Iron Gold

I love this series. In Red Rising, Brown has made colorful (ahem) characters in an interesting and diverse world. Iron Gold continues the story that I (and you) thought ended with book #3. We are so lucky that it continued. The story keeps getting deeper and more complex and so very real. As you jump from character perspective to character perspective, you are easily attached to the new person and their struggles - a feat that some writers never quite get right.

I highly recommend that you read or reread all of the books in order before reading this one. The story is heavily dependent on knowing the events of the past by many actors in many places, and it is way to easy to forget or get confused.

The only downside to this particular novel for me is that I struggled making mental images of the characters. Originally, I had been able to easily make all characters of a color have a certain appearance. In this story, some people did not seem to fit the mold that I thought was valid for the world, and I was suddenly lost. I had a bit of a “core understanding” breakdown where I had to go back, again, and reread the other books because I forgot the main determinants of color. I almost wished there were a simple guide in the book for reference - like, a family “color” tree. There is a character guide, and it was too overwhelming for me.