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scarlett_anais's review against another edition
5.0
oh my god i have to reread this. it is so rare for me to get hooked on a fantasy novel. love love LOVE
pip94's review against another edition
3.0
This one is a bit of a tricky one to rate because although I did end up enjoying it, I did also have quite a few issues with it. I'll start with some positives - I thought this was a good introduction to this trilogy, the characters were a little cliched but they were pretty well written, the plot is engaging and compelling and the writing is quite easy to get into, although clunky at times. You can tell that this was her first book, but I didn't dislike the writing. Now onto some negatives - it contains the extremely overused (at this point) trope of 'The One'/'The Chosen One'. I don't mind this if it is done well but I think in this book I think it didn't quite work. This was mainly due to Tor's development of his powers - one chapter he's discovering that he has magic, and then after a couple of chapters he seems to be in full control of his powers with little to no training... what? How can he suddenly be so adept at magic? I just didn't make sense to me. For me the character development was also lacking. Don't get me wrong we do get development we just don't see it. Five years past at some point in the book so we don't get to see how the characters develop into adults, if that makes sense. I wanted more depth from the characters too - I felt what we got from them was quite surface level. One thing I really didn't like was the girl on girl hate for no obvious reason other than they are female - not a fan of that at all. The plot probably could have been shorter. Other than that, it was a good read, but as you can see it wasn't without flaws.
g8girl's review against another edition
4.0
This book is good, but by no means is it her best work. I found A LOT of similarities between this novel and Odalisque. I believe this was her first novel, and while it's a good book, I wasn't able to fly through it like the others. It feels as though she had some great ideas which she tried but didn't perfect until she re used them for Odalisque. A bit of a disappointment, but still readable. It would have been better if I had not read Odalisque already, but then I wouldn't like Odalisque as much as I did.
bluebec's review
1.0
I didn't enjoy this book, I won't be reading the second one, I certainly don't care enough about the characters or the world to find out what happens next, but that isn't what really bugs me enough about this book to give it only 1 star.
My biggest problem in this book was the actual writing. Now I understand that this was Fiona McIntosh's first book, but she clearly needed a better editor. In the prologue alone, I kept losing track of who was being written about, the constant use of pronouns, but no one's name meant that I had to keep backtracking to figure out what was happening to who, and who was thinking about who. This continued in the story as well. The prologue also was written assuming knowledge of the world and key players, something that the reader does not possess, as they've just picked up the book.
The switching from first person narrative of a key character to first person narrative of a bit part character was jarring, and something that really didn't fit.
I've read and enjoyed bad fiction before, but this was so bad that I almost put it down and didn't continue reading, I kept on in the hope it would get better, I didn't think it did.
My biggest problem in this book was the actual writing. Now I understand that this was Fiona McIntosh's first book, but she clearly needed a better editor. In the prologue alone, I kept losing track of who was being written about, the constant use of pronouns, but no one's name meant that I had to keep backtracking to figure out what was happening to who, and who was thinking about who. This continued in the story as well. The prologue also was written assuming knowledge of the world and key players, something that the reader does not possess, as they've just picked up the book.
The switching from first person narrative of a key character to first person narrative of a bit part character was jarring, and something that really didn't fit.
I've read and enjoyed bad fiction before, but this was so bad that I almost put it down and didn't continue reading, I kept on in the hope it would get better, I didn't think it did.
philippamary_94's review
3.0
This one is a bit of a tricky one to rate because although I did end up enjoying it, I did also have quite a few issues with it. I'll start with some positives - I thought this was a good introduction to this trilogy, the characters were a little cliched but they were pretty well written, the plot is engaging and compelling and the writing is quite easy to get into, although clunky at times. You can tell that this was her first book, but I didn't dislike the writing. Now onto some negatives - it contains the extremely overused (at this point) trope of 'The One'/'The Chosen One'. I don't mind this if it is done well but I think in this book I think it didn't quite work. This was mainly due to Tor's development of his powers - one chapter he's discovering that he has magic, and then after a couple of chapters he seems to be in full control of his powers with little to no training... what? How can he suddenly be so adept at magic? I just didn't make sense to me. For me the character development was also lacking. Don't get me wrong we do get development we just don't see it. Five years past at some point in the book so we don't get to see how the characters develop into adults, if that makes sense. I wanted more depth from the characters too - I felt what we got from them was quite surface level. One thing I really didn't like was the girl on girl hate for no obvious reason other than they are female - not a fan of that at all. The plot probably could have been shorter. Other than that, it was a good read, but as you can see it wasn't without flaws.
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