This is the first book in the Nightblade trilogy and is a solid epic fantasy done in more of an old school style. It was similar in tone to series done by Joe Abercrombie and Brent Weeks.
I listened to this on audiobook and the audiobook was well done. My only complaint is that the narrator sounds a bit robotic at points, especially when he is reading the narration rather than doing a character voice.
This book follows multiple characters. The first we hear from is Ryuu, an orphaned boy who is found and mentored by a mythical Nightblade. The second is Moriko who is forced to join a monastery because of her innate magical talent. The third is Takako, a beautiful young woman sold to a brothel by her father. We watch as they grow up in a kingdom on the brink of war.
There is excellent world-building here and the characters are engaging, if infuriating at times. The writing flows well and the shifts between character POV are clearly marked and easy to follow.
My main complaint is the amount of violence done to women and the lack of a truly strong female character. Although there are two main female characters, they both have incredible violence committed against them time and time again. In addition to that (even the female fighter) needs to be rescued by the main male hero. There is a lot of discussion about how smart and capable these women are but that capability is never shown. The whole thing reads like a fantasy targeted at young men.
I am going to warn those away who don’t like reading about violence against women. In the first chapter alone there are multiple rape scenes. One of the main female characters deals with repeated rapes. In addition to that both of the main female characters are often humiliated with forced nudity and brutally tortured. While I understand that this is part of the story, I was curious as to why similar tortures and humiliations never happened to the male characters.
Aside from the above rather large issue, I liked the idea of the Nightblades and thought the story telling and writing were solid. There is good world-building here. This story very much echoes traditional ninja/samurai tales and seems to pull from a lot of Asian influences around ideas of honor and with respect to how the fight scenes are laid out.
Overall, despite some good storytelling here, my dislike about reading about violence and rape against women and the lack of any truly strong female characters turned me off on continuing the series. I would recommend to fans of Brent Weeks and Joe Abercrombie…to be clear I have similar issues with these authors and their “use” of female characters.