This debut adult fantasy follows a royal messenger on a high-speed chase across a climate-ravaged wasteland, featuring motorcycles, monsters, and magic.

Thanks to Colored Pages Blog Tours for including me on the tour and to Saga Press Books for sending me a gifted paperback copy. Road to Ruin was high on my anticipated release list and it did not disappoint.

Road to Ruin follows Jin-Lu, a bisexual courier who has maybe fallen for the royals she works for. Not to mention that these royals have been essentially courting each other through the messages she delivers. But when the princess, Yi-Nereen asks for Jin’s help escaping her arranged marriage, Jin has no option but to say yes. The two of them flee across the wastes, pursued by powerful enemies.

I loved everything about this book. The characters, the epic adventure/road trip, the magic, the romance. I mean hot bisexual driving motorcycles is such a vibe, so I knew I was going to love it from the start. I also related heavily to Jin at times. Why feel feelings when you can run away from them? 🌚

This book basically has magic genetics woven into it as Yi-Nereen is researching why magic in her city is failing. As a scientist, I was fascinated by this aspect and I also really enjoyed seeing how Yi-Nereen went about figuring it out. Not only do we get a good mystery, we also get to see what Yi-Nereen and Prince Kadrin wrote to each other. It was equal parts sweet and full of fun banter. Ugh, I love all of these characters.

I am so glad this is going to be a series. I cannot wait to see what happens next and how the characters will navigate everything.

"Road to Ruin" is like a queer Mad Max amped up too 100 and packed with badass characters and a road trip style romance! There is angst and danger, tough characters who are actually softies, and enough action to satiate every reader craving an adventure.

I loved nearly everything about this book.

The characterization was phenomenal. The characters were fully realized almost as soon as each walked onto the page. I loved all their internal angst, and the romance was so sweet to read about.

The prose was so dynamic and engaging, it felt like the plot was moving at a break neck pace for almost the entire book. The world building was intricate, but even with all of the made up fantasy words and concepts it was easy to understand and follow along. The world gave me Zelda vibes with the long lost ancient technology and glowing magic.

I thought there were too many POVs included in the second half, but it was still enjoyable despite that.

Reading this book felt like watching a fun, bi panic-inducing action movie. I’m beyond impressed that this is the author’s debut. I cannot WAIT for the sequel.

This is a wonderful dystopian-high-fantasy genre-blend of a book, Mad Max: Fury Road (or Furiosa) meets a sapphic Death Stranding. I loved it from the moment the MC 'adopted' the little injured dino-bird in the first chapter, and I kept loving it until the end.

Mad Max: Fury Road is possibly my favorite film of all time, so there was no way I wouldn’t love this book. It was phenomenal! Similar enough that Fury Road is a good comp, but unique enough that it lives and breathes on its own.

I loved the characters (even Sou-Zell, who I was strangely fond of by the time the duel rolled around) and was gutted by the ending. And I hope Screech will return in the next installment too!

I know a lot of readers enjoy fast-paced books, which this absolutely was, but for me it was almost TOO fast and the only criticism I have is that I want more - I flew through this one so quickly and I really wish it was longer! But, I understand it’s a debut and the first of a series, and I will be first in line to buy Book 2!!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This will most likely be my favorite book of 2024. This is one of the most unique adult SFF books I've ever had the pleasure to read. Lee has crafted an amazing world of dinosaur-like creatures, mana magic, and purple and blue lightning storms ravaging a wastland. Add to that a courier who delivers packages on a motorcycle, and how much cooler could you get? The politics and world were built so intricately that the world felt REAL. The main character was easy to love, and her snarky voice lent a great humor to the book that really added to the story. And of course, I loved the queer romance. The Mad Max: Fury Road vibes were perfect! I honestly can't believe this is a debut. It reads like a seasoned SFF author wrote it. Safe to say I am a fan of Hana Lee's work from now on!

I'm sorry to have missed posting this before the release date, because now I have robbed you of several days in which you could have been reading this book.

Road to Ruin is an adrenaline rush with an absolutely unique setting. The desert is almost a character in itself. It is filled with deadly storms full of electricity and wind and magic that could flay the flesh from your bones. And that's not to mention the dinosaurs. They're not called dinosaurs, but I don't know what else to call a four-winged flying lizard who would like very much to eat you if that's convenient.

The politics, however, are not so unique: a handful of elite families, possessed of all the magic and wealth, run the core of society and everyone else is left to either be useful to them or perish. Two scions of those families make up two-thirds of our core triad: Prince Kadrin, pampered embarrassment to his family for being born without the magic it's assumed the elite will always possess. Princess Yi-Nereen, powerful in magic alone, destined by her father's determination to be a magical battery and brood mare until one or the other finally kills her. And Jin-Lu, the mage-bike courier, the connection between them between them because she carries the letters they live for. The royals are as much in love with her as they are with each other. Jin is haunted by the people she's left behind and couldn't save. Disaster bisexuals, all of them, although since this is a fantasy setting they probably wouldn't identify that way.

Beginning with a disastrous escape across the barren wilderness, Nereen and Jin find that it's not quite as barren as they'd always thought. And if you thought that this book was merely a princess' valiant and reckless escape from her tower of confinement... then this book is also not exactly what you'd thought. I won't spoil it for you, but as this is the start of a series, I can tell you that the stakes are much, much higher than a runaway princess, even when that princess faces death for being caught.

Road to Ruin was released May 14th, so you can run right out and buy it right now. Or click the button below and do it from the comfort of your own home. Aren't you lucky?

I forgot to leave a review for this, but I really enjoyed it! It's already out, so I won't say much more than I need to for my star rating. <3

A high speed chase, monsters, magic, high stakes, wastelands, deadly storms, secret letters, fierce female characters…all the makings of a great story. I really enjoyed this book and can’t wait for the sequel!

Thank you to NetGalley and Saga Press for the advanced eARC!

Oh my goodness I just finished Road to Ruin by Hana Lee and it was so darn good!! This debut novel is jam packed of fantastical magic, heart pounding chaos and all the Mad Max Vibes! I am 100% hooked and I can’t wait to see what happens in the next installment!!

🏍️ Motorcycles
📖 Debut Novel
✨ Magic
💌 Love Letters
💥 Chaos
🏳️‍🌈 Sapphic Mad Max
⚔️ Vengeance
💀 Monsters

Road to Ruin was such a page turning debut and I can’t wait to see what adventures await us in book 2!!

Thank you so much Colored Pages Book Tours & Saga Press for the gifted copy!

Five stars. Easy five stars. I feel like Road to Ruin came out of nowhere. I'd heard nothing about this book until this tour and I can't imagine why. A fast-paced, diverse, dystopian fantasy full of magic, monsters, complex relationships, and love, this book is brimming with everything I love about early 2010 dystopian fantasies.

This book was a setup for the bigger series but still had it's own full chaotic plot. We have Jin, the courier, and her sparktalent; Reena, a shieldcaster and a princess trying to escape a sexist and classist city; and Kadrin, the Talentless prince of what was viewed as a refuge for Talentless refugees. I loved all three of them as we get to know them through both the main plot and the letters Reena and Kadrin send each other. Full of action and betrayals, the main plot was a wild ride.

That being said, the setup was no less interesting. I enjoyed hearing about Reena's research into the Talented versus the Talentless, the mana pools, and the overall world building we were given. It all felt so organic and effortless, and there was a wonderful balance between that and the main plot. I loved Screech, too, and how there was a peek into the lore of the world's monsters, which I'm sure we'll explore in the future.

This book also tackles some bigger issues, including race purity, sexism, classism, and environmentalism. Similar to the world building, it's not in your face, but it's also a huge part of what triggers the plot and the exploration of it was really well done.

I will say, if you were a fan of the 2010s dystopian craze, this book will definitely be for you. This gave me that buzzy reader feeling I've been chasing for the last while and I love it! This book isn't even out yet and I'm now anticipating it's sequel!

TW: death, murder, blood, injury detail, blood, violence, alcohol consumption, kidnapping, sexism, classism; mentions death of a parent, incest

Plot: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
World Building: 5/5
Writing: 5/5
Pacing: 5/5
Overall: 5/5
GoodReads Rating: 4.72/5

eARC and FC gifted via Colored Pages Book Tours by Saga Press via Simon and Schuster in exchange for an honest review.

I fell in love with Road to Ruin before I even finished chapter one. It delivers neurodivergent, queer, Mad Max dystopia 'burn the world down' vibes. Full of kingdoms brimming with misogyny, the world is compelling and quick to captivate. There's this world of Talented and Talentless, desert storms, and mad dashes. But I think what charmed me the most were the characters. We get to see through their eyes as they expose their vulnerabilities, naivety, and mistakes.

HIGHLIGHTS
~magic motorbikes
~dinosaurs in the wastelands
~love letters that don’t know they’re love letters
~the world is a lie
~villains can surprise you

Road to Ruin is a book I have been pining for ever since I saw the publication deal announcement a couple years back – it was pretty clearly going to be polyamorous, and in a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting??? Yes PLEASE!

It didn’t quite live up to my hopes, but it’s still a great adventure-type read that a lot of readers are going to enjoy!

In the aftermath of some unspecified cataclysm, some humans have gained magical talents, placing them above the legions of the Talentless. Human civilisation has been reduced to scattered Kerinas – cities, basically, protected from the deadly mana storms by Shieldcasters – amidst a wasteland populated by dinosaur-esque monsters, cannibal raiders, and the aforementioned mana storms. Each Kerina has its own culture (although all seem to believe in the same gods, even if they worship them/interpret them differently) and trade between them doesn’t seem to exist. The only exception to this are the small, individual packages and letters carried by Couriers from one Kerina to another – there’s no trade in the way we’re used to thinking of it, where cities and countries swap resources and so on. Kerinas are each apparently entirely self-sufficient, although we don’t actually see much of what the quality of life is like inside them – our only glimpses are of the lives of the very wealthy.

Jin is a Courier who’s been taking letters back and forth between Prince Kadrin and Princess Yi-Nereen – who live in separate Kerinas – for years. Because Kadrin is dyslexic, Jin has always read Nereen’s letters aloud to him; because women in Nereen’s Kerina are not taught to write, Nereen has always dictated her letters to Kadrin to Jin. This obviously gives her an inside view of their relationship, and almost makes her a part of it; both Kadrin and Nereen consider her a friend, and their letters to each other often include bits of Jin’s commentary, which she’s been (playfully) ordered to include.

So it’s really not weird at all that when Nereen decides she wants out, it’s Jin she turns to for escape, and Kadrin she looks to for sanctuary. If Jin can just get Nereed to Kadrin’s Kerina, everything will be fine.

Spoiler: things do not go according to plan.

Road to Ruin is a very easy-to-read book, the writing kept simple and accessible, the worldbuilding fairly minimal (although there’s much more of it than there seems at first!) I want to say this is one of those books that would be a good intro for someone who doesn’t usually read fantasy – there’s nothing pretentious about it, and it doesn’t depend on the reader being familiar with genre conventions. You can dive right in, and everything you need to understand what’s going on is squarely between its own pages.

…I was a little bored. And I don’t know why! Because when you look at it objectively, there is plenty going on in this book, complete with twists and a few genuinely surprising reveals. There’s also some really cool groundwork laid for further revelations to come in the sequel/s. I should have been completely hooked.

And I wasn’t. There’s quite a bit I liked in theory, but didn’t really care about in practice – there are Women Belong to Themselves Actually issues, and classism, and twisty religions that have perhaps mutated from what they meant originally, and the mystery of the Road Builders (us??? Is this meant to be set in our future??? Are we the Road Builders??? Very unclear, will probably become clearer later in the series). There is a Completely Unexpected Thing, which I would love to go into more detail on but I can’t see how to do so without spoilering you – Jin and Nereen stumble onto a very cool discovery, there, that’s the best I can do, and I, as a worldbuilding nut, wanted to know so much more about that than we got (although kudos to Lee for believable language barriers; I’m a little tired of fantasy protagonists always being linguistic geniuses and picking up new languages in ten minutes flat).

There are also dinosaurs. They live in the wastes and different ones can be dangerous in different ways. I’m not going to lie, something about the inclusion of dinosaurs really rubbed me the wrong way – maybe because they seemed so random? But if this ISN’T a future version of our world, why NOT dinosaurs??? (Or even if it IS set in our future, can I swear that some twit wouldn’t clone dinosaurs and release them into the wild at some point? No, no I cannot.) I can’t justify my dislike, I just…didn’t like it.

Between every chapter we get one of the letters that have been going between Nereen and Kadrin for years, which were surely there so we could see the development of their relationship – to establish it as established, if you will. But I have to admit that I didn’t end up very invested in the love story, despite being so excited for a polyamorous fantasy. I could see genuine respect and friendship between all three of our protagonists, but romantic vibes and chemistry? Uh, no. Not at all. It fell very flat for me.

I wonder if most of this was more due to the writing style rather than the story itself? Plain, blunt/direct prose generally doesn’t work for me, and even though it felt appropriate to the book’s adventure/action vibes, it may have prevented me from connecting with the story properly. Because I really don’t think this is an objectively bad book. (Although I really, really didn’t understand the bad guy’s plan. Like, at all. The goal, yes, but not how doing what he wanted to do would accomplish that goal.) I think the right reader will find it fun, and enjoy the twists, and all the different plot threads that Lee weaves together.

But for some reason, Road to Ruin didn’t feel twisty to me. Even though it is. It felt straightforward despite not being predictable; it felt simple even though there are so many balls in the air all the time; it felt thin despite having layers and layers of worldbuilding and politics and all going on.

You will notice, this is all about my feelings. Because I can’t point to any particular thing (well, except the bad guy’s plan) and say, this is not good. If I take a step back, and try and look at this book objectively, there’s plenty to be impressed by. And yet I am not impressed. I’m not that interested. It doesn’t feel (that word again!) at all memorable. I do not see myself picking up the sequels.

I don’t know what’s going on, but for whatever reason, I don’t think I’m seeing this book properly. I don’t trust my own judgement on it. That judgement being: it’s perfectly fine, not terrible, not amazing, potentially fun for the right kind of reader.

But I think it might be kind of amazing? Is the thing?

Basically, please read a lot of other reviews for this book before you make your decision on whether or not to buy it. This one time, I’m telling you not to listen to my take. I think I’m wrong, wrong in a very odd way that feels very strange from the inside. And it means my opinion probably shouldn’t be counted.

This book was an absolute thrill to read! I loved every page from beginning to end.

A seriously wonderful fantasy with motorbikes and dinosaurs! Jin, Reena, and Kadrin are amazing main characters. I love the little bits of correspondence and the fact that Jin is forever the middleman. It made for a truly interesting plot line.

The setting is developed and manages to be both unique and familiar at the same time. Desert wastelands plagued by storms with a few domed safe cities scattered about is nothing new. But Hana Lee made that her own here, and it was just a fun unveiling of the land and its magic system.

I was on edge the whole time wondering who to trust, who was going to turn to the evil side, and who was going to end up alive and together. The pages kept turning rapidly because I couldn’t wait to find out what was next at every turn.

Fans of Dune, Avatar: the Last Airbender, and Star Wars will eat this book up. I see elements of all three woven into the plot and setting.

My thanks to NetGalley for making an eARC of this book available to me.

Enjoyable. I wanted to like it more than I did, and I expect that future books in this series will improve. As an homage to the Mad Max movies, it does well, giving much of the same vibe of failed civilization with some hope for the future. What it does lack is explanation of what happened to make things devolve to where they had, and why there appears to be little to no knowledge about what came before. Also, no explanation as to where the food comes from to feed the populations of the cities that all appear to be separated by wastelands. Still, a good read with plenty of relationship tension and promise for future drama. I'll definitely be here for the next book in this series.

3.5 stars, rounding up

I have So Many Thoughts about this book lol. let's tackle the good things first: the queer and polyamorous rep is absolutely top notch. I am so excited to see more polya characters and romances in mainstream publishing houses, it is a fantastic development.

I also really liked how the character povs were handled. Road to Ruin definitely has one central character (the courier, Jin) but her love interests are given substantial weight as well. the chapters from Yi-Nereen and Kadrin's perspectives give the reader new information and provide insight to the characters that we were otherwise miss.

most importantly though? Jin is absolutely hilarious. her little asides in the letters were my favorite thing ever. (her commentary is in the parentheses lmao.)

Fortunately, I have something better to offer you. Ta-da! Jin, please reveal the parcel at this point, with as much flair as you can muster. (Lower your expectations.)

now for the cons: I had a really hard time getting into the world initially and found the beginning just ,,,, really slow. I never particularly resonated with Yi-Nereen and I had a hard time rooting for her, esp towards the end (if you know, you know). my main complaint about this book is the ending though. don't go into this expecting a closed story; I didn't clock that this is the first book in a new series, but the ending certainly cuts off like a dramatic chapter break.

overall, I'm happy to see more rep, it's nice to have something to recommend to the motorcycle queers, and I adore this cover, so I rounded it up to a 4 star rating.

Everything should work out perfectly as long as no one notices the Scroll is missing in the meantime. (He's unhinged.)


queer rep - polya bi/queer mc, polya bi/queer love interest, polya love interest, sapphic side characters, bg queer characters
thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the arc ✨

Mad Max but make it sapphic? I've been dying to read Hana Lee's debut since it was announced. The pitch alone told me I would love it--it has all the elements I've been craving--and the execution absolutely lived up. Lee's style is beautiful, tense, and electric.

This is an author to watch.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy!!! I know I say this a lot, but I liked this. I got cool motorcycles, wastelands, magic, and runaways. I liked that magic wasn't a gift, but more of a curse which everyone views as a gift. There is a mysterious element hidden behind the chase, fights and romances. Even at the end we don't get a full picture of what exactly happened only a vague idea. In this regard, the next book will really expand on this world.

There had better be a book 2!!! I loved this book and I can't wait to reread it and I'm so mad that book 2 is not already here in my hands (even though book 1 hasn't even been published yet.) Seriously Road to Ruin was INCREDIBLE! High Fantasy Mad Max that I never knew I needed. Our protagonist, Jin, is wonderful. The type of girl who pretends to be tough and closed off but would give her last bit of food to the alley cat that just bit her. Kadrin and Reena are each wonderful in their own ways, both of them truly playing on the sun and moon imagery. Always bound together but still so unique. I hope we get to see more of Kadrin next time because I feel like we really got to know Reena well, see her intelligence and her desire to do the right thing even when she's not sure what that is. I also want to see more of Sou-Zelle even. I fully expected to hate him the entire time and while he still has a long way to go I can see the seeds of change planted in him. Pre-Order this book! Read this book immediately! It was SO GOOD!!

I had a hard time with this book because I really wanted to like it! It promised to fit all of the boxes I want in a book - gay, love triangles/polyamory, unique magic system, conscious of real world issues - and yet it fell flat for me. The whole story takes place over 7 days which didn’t seem possible. It felt like there must be more than 24 hours in a day in this world for everything to occur and unfortunately that really took me out of the story. I wish we had seen the characters fall in love so it was more believable, instead of being told they were as it might have made me care about them more. I also found myself confused about some elements in the world building or plot and never had resolution on them. Some of the gaps I can see being fleshed out in later books since this is a series, but others felt like the characters not knowing how something worked was a work around for the author to not have to define it. For a debut novel, I do think it is pretty good, just not for me!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc!