A review by lisa
Nine of Swords by Brooklyn Quintana

4.0

thank you to the author for sending me a copy of nine of swords in exchange for an honest review!

nine of swords by brooklyn quintana is an excellent debut with lovable characters, a magical setting and lots of high-stakes.

throughout fynn’s first year attending the morancy academy of military arts, he and his classmates are training for the end of the year games that will determine what division they are sorted into. i love when books are set at any sort of academy but i also love a good competition/trial element, so most of this book focusing on those two things was definitely right up my alley! i also loved reading about the different friendships and relationships that fynn develops throughout the novel with his classmates but also with his teachers. i especially loved seeing fynn and hollyn become besties :’) 

there were a couple reasons i couldn’t give this a 5 star rating, one of them being the pacing. i found the second half to be a lot more engaging, as the first half was spent getting all of the characters, politics, magic system, etc. established. for me the delivery of all that information just felt choppy and a bit disjointed. but i did enjoy how that information all came back around in the end and how it influenced the surprising reveals throughout the book. i also found that some scenes could get repetitive, especially the training and dueling scenes. i enjoyed seeing some of those moments, but it felt like there were many times that they were repetitive and could have been cut out or shortened. 

overall, an enjoyable read and i’m excited to continue on with the series!