This is the first novel I’ve read by Rohrbach and I loved it. It’s much darker than I expected it to be with an immersive story line. In a palace kept afloat above the earth by magic, Arnaka Skytree is the next in line to rule the druids. Her coming of age requires that she has a soul familiar which is brought about by the death of one of the peasant girls who is also her best friend. Her only way to fight the barbaric custom is to harness her power with the soul familiar and fight from within.

This is a world where women have the power of magic but their use of it is at the behest of the men. Men control the army and the administrative functions. Women use their power for beauty, fashion and gardens. Social hierarchy is strongly delineated and the gap between the wealthy and the poor is vast. The more Arnaka learns, the more resistant she becomes to continuing the way they live.

Arnaka is a wonderful character. For all her power, both before her soul familiar and after, she’s clumsy and she makes mistakes with disastrous consequences. Her journey to unseating the power of the wealthy is fraught with twists and turns, danger and constantly looming failure. The harshness of the world she’s in is graphic and disturbing but also riveting. The characters she fights with and against are superb in their diversity and characteristics.

For all the darkness there is humour which breaks the tension at just the right moment. There is ethnic diversity, sexual diversity and some very beautiful relationships. The story contains violence, internalized misogyny and family abuse.

Book received from Netgalley and NineStar Press for an honest review.