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auri_underthing's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Amber. Steel. Reaper.
It was good, but not very original and very trope-y.
Also Keera’s constant reiteration of how terrible she was started getting irritating.
Graphic: Alcoholism
Moderate: Death and Blood
Minor: Self harm and Sexual harassment
kowhaiii's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
A Broken Blade was a brilliant debut novel with wonderful world building and memorable characters. I have many unanswered questions in the best and worst ways, and I can't wait for the series to continue! :D
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Self harm, Alcohol, and Colonisation
Moderate: Death, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Murder
Minor: Cursing, Genocide, Sexual assault, and Torture
sflory910's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Alcoholism, Physical abuse, Self harm, Slavery, Torture, Blood, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, and Sexual harassment
dragonwriter's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Keera is a halfling, half elf, half human, and halflings belong to the king. Males are sent to work hard labor, females are trained as assassins. Keera has been the King’s Blade, his chief assassin, for thirty years, using her position to protect other halflings or smuggle them to safety, but it isn’t enough. She’s still haunted by the lives she was ordered to snuff, forced to serve a king who doesn’t care about her people. Do when she’s ordered to eliminate the rebel Shade, she instead sees an opportunity to save all halflings by eliminating the royal line instead. But to do that, she has to win the trust of people who only see her as the King’s Blade.
A standard enemies to lovers story, my favorite part was when Keera yelled at Riven and made him see the importance of leadership and the consequences of poor leadership. It was a powerful section that shone bright in a paint-by-the-numbers fantasy.
Moderate: Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, and Colonisation
bookgrrl's review against another edition
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Self harm
Moderate: Torture
bisexualwentworth's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I bought the original self-published version back in 2021 and have a copy of that edition on my bookshelf. However, I ended up getting the traditionally published version as an ebook through the library, so all of my critiques are on the most polished version of the story, not the anonymous 2021 version.
I have a LOT of very lovely friends and mutuals who LOVE this book and for whom it means a lot. I am so happy that all of you have this book and that it gave you so much of value. I am also not going to hold back on any of my critiques simply because people I like and respect are going to disagree with them.
A Broken Blade by Melissa Blair is a quick, easy read. I breezed through it in a couple of days during my less-busy moments at work.
I've followed Blair on TikTok for several years, and I appreciate a lot of what she was trying to do with this book. In particular, she aimed to breathe diversity and an indigenous perspective into the very white-dominated (and frequently very racist) fantasy romance genre. I think she mostly succeeded in that goal.
I enjoyed some of the dialogue, and several characters had interesting moments. Killian was probably the most compelling character for me, but I also look forward to seeing more of Syrra and several others.
Blair's creation of the Shades was clearly inspired by a deeply personal knowledge of colonization and the horrors it inflicts on indigenous women in particular, and I look forward to a deeper exploration of their situation in the sequel.
The book is fast-paced, and the mystery is structured very competently, if also very obviously.
My first, and possibly biggest, issue with this book is the lack of depth to the world. I think that good fantasy writers ground their worlds in inspirations drawn from real-world cultures and real-world history. And this book has the IDEA of that inspiration, but it's not grounded in anything.
Basically, the entire aesthetic of this book is a renaissance faire. People wear corsets and cloaks and have leg slits in their dresses. I have no sense of the geography of this world beyond what is given in the map at the front. I have no sense of the agriculture or trade or economic system. I have no visuals of anything other than clothing, weapons, and some of the characters' faces. And I don't think that authors have to give us all of that, but it's very jarring to get these very in-depth descriptions of Keera's outfits and then have very little sense of the world at large.
"What if a basic fantasy world with a ren faire aesthetic was an evil colonialist power that enslaves and commits genocide against its magical creatures and we actually confronted that?" is a VERY compelling question to ask and a very compelling setup for a book. I just don't feel like A Broken Blade explores that question below the surface, and that's a problem that starts with the worldbuilding and continues through every single other aspect of the book.
I've heard many people point to Keera's character as a highlight of the book, and while I understand why other readers would like or relate to her, she simply did not work for me as a character. I did not feel like her alcoholism was handled very well. The balance of showing and telling was totally off (as with a lot of things in this book, honestly), and I felt like "oh yeah she takes this magical drug and it gets rid of her alcoholism and then her body looks better" was very much a cop-out of what could have been a fascinating and harrowing character arc about her struggles with addiction.
I honestly think Keera might have worked better as a third-person point-of-view character than she does as a first-person narrator. Her motivations all come to us in dialogue or in flashbacks, and a lot of her choices felt hollow to me because of that. Part of my frustration might be that I read this book shortly after The Unbroken by C. L. Clark, which features a main character who heartbreakingly deconstructs the colonialism that has shaped her upbringing and then does some really powerful things afterward, and maybe I was unfairly hoping for a similar arc for Keera, but regardless, Keera's choices and motivations fell flat.
And that is SO FRUSTRATING to me because, like I said earlier, the Shades are SO CONCEPTUALLY COMPELLING, and there is so much potential to explore so many issues there, both through metaphor and through the implications that Melissa Blair has created in her own world. If only Keera ACTUALLY cared about the other Shades the way she claims to. If only the narrative afforded them the agency to make their own decisions or question their situation.
I truly felt like Keera cared more about NIkolai, someone she barely knows, than she does about the Shades, her own people. Yes, she SAYS that everything she does is for the Shades, but her actions say the opposite.
My other big issue with this book is that it feels like it was constructed around popular tropes in order to have a marketable story—and that's because it was. It was written using tropes that BookTok loves so that BookTok would read it. And that's fine. But I can tell when I'm reading it that despite the author's passion about colonization and indigenous issues, this book was written less out of a desire to explore those themes in a fantasy setting (though that desire was certainly present) and more out of a desire to write something that would sell. That is a totally understandable motivation. We all have it, as writers. It just makes for a less compelling story with less substance to it.
Another issue I had with this book is that the way it talks about gender is very shallow. I think there's some sort of attempt at a critique of cisnormativity, but it's happening through the lens of fantasy metaphors, and it doesn't really work. Hopefully the sequel will either do a better job of exploring that issue or will ignore it completely.
Keera is bisexual and has a past relationship with a woman
A few weeks ago, I sent a pretty rough draft of the first couple chapters of a fantasy novel to beta readers, and a lot of the feedback I've gotten back is about the overall indistinctness of the world in those opening chapters. People aren't sure what's going on or what anything looks like. There's nothing tethering them to the world. There's nothing making them care. There are seeds of compelling ideas and maybe even compelling characters, but the thing itself is not yet compelling, or in fact very good.
This sort of feedback is not fun to get from people you like and respect. It hurts. Of course it does. Because in your mind, as the writer, as the creator of this world, the visuals sparkle. The ideas are THERE. The characters are fleshed out to perfection. But that's all in my head, and that's why I have those beta readers—to tell me what gaps they’re seeing, so that I can work on actually executing those ideas I have.
A Broken Blade reads like that first draft I sent out. The seeds of something compelling. Some moments that are genuinely interesting or good or fun. But it reads as though it never got serious content editing. Like the author didn't have someone look at it in the early stages and say, "I can't really visualize what this world looks like beyond some clear ren faire inspirations, and I feel like you're really interested in exploring these specific themes, but they’re not coming through in a very clear way."
And that's why I'm actually excited to read the sequel. Because maybe with more editing, not just of the text but of the CONTENT and the IDEAS and the WORLDBUILDING, this has the potential to be a story that I really enjoy and become really invested in. The execution just really was not there in this one.
Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Self harm, Violence, and Colonisation
Moderate: Sexual assault and Sexual violence
sarahfmack's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
<Spoiler>
Keera is complex and troubled. Her coping with alcoholism is raw and rarely something I read in a fantasy novel.
Even the way her withdrawal played out was gritty and long.
Her relationships with the other halflings and her new comrads don't start out smooth and happy.
Melissa showed the indoctrination of the halflings, and the conflict they felt serving and being a part of the very court that wants them destroyed is nuanced and very VERY real.
She shows the way Halflings have lost a part of their identity, many not knowing where they come from. Which is such a painful and beautiful allegory for what many Indigenous and Black people in America have dealt with because of colonization and slavery. </Spoiler>
I want more of this story as soon as possible. Kthanks.
Graphic: Alcoholism, Mental illness, Self harm, Colonisation, and War
atthelibrarywithmegan's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
TW: Alcoholism, self harm, murder, blood, colonization, racism.
Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Hate crime, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Murder, and Colonisation
Minor: Sexual content
alilab14's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Self harm, Violence, Grief, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Genocide, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, and Colonisation
Minor: Sexual violence
brooketreads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I found it to be a little predictable imo. I still enjoyed it though. I like our main character Keera. She is battling some inner demons through the book. I didn’t really care for Riven, however I did like the mystery of The Shadow. I wish we had gotten that mystery a little longer. I didn’t like that he had sharp teeth (or fangs?) I didn’t understand that. Also no idea why, but I pictured him as a pirate the whole time. 😆
I didn’t feel the character building was very strong. We didn’t get a good description of Keera until a ways into the book when she had gotten sober and toned. Her description of what she looked like while not sober and active assassin… didn’t feel conducive to someone who could do the job of assassin.
I also didn’t like that Riven essentially sl*t shames Keera (she never did what he implied). Then in the same 24 hours another guy does the same thing and Riven gets really nasty about it. It was like dude you just did that a couple pages ago, what do you mean…
I did like Killyn (sp? I listened to this book on audiobook). I enjoyed Keera and Killyn’s interactions - don’t want to say too much on that to avoid slight spoilers.
I found the ending predictable, but I still liked it. It ends with a clear, there will be another book. I will most likely read it when it comes out.
Graphic: Death and Murder
Moderate: Alcoholism, Physical abuse, and Self harm