I will start with the good: I enjoyed the premise and plot of the book. There were many twists and turns. I love a good murder mystery, ghosts, and necromancy, so this really had many of the elements of a great fantasy tale for me. I also did enjoy the world-building.

What I didn't enjoy: there were pacing issues. The beginning was very slow, then it started to move at light speed. I felt 0 connection to the characters. There was too much exposition for my taste. I'm a big believer in "show, don't tell" and this was a lot of telling.

I do want to point out that I was quite uncomfortable with how the elves and dwarves were obviously inspired by specific human people groups and cultures. While I commend the author's attempt at diversity, without significant research or lived experience, these references fell flat at best and reinforce problematic stereotypes at worst. In particular, I found the plot around "half-elves" facing discrimination cringeworthy. It lacked depth and emotion (besides anger). I would also highly recommend the author remove the passages by Asian-inspired characters that have them speaking in broken English. I found these offensive and they added 0 value to the book.

I hope the author and publisher will invest money in sensitivity readers for this book before publishing.

Thank you Netgalley and Sidhe Publishing for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you so much publisher for providing an arc! I just devoured this book. It was so nerve-wrecking so I can not express enough about the plot. The plot is so interesting that you will find yourself gasping everytime you find something new.
I really like the worldbuilding, and how the author can create a world that has the capability of making us vicariously live through it. I feel like the introduction was a bit too slow-paced for me. The characters are fairly interesting.
Henceforth, it was quite a good read.

I loved this book. If you are a fan of a d&d setting, mystery and a great talent for description, then this book is for you. The setting is rich and full of an interesting history I can not wait to learn more about, the characters are both wonderful and flawed, but also not falling into the typical stereotypes you expect from them. There are surprises all around, and they are all delightful in their horrificness. Read this book, you won't be disappointed.

i liked the use of Necromancy in a different way, the characters were great and I really appreciated the risks that the author took in the book. It was a great start to a series.