Jim

This book was so much style over substance. The gore and horror are done well but all the characters felt paper thin and were not particularly interesting.

The only reason i finished this was i had enjoyed previous books by the author and kept hoping it may pick up.

But it did not and the ending seemed to render the previous 270 odd pages completely pointless

At first i was expecting this to follow a similar story arc to the first 2 books in this series but was pleasantly surprised that it chose to deviate from that formula. While it may be a stretch to still call this book cosy fantasy, as there are moments of genuine peril, it was nevertheless a very comforting read while at the same time being different enough from the first 2 books to keep my interest.

This book was completely not what I was expecting.

The blurb I read described it as the princess bride meets Princess Leia. And as a snarky smart space opera.

So in tone I was expecting something very light hearted similar to How to become the dark lord and die trying by Django Wexler or John Scalzi’s more light hearted work.

instead what I got was a book full of court intrigue and machinations that kept me guessing where it was going.

A absolute page turner that I finished far quicker than I normally would