A review by jeepster
Radiance by Grace Draven

1.0

I couldn’t bring myself to care about these characters. The world was meh, the side characters were flat, and the MCs were flawless dolls. I wished I had DNF’d it before the end, as I had considered doing multiple times, so that it could have at least remained in my memory as a zero-stakes “cozy” story…but, there is an external event at the very end that is deeply gruesome and I was so angry at the author for leaving me with that awful image of unnecessary violence.

Seriously. I have no ill will towards Brishen. I did not need him to be horribly maimed in service of a non-existant plot. This was too much, and I will be re-writing this head canon for myself…maybe he connects with a fabulous tinkerer like our boy Lucien did and comes back better than ever.

Finally, this was an audiobook listen, so I’m glad it spared me the grammatical errors the text apparently has, but the production quality was poor— there is a tinny quality to the recorded voice, and the narrator’s sharp tone combined with a distracting lisp to feel not very enjoyable for me. 

I’ve heard this compared to the Saint of Steel or Traitor Son series, but it comes nowhere close. Both T Kingfisher’s and Melissa J Cave’s worlds, people, and storytelling are in a wholly other league. Save yourself trouble: skip this entirely and go straight to those  instead.