Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham

I’m getting old. At this point in my life I think of all of the books I have not yet read and all of the books I wish to reread, and I have decided I am not going to finish books I don’t like. Sadly, I am giving up on finishing Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham at the 48% mark.

I was initially very excited by this book. I really enjoyed the Expanse novels (except for the last one, it didn’t end particularly well) and I know that Abraham had written well-received fantasy novels before his foray into science fiction, so I was excited when Orbit gave me an eARC of a new book in a new trilogy in exchange for an honest review.

I tried. I really did! This book is long, and I have read a lot of it, but it doesn’t have that sense of grabbiness that I want from a book - this book is easy to put down and hard to pick up again. The pacing is slow and all the characters (save one) are either boring ciphers or bad people. I don’t like any of them. Except Sammi. She is the only reason I kept reading as long as I did, and I still want to know what happens to her, but not enough to slog through the rest of this tome.

I’m not saying the book is bad. But it’s not for me. If you want a fantasy doorstop on a slow build, it might just be for you.

4 stars

Wow! This was such a good start to a new series. It was a little slow to start but I was sucked in anyways. I honestly cannot wait for the next book and will be preordering it asap! The world building and characters were so good and I'm really excited to see what happens in future books.

This book was a work of art with multiple layers that I enjoyed peeling back as the story progressed. It was a rather slow, methodical tale, but the writing created an atmosphere that felt vivid, gritty, and haunting. The world-building devoted to the city of Kithamar was spectacular, and I loved getting to see different aspects of the city through the eyes of the various characters. All the detail made it seem as if the city itself was a character with agency. However, this approach did leave the rest of the world feeling a bit underdeveloped, but I'm hopeful that more detail about the larger world will be provided in future books.

The character work was also brilliant. The author gave the space necessary to really get to know each of the characters, especially Alys and Sammish. Alys struggled with the death of her brother, and much of this story revolved around her coping with the grief she faced in the wake of such an important loss. Abraham did such a fantastic job of exploring how grief can consume a person and change everything about them. His descriptions of Alys' reactions and feelings were visceral and left me reeling at times with many of the same emotions. Sammish was also well-developed, and I enjoyed seeing her grow from somewhat of an invisible hanger-on to someone who made decisions for herself based on what she thought was right. The secondary characters all felt like real people almost instantly, as well, which left me feeling upset when Alys' brother died despite only reading about him for a couple chapters.

The plot was interesting and went places I didn't really expect. I enjoyed the murder mystery aspect of the first half of the book, and the political maneuverings of the second half were fascinating alongside the introduction of magical elements I still want to know more about. There are things I want to talk about but can't because of spoilers, but I will say that I loved the unique commentary on the perpetuation of power and social systems. However, this book was definitely more character-focused than plot-driven. There weren't a ton of action scenes or the major moments/battles I often associate with epic fantasy. However, everything about the characters' moves still felt vitally important even if the scale wasn't huge. Alys' battle with grief was incredibly compelling, and its culmination was satisfying. So, I'm curious to see where the story goes next.

Overall, I loved this book. It wasn't epic in the sense of clashing armies, monsters, or giant set pieces, but the struggles of the characters felt consequential on a deep level, almost as though their personal decisions and growth impacted the very soul of their city. Therefore, I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars.

Kithamar is a city where secrets thousands of years in the making are coming to light.

A pickpocket and a thief, Alys makes her living scraping by throughout slums of the massive city of Kithamar. When her brother is killed, she takes it into her own hands to bring his murderer to justice. What next ensues is more than Alys could ever imagine as she becomes entangled in a web of revelations about not only her brother, but Kithamar itself.

Age of Ash was definitely a character driven story in which we not only follow Alys, but a wide array of phenomenal supporting characters, such as Sammish, Andomeka, and Tregarro. While there are several POV characters, I did not really feel any development lacking in any of them. Abraham did a spectacular job of allowing us to go on a journey with each character’s struggles and the fact that not a single character was emotionally or mentally in the same spot as when they were introduced in the beginning is masterful and deserves a lot of praise.

The world building was spectacular! I was absolutely immersed in each sector of the city as the story took us through the slums all the way to the palace and everywhere in between. I felt the lifestyle and customs jump off the page from the very beginning. But this was made even better by the prose in Age of Ash. The prose was seriously a thing of beauty and I caught myself several times throughout the book re-reading lines just because the sentence or passage was written so well. The only problem that I had with the writing, was sometimes over-describing, especially at the beginning of a few chapters. Because of this, it took me a while to get my bearing and get into these chapters since it broke the rhythm and flow in my opinion.

While there was some spots of action scattered throughout, this story was focused more on tense situations rather than action scenes. This worked really well for me, until we got to the ending, which certainly left me wanting more. I was expecting a little more from the ending and climax of the story after a brilliant set-up that was building for the whole entire book. Other than this, there was spectacular flow and there was not any wasted time progressing the story. Once the book hit around the half-way point, everything was starting to fall into place and then things started to make sense for me.

With this being the first book in the trilogy, it definitely feels like an introductory book with a ton of set-up to exploring wider implications to the revelations in this book 1. It was very refreshing to have a fantasy tale, especially in the modern fantasy era of world-building with colossal scope, take place in a single city (even though this city felt like a whole realm in itself.) I am very excited for the things to come in book 2 and know without a doubt that this story will just get bigger and better!

Thank you to Orbit and Netgalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Kithamar is a city populated by the typical cast of characters: the ruling elite, the middle class merchants, and the struggling poor. The story we are told in Age of Ash is concerned with the secrets of the ruling elite, but populated by the poor. We are taken into the impoverished areas of Kithamar and introduced to thieves running “pulls” to make enough money to survive. After a “pull” gone wrong, two of these thieves, Alys and Sammish, are caught up in a plot much bigger than themselves, changing how they see themselves and each other.

I was looking forward to this book. I have really enjoyed the work Daniel Abraham has been doing in the Expanse series, and was anticipating great things from his solo work, but it did not live up to my expectations. This isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy it, but there were things that made the reading experience less enjoyable.

I’ll start with the good:
I really liked Sammish. She is smart, capable, and firm in her convictions. Alys is a bit less likeable, but I found her character arc believable. The villain (once we find out who that is) is convincing, but not so openly despicable that it’s over the top. While we are not given answers to every question, the end is satisfying and this could act as a stand-alone read for readers not interested in continuing the series.

Now the things that I didn’t like, or that didn’t make sense:
The biggest issue I had was in pacing. It took half of the book to actually figure out what was really going on, and while sometimes this makes a lot of sense for the story, I just felt confused.
There is also a lot of implied history, but it’s never fleshed out. We are often told whether people are Hansch or Inlisc, but not what this distinction means to the characters (other than they are different people groups, and one is more generally poor and looked down upon). This world building, however, might be fleshed out a bit more in the next instalment of the trilogy.
A small issue I had with the characters was that while we are told that Alys and Sammish are young, we are never (as far as I could tell) told how old they are. In general, I don’t need to know the ages of the characters I read, but it does help guide expectations around reactions and behaviours. I initially thought they were in their early teens, but then the rest of their behaviours didn’t make sense.

Overall, this ended up being a good read, and I’ll probably read the next one, but it wasn’t the big hit I was hoping it to be.

Thank you to Orbit Books and NetGalley for an advanced copy of Age of Ash in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book as the beginning of a series, but how I remember it will definitely depend on how the rest of the series is. Lots of good set up: will the payoff make it worth it?

4.5 stars

Age of Ash starts a new series centered on the city of Kithamar. Kithamar is an ancient and vast city with many boroughs both rich and poor, including one of the poorest, Longhill, where our main character Alys lives. The main plot of this first book centers around Alys dealing with her grief when her brother is killed and trying to come to terms with her life after he is gone.

The story starts with some familiar elements including gangs of pickpockets and thieves running jobs, and also has some themes concerning loyalty to a person's "neighborhood" which is something we've certainly seen in many other mediums. Abraham takes these themes and ideas and instead of having them come across as tired or tropey, uses them to set a familiar basis for the story so that more focus can be put on the character's journey itself.

The main theme centers around Alys's grief as it is starts to consume her. Much of this book is a character study on what grief will do to a person and what they will do to try to keep the memory of a loved one alive. The story and character development of Alys and other characters is unsurprisingly very strong as in Abraham's other works, and character driven readers will especially find a lot to enjoy in this book.
In addition to the character study, this book sets up quite a lot of what is to come in the next entries which will focus on other characters. We learn more about the city, which isn't all it seems, a mysterious religious order and their involvement with the political machinations of the city, and even more political plotting and intrigue around the succession of the city's ruler.

Abraham is typically an author to start out slow and increasingly build upon previous books in future entries, and it definitely seems like that will be the case with this series as well. I did find that Age of Ash had more going on in the first entry compared to Long Price Quartet, so that has me very excited to continue. You do have to be patient with a book and series like this, but I truly believe the payoff will be well worth it.

I don’t know that I have ever read something that has left me with so few words to describe my reaction to finishing it. This book started off slow. Very, very slow. It took me a couple weeks of forcing myself to read a chapter at a time. Sometimes two. Several times having to repeat a chapter because I felt so unclear about what I had just read. My criticism stems from the authors attempts to describe a new world too fast and in too great a detail. There were so many characters, so many places and so much history in the first third of the book that it was very difficult to get through.

However, it does get better. And by the end; it’s great. Now familiar with Kithimar, I happily anticipate a second book. The story is fresh and new. It is fantasy and withcraft. It’s medieval and rural. It is criminal and religious. By the end, I was loving every minute.

My advice is to take it slow. Perhaps the beginning of the book isn’t meant to be devoured. Read a little at a time. Let yourself acclimate to the story at a slower pace and re-read what you forget or don’t understand. And if you make it this part - Winter is the turning point :)

This is my first time reading Daniel Abraham and I don't think it will be my last!

Age of Ash takes places in the city of Kithamar over the course of one year. We primarily follow Alys in the aftermath of her brother's murder. In addition we also get a primary POV from Sammish, a girl from the neighborhood who has a hopeless crush on Alys and strives to help her. And we get some secondary points of view from a few other characters scattered around the city.

What this book really knocked out of the park was the world. The book only takes place in the one city but it was such a richly built and fleshed out city. You really felt like you could feel what it was like to be in this city, and Abraham did a wonderful job fleshing out each different neighborhood of this city. This is where his prose really shines in my opinion.

Plot wise this is a slow paced book, which I've heard is fairly typical of an Abraham novel. The question of who killed Alys's brother was less of a driving factor in the plot than I had perhaps expected when it was pitched on the back of the book. Really I'd say the main plot that we follow Alys through is less her figuring out what happened and more a deep look into grief and how that grief changes and shapes Alys's life in the year after losing her brother. Most, really all, of her actions are driven by her need to keep her brother's memory alive whether she realizes this or not. And this exploration of grief was really knocked out of the park by Abraham.

More in the second half of this book, Abraham starts to unfurl some of the deeper politics and magic of this world and that's what has really gripped me into wanting to pick up the second book. I'm very intrigued to learn more and dive deeper into these aspects of the world in the next book.

Character wise I found Abraham did a good job really developing these different characters. While none of them have stayed with me as a new favorite, I found myself to really believe and feel these characters coming off the page and I'm invested in finding out what is going to happen to them in the later books.

Even more so than an average first book in a fantasy series this book is definitely heavily a foundational book and I'm "trusting the process" to see where Abraham is going to bring this series and based on what I've heard about his other series I definitely have high expectations. Also I have no idea who I think the next book is going to be focused on but I can't wait to find out!

The most recent addition to my all-time top five list was Daniel Abraham’s Long Price Quartet, which tells a series of intimate, personal stories that echo through the decades until the overarching narrative has reached epic, world-altering stakes. It builds slowly, with a tight focus on characters that feel about as real as you can find in the genre, ultimately turning into something grand without losing a bit of the intimacy. So when I saw that Abraham was planning another fantasy series, I literally signed up for NetGalley for the sole purpose of attempting to acquire an ARC of Age of Ash. Suffice to say, I was excited about this one. 

Age of Ash takes place in the city of Kithamar, which will serve as the setting of the entire Kithamar Trilogy, with the opener focusing in particular on the city’s poorest districts. The primary perspective characters are Alys and Sammish, a pair of women just coming into adulthood who survive on a series of odd jobs—some legal and some less so. But the death of her brother sends Alys seeking understanding, or revenge, or both, or even something more, and it quickly sees her entangled in the magic at the heart of the city’s power structure. 

When returning to the author of a favorite series, it’s hard not to make comparisons (fair or not), and Age of Ash certainly carries forward several of the hallmarks of Abraham’s writing that I’d seen in The Long Price Quartet. The prose is a pleasure to read, but not in a way that lends itself to steady reading, and while I never found myself bored, I was also unable to progress as quickly as I’d expect in a novel of that length. In another familiar theme, the story ultimately involves plots that could shake kingdoms, yet it reads as an intimate tale of ordinary people whose lives just happen to touch on matters of gods or kings. That tight focus on perspectives outside the power structure leaves odd holes in the overarching narrative—holes that I believe are meant to be filled in by the sequels. We see a robust plot arc with a satisfying conclusion, but we also only see certain pieces of it, and so there are some causes or consequences that entirely escape our attention in the opening book. 

As I expected, the character work is excellent. I don’t know of an author writing today who does a better job at painting sympathetic portraits of friends pushed to the opposite side of a conflict. Age of Ash doesn’t have quite the moral uncertainty of many of the Long Price books, but even when a major character is clearly in the wrong, their path to wrongness is so deliberate, with every step so well-supported, that they can act awfully while still garnering the reader’s sympathy. 

Unfortunately, the lack of moral uncertainty also creates a story where there don’t seem to be many different ways for the narrative to progress after the broad outlines of plot come into focus. The storytelling doesn’t falter for a minute, and I’ve long argued that having a predictable ending doesn’t make for a bad story unless a lot else goes wrong. But, while the character work, the prose, and a narrative that expertly weaves small moments into big ones earns Age of Ash very high marks, the ending doesn’t take that next step that moves a book from the favorites of the year list to the all-time favorites list. Throw in one irksome coincidence to get the plot going in the first place, and Age of Ash doesn’t exceed excellent. Of course, excellent is excellent--it will likely be among my favorites of the year, and I am extremely curious to see how the sequel will maintain narrative tension while filling in the gaps of a tale whose resolution seems to be in significant part already written. But through the opening novel alone, Kithamar doesn’t hit the lofty heights of Abraham’s existing standard-bearer.

Recommended if you like: deliberately-paced epics with quality prose and tight character focus. 

Overall rating: 18 of Tar Vol’s 20. Five stars on Goodreads.

[4.5/5 stars] Abraham’s writing sings to my soul.

I find his stories incredibly addicting. I had a massive TBR in between me and this book, but kept finding myself opening it to read a couple pages at a time. The first several passages were so gripping, by the time I was “supposed” to be reading it, I was already almost 20% in.

There are so many things I love about Abraham’s stories. One being the subtle, yet robust world building that just oozes off the pages while you’re focused on other things. He doesn’t take a lot of time setting the scene, but when he does, it’s beautiful and absorbing. Kithamar feels like a real place, a familiar place. Yet at the same time it’s unique in so many ways that only living day-to-day with another culture can bring. I loved spending time on these streets, filth and all, and can’t wait until I get to go back.

Another thing I love is the deep character immersion that only happens when an author isn’t self-conscious about taking his time to really immerse you with his characters. I thrive on that kind of connection and found myself despairing, angry, and a whole myriad of other emotions right alongside them. I talked to the book a couple times, which for me is a sign of true investment. And the cool thing is he probably hasn’t even scratched the surface on what’s planned for this series (with upcoming perspectives for characters we saw only on the periphery here), and that’s incredibly exciting.

This was one of those books I enjoyed so much, I could set aside my over-critical mind and just appreciate the journey. It’s only in retrospect while trying to compose this review where I consider what might not work for other readers. There were no major earth-shattering revelations in this story. Very few what I’d call “action” scenes. And in truth I find it hard to describe exactly why reading it was as wonderful as it was, aside from highlighting broader themes of Abraham’s work. It’s one of those cases where if his writing and unique perspective of subtle, character-driven storytelling works for you, then this book is a grand slam. And after hearing some things about the big-picture development of the series as a whole, I’m so there for every last word.

Recommendations: if you love subtle, immersive world-building and highly character-driven novels, then Age of Ash will be right up your alley. I loved my experience with Long Price Quartet and so far Kithamar is starting out just as strong.

Niki Hawkes - The Obsessive Bookseller

Age of Ash (Kithamar, #1)
by Daniel Abraham
This is a complicated book, the adventures of young girl how she survived the death of her brother. Its an opening of growing up and new world. The Questions is How she will learn the reasons for his death because of her following his dangerous path. The textured story is a remarkable new universe for the well known author.

Reviewing a first Abraham book is always a challenging prospect. Looking back at A Shadow in Summer and The Dragon’s Path, both were clearly designed as foundational books that are heavily expanded on in the sequels. Though I was lukewarm in my reception of both those series beginnings when I read them, I ended up liking them way more the further I read in their respective stories. So, it is a sign of big potential that I liked Age of Ash, the start of Abraham’s new Kithamar series, right off the bat.

Kithamar is a massive fantasy metropolis, and the series that shares its name is about all of the different kinds of people who walk its streets unaware of the secrets in its bones. The books have a focus on partial storytelling, unreliable narrators, and tying lots of individual character stories into a larger more cohesive narrative. As far as I understand it, each book in the trilogy will have different POVs that will slowly flesh out the story and what is actually going on. As I read Age of Ash, the cinema flop that was The Last Duel was on the top of my mind, as the two stories on the surface share a premise. However, Abraham is able to breathe a lot more nuance and innovation into his storytelling to the point where I quickly abandoned the concern.

Age of Ash follows three perspectives: Alys, Sammish, and Andomaka. The three of them have a complicated and ever-changing set of relationships that is hard to summarize. Alys is a poor street rat who makes money cutting purses of wealthy travelers to Kithamar. Her story begins when another ends, as she discovers her beloved older brother has been killed on a job and she sets out on a quest to find out what happened and avenge him. Sammish is also a poor street rat who runs in similar circles to Alys, and she is in unrequited love with Alys. Sammish’s story pulls her into a quest that isn’t hers while she lives a life that isn’t conducive to having the resources to help others. Sammish must explore the cost and meaning of love while doing her best to just survive. Finally, Andomaka is a rich priestess of a brotherhood of the city. She is on a secret quest to right a terrible wrong that has to do with the metropolis’ magical heart.

The character stories in Age of Ash are phenomenal. This book, like many of Abraham’s, is a slow burn. Looking at the current Goodreads score of the ARC I suspect that many people expected similar pacing levels to the Expanse. This is a slow and subtle story that is told through the gradual growth and change of its characters. If you want pulse-pounding action, you will be disappointed. But, if you want an original and seductive story about people making the best choices they can with limited information this is for you. All three of the leads are great. I gravitated most to Sammish, but all three were emotionally affecting. Where the characters end is nowhere near where they start, it is hard to give a blanket comment about them as a whole. It is a powerful storytelling technique and one that Abraham excels at.

The book is very unpredictable and constantly keeps you on your toes. It almost feels like some sort of literary test that is trying to see how you process change and discord to smooth themes, ideas, and narrative arcs. You are provided just enough information that you can see that actions that characters want to do are going to fail, but not how they can adapt. Watching them process and react to new events is magical. Every page further I read into this book dug hooks into me deeper and deeper until I couldn’t escape.

The story is slow, and partially incomplete (as we still need to hear from all the other POVs), but that doesn’t mean there isn’t closure. Age of Ash tells its own story that fully works by itself and can only be improved by the next books. The worldbuilding is also both focused and detailed. Kithamar has many secrets and you will be burning to know what they are. The culture of the different districts feels vibrant and Abraham does a good job making the ghettos and poor quarters more than just slums. The prose is poetic while also being very human and emotive at the same time. Other than the pacing, which is required for the narrative, there isn’t much here to dislike.

Abraham is one of the most creative and original authors in the genre, and Age of Ash has the potential to be his best work yet. I generally had a great time with this novel and I think it represents a fusion between his older fantasy style and a number of things he learned while writing The Expanse. Age of Ash is great and I can’t wait to learn more about what lurks under the streets of Kithamar.

Rating: Age of Ash – 9.0/10
-Andrew

Rating: 3.75/5 Stars

Alys’s brother is murdered and her and her friend Sammish try to find out who did it but get caught up in Darro’s old affairs. They find a hidden life of Darro and follow his footsteps to see what actually happened to him, but bigger things at stake.

When I first started this book, I thought I wouldn’t like it because it felt really dry with how it was written and didn’t engage me. As I moved on with the story, I started to enjoy it and got more engaged with it. I really enjoyed the political intrigue in this story, which ends up being a good chunk of the book and you find out why as you keep going on with the book. I loved how Alys and Sammish’s friendship started and how it evolved over the span of the book with the events they encounter and go through together and separately. This book is definitely dark in my opinion and you see a lot of characters who are poor and doing whatever they can to survive. I did find the beginning and ending are on the weaker sides. I found the ending to be a bit anti-climatic as well. Overall I did enjoy a good chunk of this book and will read the sequel. This book comes out on February 15, 2022. Thank you to Netgalley and Orbit for allowing me to read and review this book.

The worldbuilding is deep, Daniel's writing is rich, but unfortunately I did not connect much with the characters and the pace felt slow. With the setting and introduction, I was expecting a story closer to a thief heist with a gang of clever, street-savvy characters, but instead was met with heavy introspection as our main character deals with loss.

This book will find a receptive audience elsewhere, but the drab world along with unmotivated characters did not sweep me off my feet.

Age of Ash was a wonderful reminder of why Daniel Abraham is among the most talented writers of fantasy and my favourite author by a wide margin. The story starts out with a focus on Alys, a pickpocket working the streets of Kithamar. We see from her first appearance that she has a fierce but weird sense of loyalty - not for her co-pickpockets but for her home district. We meet Sammish at the same time but it doesn't become evident that she's our secondary protagonist for a few chapters.

One of my favourite aspects of this story is how the city is a character, in more ways than one. The different districts are described, approached, and engaged with as if they were characters. Themes of loyalty, love, grief, family, and vengeance prevail. Grief, in particular, is explored through three of the main characters, as well as a few secondary characters. No two characters experience it the same and their journeys are relatable but not necessarily predictable.

The book ends with a nice, satisfying conclusion, but there's clearly a promise of grander events to come. It's not the most exciting book, there's pretty much no action. The characters aren't out of this world, the setting isn't mind-bogglingly exotic, there aren't fantasy races. There's subtle magic and hints at greater things to come but by and larger this story is about the characters and how the overall plot affects their lives and vice versa. I spent days after finishing this story thinking about it and working through the feelings it elicited. The characters are <i> human </i> and there's no other fantasy writer out there that captures what that means in their writing as perfectly as Abraham does.

It seems to me that stories about cities (particularly sentient ones) might be a new trend. First we had The City We Became by NK Jemisin and now Age of Ash, though at first glance it seems to be your run of the mill revenge story. 

The story begins with Alys and the group of young thieves she's running with as they look for a good target. They pick a bad target - a Bluecloak officer - and next thing you know Alys is being chased through the streets until the Bluecloak suddenly has chamber pots being emptied on his head and Alys' brother Darro helps her slip away. When Darro turns up dead not long after, Alys blames herself and goes looking for her brother's murderer but ends up wrapped up in something much bigger. She thinks she's saving the city of Kithamar, but she's definitely in over her head… but she has money now and a nice cloak and is trying to live up to her image of what her brother was so does it really matter?

Sammish has been Alys' friend and fellow Thief for many years (and totally has a crush on Alys). When Alys needs her help, Sammish is there and really goes above and beyond. The more she learns about what Alys is involved in, the more she wants to work against it and that means working against Kithamar itself. 

The alternating POVs really helped drive home how much each girl was changing during this year long time span. Their paths grew more distant as their choices differed, but then reconverged later on.  The bits of lore we got regarding the brotherhood and some of the more magical elements were cool, but overall this was a little too slow for me and dare I say it, boring. Not so much so that I put it down, but it won't be making any favorites lists. 

Overall, not a bad book at all and I can appreciate the scope of the plot and the depth and development of the characters. This ended up not being a favorite of mine, but if you like the sound of it then check it out! At this time I'm not sure I'll continue on with the series - I may wait to see reviews of the future installments.

A long time ago I read the first book in Daniel Abraham's series The Dagger and the Coin, and I've been a fan ever since. I loved this book by itself - the story was absorbing and the ending really resonated with me - by I also know there is much to come, and probably in directions I do not expect.

The characters were excellent. I got mad at some of them, grieved with some of them, and some were not at all what I expected. There were themes of dealing with grief, loyalty, and survival. The characters we see most are all from the slums - there is no trope of a prince in hiding, a powerful mage reborn that needs to save the world, etc. They are just normal people dealing with circumstances and trying to survive extreme poverty.

The entire story takes place in Kithamar, and the descriptions of the city and its inhabitants really drew me in. (And my mind kept playing RHCP's Under the Bridge.)

Huge thanks to Netgalley and Orbit for letting me read an ARC of the book!

Thanks to Daniel Abraham's & Netgalley for thr opportunity to read this book!

A great epic fantasy with a different style story than the usual.

Siege book where all stories take place in the Great city.

A little slow at times in its development, but a great story and ending.

Would reqd the next

I am glad that I was chosen to read an advanced copy of this Book. I enjoy Daniel Abraham as a writer and his work on the expanse series which is one of my favourite book series. However, this book fell flat for me. Below is a spoiler free review. I will be posting a full video review on my channel next week. https://youtube.com/c/TreeBeardBookReviews

The three areas in which a good fantasy story succeeds is in its characters, it’s plot and it’s world building. This story sadly did not deliver for me in all these areas. The two main characters Alys and Sammish did not peak my interest. One was unlikeable in my book, and the other was starting to get interesting but far too late in the story for me.

For plot there isn’t much here. It bounced around a lot following the characters but I never felt hooked into the story or cared too much about what was happening. This ultimately ties into the world building. It is set in city of Kithamar which didn’t really stand out from any other city or feel unique In any way. Also, there is hints of a magic system in the book which I think will be developed further.

Overall the book is ok. Im glad I read it. It’s not going to be a favourite but I do trust Daniel Abraham and will pick up the sequel when it comes out.