Based on what I’ve heard about this series I was expecting it to be much more brutal or problematic. Don’t get me wrong, this book has heavy themes and you should definitely proceed with caution if sexual violence, rape, slavery, pedophilia, or incest are triggering topics for you. There are very explicit, on page depictions of those things. It felt pretty obvious to me that the narrative was condemning these things, and there were even on page discussions of the morality of the characters and their actions. This is simply a world where slavery exists and each of the characters interacts with that system in a different way. But I get it if the disturbing content was too much for some people, because there are times where it was uncomfortable to read.

I wouldn’t consider this book a romance. Even if a romantic relationship develops between Damen and Laurent, the focus seems to be the worldbuilding and the political intrigue. I would squarely put this in the political fantasy category. You definitely shouldn’t expect any romance in this first installment. 

I thought the writing was just okay. It definitely felt like a fanfiction at times due to some of the more trope-y elements. My main issue was the pacing and the character development. The beginning dragged quite a bit and things didn’t pick up until maybe 50 or 60 percent of the way through when the political scheming became the main focus - which I enjoyed. The characterization is pretty shallow, but I have heard that the second and third books are better so I’m assuming that it improves over time. 

Overall this was just fine. I read it out of curiosity due to the discourse around the content of the book and thought it was okay. I’ll probably continue the series because they’re so short and because I’m curious to see how things develop.