*Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest review*

I tried so hard to get through this book, but I only made it about halfway before I had to put it down for good. There just wasn't anything I could connect to--the characters were flat and indistinctive, the worldbuilding was sparse and vague, the pacing was inconsistent and staggered.

The actual storyline was original and interesting, but it wasn't strong enough to carry the narrative when there were several other major structural and developmental issues as noted above.

This book is definitely not the typical high fantasy read. At first, the numerous characters were overwhelming and it was hard to remember who was whom and how everyone knew everyone else. Sometimes, the book read as a series of vignettes as opposed to a cohesive narrative. I wish there had been more showing as opposed to telling; certain scenes that I would have enjoyed reading were simply mentioned as "and this happened." I also thought the worldbuilding could have been more developed, particularly the origin stories. Although it may seem that nothing exciting happened, I was definitely entertained while reading. All of the characters are sufficiently interesting to compensate for the lackluster, occasionally rambling, plot. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for an offbeat high fantasy read--it may not be quite what you are expecting, but it is entertaining.