I was obsessed, entangled, and enchanted by this book so much that I dragged it out because I didn't want it to end. I even gave myself two days to sit with it to figure out how I’d review it. 
World building, lore, tone, and language 10/10! Several things about this book made it immersive and vivid, one being the writing style, but I want to talk about the map. Specifically, how intertwined each family was with their houses and just how deeply the setting affected the plot and feel of the story overall. It’s hard to convey in words, it’s really something the reader experiences. I’d never felt the need to interact so much with a book’s map. I even ended up annotating it heavily. Every other page, I had to flip back to it to make connections to the characters and groups—whether it be through location, power dynamic, structure, etc. This is all just a roundabout way of commending the author’s writing now that I think about it. You can tell Tigest crafted this with so much care and attention, all I can do is thank her for giving a damn about the world she created and the people who traverse it.
 I haven't felt so deeply about a book in years. And this is coming from someone who despises enemies to lovers. That isn’t a trope I take up for fun, but I knew I wanted to read his book since February and now it’s my favorite read this year. 
Thankfully I don't need to like characters to be able to enjoy books because these people were a TRIP. They were complex, dimensional, and absolutely unhinged the lot of them. I adored how their studies merged with the storytelling. That was one of my favorite aspects; the conversations and discussions that were had. This book made me turn my brain on and not simply to solve the mysteries. By the end, I was attached to people I didn't think I'd be attached to and suffered that beautiful post-depression feeling that comes with excellent literature. 
The pacing was perfect for this story. It doesn’t start off slow, it is slow and that’s exactly how it should be. You really got to see the development and movement of the characters, relationships, and plot. Any diversion from the pace and it would’ve been jarring, plus a lot of it probably wouldn’t even make sense.
This is not a book for everyone, I will say that. It's marketed exactly how it is; dark. The characters are VERY morally grey, Kidan is an absolute mess (which made sense considering her circumstances IMO), and this is not something you should go into thinking it's going to be cute because it's not. This is not the kind of book I read on a regular basis and what other people disliked was what made the complexity of it a masterpiece. Despite all of it, this has been one of the most compelling things I’ve read and it was a wonderful experience. A super solid start to what I know will be an excellent trilogy.