The start of an exciting new series by Brian McClellan!

In a fantasy Renaissance Italy, the High House council is shaken by a murder on the steps of the Capitol building. Everyone in House Grappo is affected: the heir in hiding, the head of security, the foreign legion friend, and the glass blower collaborator who has disturbing information about the current glass supply, the source of everyone's magic.

The magic system in this gas lamp fantasy is so unique! And I loved the twists and turns as characters try to solve one mystery and instead uncover several more.

If you've read Brain McClellan before, then you know how good of a writer he is, and if you haven't, this is a great place to start. I can't wait until the next in the series!

Damian Lynch did an amazing job narrating. There are a lot of characters in this book, and he pulls out all the accents, but the audio was still clear enough so that I could follow who was who and what each person was saying. I'm looking forward to listening to more from him as well!

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for access to an audio copy of this book.

Well written and enjoyable enough, though far less considered than McClellan’s previous novels.
The narration was excellent, though I had to question the use of a range of extremely different accents given to individuals who were childhood friends and grew up in the same city.

For me, the story suffers from major inconsistencies and lacks a sense of scale:
• All locations in the book can be travelled between in a couple hours despite events taking place in and around several different cities and on both sides of active war fronts (fast enough for critical soldiers not to be missed when they run off to do their own thing).
• The source of magic running out virtually at the same time felt particularly forced given that it comes from “… thousands of mines and quarries” around the world. Finding new mines for this seemingly common material is apparently not an option. On top of this, the catastrophe of all these sources running dry at the same time is somehow a secret.
Worst of all, the primary characters all struck me as having been pulled from Powdermage novels and given a fresh coat of paint (without the well fleshed out backstories) – we’ve got the investigator with a minor magical talent, the glass equivalent of the prodigy powdermage/warhero, the love interest who is equally exceptional in the application of her own magic, the oversized brute who has no magic but is stronger and faster than those who do…

Great world building. Great characters. A very strong opening to a new series. The ending has me anticipating book 2. Highly recommended for all fans of Fantasy fiction.

Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for sending me an arc audiobook copy of this title.

WOW!!!
I am going to be as vague as possible because I don't want to spoil this gem for anyone! This was a fantastic story, amazing world building and some of the most spectacular characters I have read this year! I was a fan of Brian McClellan for his powder mage series but this series will be his legacy.