So, this story starts off pretty dark as indicated by the blurb, but the author couldn’t commit and keep this story on a darkish revenge/vengeance quest that it started with. Which is fine given this is a series, and I’m not into grimdark stuff, but at the same time, the story got sidetracked with several side plots, character inconsistencies. contriviances, Deux ex Machina, plot armor, and unexplained events. For the most part, it’s an entertaining story if you can get over a few things.
The MC’s Arbor and Karria are written like infuriating children. First, let me stop here and say I’m decades older than a YA and this is the second YA novel I chose to indulge in. So, there’s that. But I was once a teenager, once 15 and 18, same ages as both MC’s and I didn’t do half the things they did just in normal everyday life interacting with girls, etc.
For example, Arbor will acknowledge a woman is making advances at him, you’re made aware of this because he feels guilty about his lost loved one, but turn right around in the same scene and act like he doesn’t understand why the woman is acting the way she is, saying the things she is, etc. Both will demand answers to questions but the author wouldn’t have them process the information they were given. Yet, Arbor somehow could figure out how to magically use, well his magic without any actual training. This became the culprit of much plot armor, Deus ex Machina salvations, and unexplained events. Yes, even when the author decided to explain it to you after the fact.
Character inconsistencies. The biggest culprit of this is the elf boy, Sylvester. When you first meet him he seems like an honorable and kind kid. In fact, you’re told a few times that he has such a kind heart that he just can’t stomach killing someone or having them killed, even if the person deserves it, or it will serve the greater good to get rid of an extremely dangerous person. Yet, at some point in the story, he turns into a compulsive liar, one who harms Karria through his lies despite his supposedly “oh so kind heart” and all for the sake of creating drama between Karria and a handful of new characters. Drama that doesn’t even last that long. And his reason for doing so remains unexplained for the entirety of the story. Not in a mysterious sort of way, but in a “the author couldn’t be bothered to explain it” sort of way.
Sylvester is also the culprit of the most infuriating point in the book. As stated he has such a kind heart that he talks someone down from taking out an enraged dangerous person who let them know before he caused the foolish action, that she wasn’t going to simply stop trying to kill them. In fact, because of him, she gets the upper hand and even after that, he goes out of his way to stop someone from killing her accomplice, who was also eager to try to kill someone.
At the end, the author seemed to forget another character’s plotline that he started at the beginning of the final battle. Whether or not it was haphazard, last-minute editing, we’ll likely never know. But one of the side characters goes off to get reinforcements, but never comes back. I believe the author forgot in favor of having the MC have an outlandish duel with a random, literally conjured up big bad at the end who had nothing to do with anything that was going on. Given how another supposed big bad was diminished as a supposed twist, I suspect that’s also what this was, but the aforementioned plotline was completely forgotten. I suspect when I pick up book 2, it might resurface, but who knows.
Overall, as I said, this wasn’t a horrid story. Soundbooth theater did a good job with the narration. I quite prefer that male narrators do male voices and female narrators do female voices. Sadly, you can’t find too many stories across multiple genres that embrace that type of narration.