Kadou, the shy prince of Arasht, finds himself at odds with one of the most powerful ambassadors at court—the body-father of the queen’s new child—in an altercation which results in his humiliation.
–GoodReads
To prove his loyalty to the queen, his sister, Kadou takes responsibility for the investigation of a break-in at one of their guilds, with the help of his newly appointed bodyguard, the coldly handsome Evemer, who seems to tolerate him at best.
My Review
I’m going to start with the good! This was such a creative breath of fresh air from my recent reads in its setting based off the Ottoman Empire. Kudos for a creative magic system and setting and the world was incredibly tantalizing.
There’s a grumpy rain cloud with a beam of anxious sunshine, there’s political plotting and a mystery at hand and of course the romance aspect of this fantasy or rather romantasy.
The pacing starts slow and I think the political intrigue part gets a bit sidetracked until the last quarter but I didn’t lose interest while reading.
An enjoyable and light read, with some very sweet moments and I appreciated the focus on Kadou’s anxiety from Rowland it was something I verily related to.
Now, onto the not so good things.
The focus of this is the romance which is not the bad part haha, but it was the fact that Rowland had a very important political plot mixed in as well and it was a bit abandoned for a majority of the book when I would have loved to see it incorporated in our queer fantasy romance.
Next, the romance itself. The coupling is cute but I found myself disappointed because I was expecting a slow burn but ended up with more of an instalove. Not in that it was actually love at first sight but that they go from ignoring their feelings to BAM. So that felt off balance to me though I was invested in the building up of their feelings. And in the budding of this romance my favorite character, Tadek, was steamrolled. He was a character with so much potential and Rowland simply let him devolve.
The magic system seems INCREDIBLE but we actually don’t get much of it or this amazing world Rowland has clearly created because the focus is so heavily on day to day interactions of our MC and it leaves out the rest. This is a shame because there’s so much I would have loved to know.
Overall I give it 3.5/5 cups of coffee. It could have been so much better but it was still fun to read!
The Caffeinated Reader 