First of all I want to thank NetGalley and the author for gifting me a free copy of this book.

I gave it 2.5 stars. It was too da*m long.

Characters:
I hate Railan. In the begin I found him pretty sad and I sympathised with him. But the further on I went the more is started to dislike him. Railan is a mean egotistic grumpy boy who shows almost no character development and when their is a little character development he screws it up the next page. Also his whole purpose to marry Tyce was a bit annoying. I hated Tyce as well. Just leading Railan on. But alright enough about Railan.
Ceien was a character who I really loved in the beginning. His compassion and zero judgement made me really like him. But further on in the book he became possessive jealous and consent was not always given for a lot of stuff. That really annoyed me.
The side characters were all fine. I don’t have very much to tell about them.

Plot:
The plot was not very good either. It’s a sort of coming of age story. The friendship/relationship between Ceien and Railan is the red line through the story. All the other events are side quests and they were mostly pretty boring. The book should have been 200 pages shorter for this plot line. It was way to dragged out.

World building:
I did like this part of the book. The world was pretty well set up and the magic system was really interesting. It also felt really original.

Romance:
Very weird and forced relationship. In the beginning it was really cute. At the end I found it weird and forced. It felt rushed and problematic.

Writing:
It was alright. Nothing wrong with it but also nothing spectacular.

Conclusion:
Could have been a lot better. If it was shorter and the romance was less forced it would have been a 3 to 3.5 stars.

Excellent book, loved it! Looking forward to more from this author! Apologies for the lateness of my review

Unfortunately, I had to DNF at about 30%

The protagonist was such an unlikable character who did not learn a thing out of his mistakes and the (probable) love interest still fell for him so hard. I simply did not believe it.

The idea behind the world Building sounded great but it took to long to become a plot, therefore I quit the book.

While not.a bad book by any means, I felt that the writing and characters could have benefit from a little more depth. The story begins with already established relationships between the protagonist and fellow servants plus the family he works for, which started off well, though the writing prevented me from becoming deeply invested in the story due to its lack of complexity.

Railan, banished to the mines after being caught with his master’s son Tyce, flees and discovers a talent for magical music Composing.

So, here’s the thing with this book: I read 100 pages of this book, and as far as I can tell, it doesn’t have a plot. The story at 100 pages consists entirely of Railan stuck in a loop of leaving unhealthy situations to find himself in a different but very similar unhealthy situation. And that I don’t mind in and of itself, but this entire book is just chock full of things that are mediocre at best, and stale at worst. The writing is fine. The worldbuilding is nothing new. The tropes are ones I’m tired of in fantasy. The characters are uninspired. There doesn’t seem to be a plot? And this book is close to 600 pages. I can’t read 600 pages of nothing interesting.

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this ebook. I’m sorry I didn’t like it, but I tried. This review is honest and my own.

Thank you for the ARC to NetGalley and the author.

Unfortunately, I DNFed at 20%.

This novel has many positive aspects: For example, the magic system and the political constructs within the book. However, I did not connect with the main character and the dialogue felt repetitive and childish. I believe the book has potential and with developmental and grammatical editing it might just make a good one, but in its current state I do not wish to finish reading it.

Thank you, author, for the advance reading copy.

I would say the characters are realistic and the writing good. However, I felt that the story started just like that. I needed proper character introduction and better character interactions for such a lengthy book.

Maybe the book is not for me.