First read: July 2022 
Reread: January 2025 

This book has firmly established itself as one of my all-time favourites. 

I should probably preface this review by flagging that it’s a spin-off to Brigid Kemmerer’s Cursebreakers series. I have not actually read the Cursebreakers series as the first time I picked this up, I didn’t realise they were related. I do suspect that there are some things I missed having not read those first, but honestly, there was nothing obvious beyond not knowing the full detail of past events that were mentioned. I think Brigid Kemmerer does such a fantastic job of setting up this book and world that this can work as a standalone series. 

We are thrown straight into the action from the first page and I was hooked from that moment on. Despite being a longer book, it’s pacy and not one of the 540+ pages felt like a slog to get through. The plot was engaging and I was thoroughly invested, cheering characters on at certain points and muttering about them at others. 

The book is multi-POV, told from the perspective of three characters: Tycho, the King’s Courier, Jax, a blacksmith in a smaller border town, and Callyn, a baker and Jax’s best friend from the same town. Jax and Callyn find themselves caught up in something much bigger than them, arousing Tycho’s interest as he delivers messages between Emberfall and Syhl Shallow. I really enjoyed this multi-POV approach as it allowed us to really understand each character and their motivations. It did feel like we heard slightly less from Callyn’s perspective and I wonder if this is why, of the three, I found her the most frustrating and probably least likeable (I ADORED Jax and Tycho) but actually Callyn had by far the biggest development arc and I’m excited to see what comes next for her. 

There is also a multi-romance sub-plot (although not a love triangle as the three POVs might suggest) and a lot of sub-plots relating to friendships and relationships, including those between Callyn and Jax, and Tycho, King Grey and Prince Rhen. The ups and downs of these relationships were masterfully weaved into our main plot which focuses on the perceived threat of magic to the kingdom of Syhl Shallow. All of our characters are bound up with past events in some way and it was so interesting to see how events and attitudes are shaped (and misshapen), influenced and twisted by manipulation, fear and ignorance (and how this affects the relationships our characters have with each other). 

I’ve had the best time re-reading this ahead of book 2 releasing. This was a fun fantasy with disability and queer rep and I really do see myself returning to this time and time again.