This book contains:
- Medical emergency
- Descriptions of torture
- Treason and betrayal.
Most of the story follows Chrys Valerian, a High General for Alchea. He’s a Saphire Threadweaver married to an Emerald Threadweaver, in charge of the investigation into Bloodthieves. Bloodthieves are capturing Threadweavers and selling their blood as a drug and it’s imperative that they’re stopped.
Laurel is a young Saphire Threadweaver from Zeda who got caught by the Bloodthieves and therefore into the web of mystery that surrounds them. She wants more from life than she’s currently getting but seems to keep making mistakes along the way that prevent her from getting and doing what she wants the most.
Alverax is the final character the blurb mentions, but I’m not really too sure how or why he’s managed such a huge role in the storyline… especially given how late in the game her enters.
The Threadweavers are a bloodthirsty (literally) gang, hunting down and selling the blood of Threadweavers. While this appears to be the main storyline, the issue of Laurel’s identity also appears to be a massive part of the storyline.
As we progress through the story, this appears to get more and more complex with little pieces being added to carefully build out to a larger picture.
As a whole, I’m really disappointed.
To begin with I was confused but intrigued. By the time I was about a third of the way through I was completely invested. Then all of a sudden, right at the end I was left not wanting to finish the book because it just wasn’t making any sense.
After much reflection and wondering how and why it fell apart for me, I think it came down to WHERE the book ended. It’s the first in the series so I know there’s more, but I think the ending should have happened a few chapters sooner and the final chapters should have been the opening chapters of the second book.
Because it ended later, it felt like the characters personalities and arcs were thrown completely off. While this will probably all be explained in the next book, it’s left such a sour aftertaste for me that I’m not sure I want to read it. In a way I do because 90% of the book was GREAT, but in a way I don’t because what if that kind of ending happens again and again and again?
And I do want to highlight how great the writing for the first 90% was, I don’t want you leaving here thinking I hated the book just because I didn’t like the ending!
Zack has a great story, it’s well thought out (until the end), he’s created complex magic laws, international political intricacies and various other subtleties that take time, effort and attention to detail. And it’s that attention to detail that causes so many fantasy novels to fall apart. While you do need complexity in a fantasy novel, he’s found a good balance between the fantasy and the everyday life that really works for these characters.
