What took me so long before I started reading this book? The cover! From the start on I disliked it and after reading this book I definitely feel it's needs a cover redo just to do justice to the story and storytelling. The book, the story, is great! It's detailed, it has speed, might take some time before it grasps you but when it does it won't let go.

What a great debut! Great attempt of bringing Russian history and fiction together.
But please redo the cover!

It took me awhile to finally get into this book, about 30%, but once I got past the big battle scenes I was hooked. It's some of the best writing in this type of genre, that I've seen in years. The build up of characters is great. Love them or hate them, they were all well rounded. I can't wait to read the next couple of books. I received this copy through Netgalley, and Curiosity Quills Press. Yep, I'd recommend this book and author.