A new adventure

filled star filled star filled star filled star star unfilled
indrute_ Avatar

By

This book was a pleasure to read. So much adventure, and interesting characters. The story itself takes in this magical world, that is mainly a desert.

The people there have different kinds of magic - they can control different things, like write out spells on paper or body to make things happen; some can enchant items to provide water or food; there are healers and shifters, and even those who can read minds. But there are also those that don't have any kind of magic, and are called forsaken - the lowest class, that doesn't "exist" to the royals.

The main character by accident gets caught up in the big competition for the next heir, and gets deemed a sacrifice. The three possible heirs have to race to some special caves, where they make the sacrifice and not only earn their place on the throne but gain new magic.

The adventure was fun, the banter entertaining, but there were things missing for me. For example the race wasn't explained well. The details were revealed as the race happened which made the journey a bit confusing as well as the role of the sacrifice in the grand scheme of things. Same with the magic system. Bits and pieces are revealed through the book, but they felt disjointed. Like things were made up along the way. There's political conflict in this world too, that again is kind of mentioned backhanded. There are mentions of other countries that want to declare war, but why - it isn't discussed much.

It seems like there are a lot of introductions to plots that possibly will be shown more in later books, but it isn't fun to have a dangling carrot and never get to taste it. For example that flame horse?

I did like the themes of this book. Finding a way to solve problems with kindness rather than violence. The discussion of different classes and the inequalities of human life between them. They are important themes to talk about.

Overall it was a good and fun adventurous book. Looking forward to the next one in the series to see how much more of the world we get to see and explore.