First of all, I want to say that I really love how this opens. This book is set in the "afterward" of this great event, so the reader is walking in blind. There is a lot of information that needs to be conveyed, otherwise the reader is just gonna be really confused. And I think that this opening does an excellent job of doing that.
I also really love that the first character we see is the quest leader, a knight, female. This book immediately tosses gender expectations out the window and now I want all books to begin this way. I also like this opening because it sounds like the fairy tale version of what really happened, especially since it ends with "and they lived happily after." This message is conveyed when Olsa has to retell the story to little children. She has to make it PG and follow the "official story".
Added to that, there is also the chapter headings of "before" and "after". I suspect MAJOR plot twists.
The one thing that threw me off was the first person/third person narrative. We go from Olsa's third person After to Kalanthe's first person Before and then to Kalanthe's third person After. Again, I'm suspecting MAJOR plot twists.
I also really love that the first character we see is the quest leader, a knight, female. This book immediately tosses gender expectations out the window and now I want all books to begin this way. I also like this opening because it sounds like the fairy tale version of what really happened, especially since it ends with "and they lived happily after." This message is conveyed when Olsa has to retell the story to little children. She has to make it PG and follow the "official story".
Added to that, there is also the chapter headings of "before" and "after". I suspect MAJOR plot twists.
The one thing that threw me off was the first person/third person narrative. We go from Olsa's third person After to Kalanthe's first person Before and then to Kalanthe's third person After. Again, I'm suspecting MAJOR plot twists.