for free as well.
So, I started reading this while I bicycled in my bedroom. I received the free ebook so I figured, new book why not? It was a decent read. It
feels very much like an introduction. A very long introduction to the characters.
This book
probably could have been condensed into a prologue in some way or form. It's an enormous, "here are the characters.." with not too much going on.
However, it does feel bouncy as the story moves but is shaky as to why the characters are moving in the direction and doing what they're doing. But again, this is an introduction to who I assume are characters I'll be seeing throughout this series.
Even though I believe this could be condensed, I enjoyed the read.
One of the issues I had with the story was: Gem eyed Annis’ dark skin and Loren’s pale face. “I see that you take me
for a fool, which is your folly. I have told you I might have been a
scholar. And even a simpleton could see your claim is false.”
However, he does address this in a twitter conversation:
"You're right! That was a bungle on my part. I still had a lot to learn
about inclusive rep, and a lot of my biases came through my writing in
assumed "defaults." I'd like to think I've gotten better as the books
have gone on—hopefully.
(And just to clarify, I STILL have much to learn on it. I don't plan to
ever stop looking for ways to improve the rep in my books.)"
So, hopefully, it does turn out into something positive. But all around so far it's a fairly good read. I purchased...what I think is the rest of the series or very least what's been published. There's a volume 1 & 2 and at the time I bought them. So, yes, I now have two copies of Nightblade but I'm fine with that.
I
really like the covers of these two books. I wish I could afford the hardcovers! But that won't happen for a long while.
The way the characters talk feels like a mangled and it was annoying to read when I first started reading it. I would quit and come back to it before I finally became adjusted to the way they talk.
Loren lives in a small village. Both her parents are abusive assholes toward her and seem to hate her. Her mother wants to marry her off, they have a high asking price for her so there doesn't seem to be anyone who wants to drop that much money on her.
Her father wants to keep her around to do the work like chopping wood. As per abusive people it feels more like he just wants to control her and probably doesn't give a thought to the wood.
"You think you can escape me?" her father said, changing tack. "I learned these lands years before I spilled you between your mother's legs. Nowhere in Selvan can you hide from me. Ready yourself for sleepless nights by bright fire. For if you close your eyes in sleep, if for even a moment you let yourself sit in darkness--"
Then she sticks an arrow into him interrupting his big baddie speech.
She's desperate to leave her life that she ends up running away with a grown ass man who is wanted. Unless I've missed it while reading, we still don't know why he's in it with the law but he is.
He ditches her and she ends up joining a merchant caravan who seem nice but apparently are some sketchy rich folk who are friends with the royals. I weirdly like them until I read on further to discover if they're 100% evil folk or just different.
So, she ends up in a new city with a new ally. Gets lost, decides she wants to join a pickpocket group because...she dreams of being a legendary thief so this feels like the kind of internship she needs to get into.
She makes a friend here and finds out that the person running the group is actually evil. She's abusive toward the boys and it's suggested that she probably kills the girls once they become "of age".
She's a teenager and she lives in this imaginary world mentally where she'll become like her favorite story hero. So, it feels to me, that she doesn't have a grasp too much on risks. She risks herself and Gem a lot more than necessary because of things that she wants to do and "needs" to do. But they always get out of whatever shenanigans she drops them into.
Her father isn't brought up again. The friend she made with the merchants? Doesn't show back up until toward the end of the story. Gem sticks around once he is introduced though at least. But there is a lot of introducing a character then they stay off screen for a very long time. Or, at least for me that is how it feels.
I enjoyed the read bought the rest of them so I'll be working my way through this series.
