There's a stark contrast between the first and second half of this book and I am yet to decide whether the book itself or the series will be worth my time. I really liked how the book finished and plan to continue on reading out of curiosity and hope that the story will keep improving.

The story begins with Gideon trying to escape prison just to end up on a mission with her lifelong nemesis, Harrow, the Reverend Daughter. They end up as a necromancer and her cavalier in a competition between representatives of the other houses, theirs being the last one, the ninth.

There seems to be too many characters coming into the picture and sometimes disappearing just as quickly. It was a huge challenge for me to distinguish between them while listening to the audiobook. I had to keep looking to the character lists and fan illustrations in order to make some sense of what's happening and who is who. I did get invested into the murder misteries that followed and the action that took place later on got crazy and the story took a different turn. This is described as queer necromancers in space and the book combines multiple genre, it is a bit YA-ish with childish bickering in the beginning it weaves in plenty of humor, we have necromancy, swordfighting, misterious murders, and then space travel.

This is a 3.5 star read for me, but I'll round it up to 4 as the story kept improving.