• Author: Destiny Soria
• Series: Standalone
• Genre: Fantasy
• No. of pages: 480
• Dates read: 25.09.21 – 02.10.21
• Star Rating: 4 stars

Plot: In the city of Eldra, people are ruled by ancient prophecies. For centuries, the high council has stayed in power by virtue of the prophecies of the elder seers. After the last infallible prophecy came to pass, growing unrest led to murders and an eventual rebellion that raged for more than a decade. In the present day, Cassa, the orphaned daughter of rebels, is determined to fight back against the high council, which governs Eldra from behind the walls of the citadel. Her only allies are no-nonsense Alys, easygoing Evander, and perpetually underestimated Newt, and Cassa struggles to come to terms with the legacy of rebellion her dead parents have left her — and the fear that she may be inadequate to shoulder the burden. But by the time Cassa and her friends uncover the mystery of the final infallible prophecy, it may be too late to save the city — or themselves.

This book is the epitome of under hyped. Everyone needs to get this book and read it now. Not enough people know about this book. I knew nothing about it going into it, I had 0 expectations and now I will be raving about it until my dying day!!!

Starting off with the writing, what I loved so much about this novel was the way it was structured. We get 2 different kinds of chapters in this book. Normal present day chapters told from multiple POVs and flashback chapters that help give an insight into character relationships and backstories. I felt the constant switching from POV to POV and present day to the past really helped with the pacing of the novel, as it felt fast paced as it was constantly moving with some new focus to read from with every chapter, but it also helped with my investment and engagement of the story. It was one of the reasons why I couldn’t put the book down because I was always given a fresh new perspective or further insight into what drives a character.

In terms of characters, not one character was badly written in this story. 1. We great great LGBTQ+ and mental health representation in this novel. 2. They are just all so layered and I was genuinely rooting for everyone in our main group. They were made so incredibly likeable even when they did things that frustrated me. Soria wrote the characters so well that you could truly understand why they made the decisions they did drastic or not. I felt like I knew these characters as if I grew up with them myself. I enjoyed watching them go on this adventure, I cried with them and I laughed with them.

The plot itself was super exciting. I was invested from the first 100 pages of the novel. I really enjoyed watching the mystery unfold and trying to figure out for myself how it was going to end. I think the world building in this novel was done really well. I really enjoyed learning about how the world functioned and all they varying magical abilities, I liked exploring how it affected different characters and what their strengths were. The magic system was so interesting and something that I hadn’t seen done before and it was so inventive it meant you could so much with the plot as it allowed you to make loads of character decisions you wouldn’t normally be able to do with normal human limitations which made the plot super fun as you weren’t sure who you could trust.

Overall, this was an amazing novel with a crazy plot, incredible characters and an engaging story structure. I highly recommend this novel.

The next book I will be reviewing is The Monsters of Rookhaven by Padraig Kenny.