A review by killerpancake
Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This book is at its best when the characters are working together in a non-plot centered scene. The side missions are when we get to see what they are capable of and how they work together and against each other. It's when the author wants to get into the political minutia or backstories for characters that it gets a little overworked. This book is just trying to do everything in a single story. The MANY povs and all the set us that each requires, the mission, the group dynamics... it's just a little too much for me in the first book of a series. The romantic felt pretty forced and I can't believe that I'm saying this but... this book didn't really need the extra romantic plots? Why did every character have to get paired up...? I enjoy romance and romantacy but this was just another extra thing in an already very busy book. There's other ways to get these folks to care about each other.

Things I did like, the Korea influences were great, especially the food shout outs. I also loved the scene where they get

jumped by the gang and then work together to enact revenge

. I would read more from this author but probably not this series...