scijessreads

Cemmy is not having a good day. She’s not having a good time in general, what with being hunted by The Church and The Council for her magic. Half-magic at that. And her not-good day quickly becomes even worse with the arrival of Savian and Chase. And the command to pull off a daring heist that could literally leave her and her friends broken and shattered, or possibly end the world as they know it.

You know, just a regular day in Isitar. Where Shade magic is highly controlled and practically outlawed. Where trust is hard to earn, easy to lose, and secrets and half-truths may just doom them all.

What I loved about this book is that it wasn’t afraid to be dark. To be unflinching and to make everyone have moments of vulnerability, flawed reasoning, and general unpleasantness. Cemmy is far from perfect. Chase is serving too many masters. And the squeezing hands of both the Shade Council and The Church are making life difficult to live at all. This is, if anything, a musing on the corruption of power. It is a warning about how easy it is to erase history when the victors don’t want anyone to know how things really happened. It is also a story of survival, and of realizing that going it alone is not always the best idea. Even the ending is raw, a little unfinished, and wholly human.

Thanks to Netgalley and Hodderscape for the ARC. All opinions are my own. And thanks to @ingloriousgigi on Threads for the template idea for the images.