A promising debut novel

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The premise of this book immediately captivated me. Pirates of the Caribbean vibes with a hunger games like trial for the crown? sign me up.

The World Building: there wasn't a ton of world building but for being as short as it is, you get what is needed and I felt I knew enough to follow the story for the most part.

The Characters: I liked all of them but I probably didn't need 3 points of view in this book. I would have preferred maybe only 2 points of view. the MC's were all good, likeable, morally grey characters but it just felt like too much jumping around and I wanted to get to know the main characters more than I did. I probably would have liked at least more Kane as he was my favorite.

The Plot: the beginning drew me in quickly, it felt very much like the opening scenes of Pirates of the Caribbean but then there was about 150 pages of setup before we even got to the trials. it felt like a lot of setup only for the trials themselves to not last that long and then it was over. I wanted more fights, more interactions between the characters, more hatred for the bad guys etc. it was such a good part of the plot and it just wasn't long enough for me!

overall, this book had good bones and I was impressed by it for being a debut novel but there are definitely a lot of improvement areas. I give it a 3.5 stars out of 5. I will likely willingly read the next one as I do want to see where these characters go!