A very very promising first book in the series! Recommended!

World building was good: clear and well detailed descriptions of scenes and environments. You had a good feel for the world the author painted with her words. As this is a new series, there is a lot of describing and explanations about geography, the way of life, the law,... but never did it get boring or did it feel 'unreal'.

Character development was excellent! We follow Yelena through her trials and tribulations as she undergoes her training as a food taster. We learn a lot about her: her history, what she fears and what she loves. We grow alongside her as she works with Valek in keeping the Commander safe. They have a special working relationship those two, and you just feel there is something in the air...
Our support cast is great, they have their own story, they have a lot of interaction with Yelena and Valek and are well written into the story.

Pacing and flow were great. As the first instalment of a series, there is always the necessary 'world building' and 'setting the stage', but that didn't take so long. After that it was a very good spread of action and conversations to further along the story.

The book in itself was well written and I found no (noticeable) errors. What I did find strange is that they kept referring to the weapon Yelena used later in the book as a bow, but was more a staff... so yeah.. that was confusing. There are references to sex, but nothing is described as such.

All in all I am very pleasantly surprised with this book!! I would recommend it to everyone who likes fantasy in a medieval style time-setting with a lot of sword fighting and intrigue. There wasn't that much magic in this particular book, but I'm sure that will be rectified in the rest of the series. ( )

Nice slow and well-crafted buildup and very disappointing and incredibly heavy-handed finale and ending.
I guess a big part of my disappointment is caused by inept YA audience targeting. I have read very good YA but this one even tho it does many things right within its genre still suffers from a few of the flaws YA frequently is plagued by.
Especially in the end it becomes incredibly preachy and doesn't trust its readers to be able to build complex thoughts by themselves.
Just because young people don't have that much life experience to base their decisions on doesn't mean they are not yet able to think. This is a very common flaw in YA and points to the sad fact that most people forget what it was really like to be young.
For the first half, I had hoped this wouldn't end in a cringy cliché party but alas.
In the end, I would describe this as average but I didn't enjoy it at all towards the end and was tempted to just dnf so it's just 2 stars from me.
This might be enjoyable to someone with little experience with common tropes and clichés. ( )

2.75 stars. Rounded up to 3

This is a hard one to rate. I thought the story was captivating and put together very well, but the execution had some flaws that were hard to overcome. For one, the dialogue was just rough. Not entirely believable and at times, awkward. The Romance was also awkward, rushed, and seemed like an afterthought. The pacing was awesome up until the last tenth of the book. I don't know what happened at that point but everything felt rushed and tied up into pretty bows, which is a thing I tend to hate.

While the orphan trope is overdone in fantasy, I feel like this was a believable take. Have I seen it before? Yes. Am I still interested? Yes. I'm hoping, going into book two (which I will read because debut books get to be a bit rushed and awkward, especially the self-published sort) is that Yelena will not be a long lost prince or princess. Please. let that not be a thing.

World building was interesting, but seriously lacking depth. I know almost nothing about this world or its magic system. But there are some good bones here, so I hope Snyder will grow into those details in the next few installments. Character building was decent, but also lacked a bit of depth.

The Romance is horrible and stems from some seriously problematic power imbalances. If you're someone triggered by sexual violence or male dominance, I'd skip this one. It almost made me want to skip the series, but I'm going to check out book two to see if these problems are addressed in the writing and story-telling.

That's all for now. I can't say read it or skip it, but I hope my review helps you make that decision for yourselves.

( )

Enjoyed this story a lot more than I thought I would. ( )

It took me a while to actually finish the book, don't quite remember why I set it down. I loved the story, and enjoyed the ending. I even liked it enough to remember most of the story and be able to pick up where I left off, even a few years later. Looking forward to the rest of the series. ( )