Unfortunately I have attempted to read this 3 times and each time I get to the 20% mark and lose all interest. The opening sequence is action packed and entertaining but then after that it just plummets. It got especially less interesting when Leones made it to the philosophical school.. temple or something, I’m not sure what it was anymore. After trying 3 times I’m just going to call it a dnf at 20%

DNF at 48%

This book started so strong. The first chapter was intense and full of danger and tension... Unfortunately the rest of the book that I managed to wade through before I gave up wasn't as good.

We start with a vicious attack and a young boy who lost everything in the space of a day, almost died, and discovered that he can rewind time. So he flees the city and vows to master his time-shifting gift enough to come back and save his family. Wonderful premise for what could have been a great story.

But that potential is wasted, because absolutely nothing happens for the next half of the book. Leones gets to the philosophers... and the story comes to a grinding halt. We have pages upon pages of Leones training with weapons, or drinking and gambling in an opium den, or just brooding around. He does nothing productive. He doesn't even explore the city he ended up with beyond the philosopher's gardens and the gambling dens. He doesn't try to find out what happened in the city he fled. He only uses his time rewinding ability when it's convenient for him. And he mops around and he feels sorry for himself. It's boring.

I think I wouldn't have been as boring if this part of the book was populated with interesting characters, but Leones is so self-absorbed that he barely pays attention to anyone besides himself, and only if those people can serve him in some shape or form. As a result, the other apprentices are barely described. I don't know anything about them beyond their names and physical appearance. And because Leones never bothers to ask, I don't know anything about their pasts or their aspirations. Heck, I don't even know what most of them do outside of the philosophers' gardens. As a result, they seem more like cardboard cutouts then real people that I should care about.

Even when Leones's maybe girlfriend is assassinated, which should be a big traumatic discovery for him, my reaction was very lackluster. Probably because Leones didn't particularly grieve for her either.

Speaking of which, Leones as a character didn't work for me at all. He is depicted as being completely detached from his feelings. He is either a sociopath, or so traumatized by what happened in chapter 1 that he can't allow himself to feel anything for anyone. If it's the later, it's not made clear enough in the book, so he comes across as self-absorbed, selfish, and unfeeling. Not a character I want to spend a whole book with.

By the time the action finally picked up in the book, and things were finally starting to happen, I realized that I simply wasn't interested enough to continue. I mean one of the characters seemed to have been erased from existence, but I couldn't' are less. So I decided to call it quits, because I didn't care how this story ended enough to invest any more time into it.

PS: I received an advanced copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Overall Rating - ⭐⭐.5
World Building - ⭐⭐⭐
Character Development - ⭐
Trigger/Content Warnings - Gore, Death, Suicide

Overall Thoughts; I actually didn't dislike this. Not entirely. I think the story is good, it has a good backbone, it just... Isn't fleshed out right. There's a lot of detail and extra in parts that don't matter and a lot lacking where it does matter. The story though is good, I just think it would have been in a different format. This as an anime would be killer. As a book, no so much. I did enjoy the end plot twist, that was a nice surprise. I want to give it a 3 cause I enjoyed the premise, but I honestly had to force myself through a lot of it, and there were a few times I debated giving up. Again, I just think there could have been a better format for it.

Plot; The plot was actually really good. I think the pacing was very off, but the plot points were great. There were multiple points that I did actually get committed to what was happening because it's a decent plot, but the pacing killed it.

Characters; They were fine? I would say there's little to no character development, short of Leone's not being a spoiled rich kid anymore. They're very two dimensional. The characters are varried, which is nice, but very male heavy and everyone feels like random side characters that mostly exist exclusively for their plot point and nothing else.

Writing; The writing was not my favourite. This is honestly what gave this lower than a 3 for me. There was a bunch of time skipping, especially in the beginning, then it was just vomitting the things that happened during that period. Things were mentioned super briefly then brought back later like they had been more than a passing thought, the POV changes randomly without warning, especially at the end, it's just all over the place. The formatting of the digital version was also a hot mess, and I'm hoping it's just the formatting and not the paragraph structure, cause some of it was difficult to follow because of the layout.

Leones Ansteri discovers he can turn back time up to one hour. He discovers this the day his father is killed. With his magical abilities Leones must flee and hide from the establishment. Once he flees his abilities expand. And the conflicts begin...

Thanks, Netgalley, and publisher for the opportunity to read and review!
Very intriguing read which is strongly centered around the development and the exploration of the main character, who has great potential. The world-building is truly unique and intriguing s well as the side characters that are presented. I find this first book as a really good start, but it still lacks the emotional depth the characters need, but still gives that feeling something greater that can be expected in the second installment. That tension of expectation is built really well through the story and keeps following you until the end. Can't wait to find out more in the next book!

I can’t say I cared for this book. The premise is interesting, but the main character is meh. I don’t care for him or his struggle. It’s not that he’s unlikeable; he just has no depth. I assumed this would be a revenge plot, but it went somewhere out to left field.

The time manipulation aspect is interesting, but everything gets really weird really fast. More books are obviously being set up, yet I can’t say I care to ever read them.

There are also some chapters that make very little sense. Like, it switches from first person to third. I’m not sure of the narrating intent there, but I didn’t care for it.

The end/big reveal also did nothing for my interest in subsequent books.

2.5

A Blade Through Time has an absolutely eye-catching, intriguing beginning that sucked me in immediately, so I had high hopes when I started this book. I'm sad to say the rest of the book didn't quite meet those expectations, but I think this was more the case of the book not working for me than it is the book's fault.

The story follows Leones, who is on the run when the crimes of his father threaten his life. As he flees to save himself and everything he knows gets destroyed, power is awakened in him - he discovers he can manipulate time. He seeks refuge in Odena, with the philosophers, where he tries to learn to master his magic as well as other skills. He grows stronger, but soon it is clear that Odena is not as it seems. There are demons in the city and the web of lies reaches farther than Leones could've imagined. There is more than just the city at stake though, and he finds himself right in the middle of this struggle for power.

As I said, the introduction to Leones and his powers was super interesting to me, and I expected this book to be fast-paced and action-packed. However, the bulk of the book, its middle, was much slower paced than I thought it would be. The plot did drag a bit, it was slow and there were a lot of philosophical thoughts and pondering that I didn't enjoy as much. That is probably on me, as the synopsis mentioned philosophers, I just didn't realize it would be as significant in the book as it ended up being.

That being said, I did really enjoy the world-building. I liked how everything was presented, the different cities, the different magic, the Archons - demigods in power. I liked how the story gradually introduced more lore and information, and how it explained the threat of demons and Goetia. The story had the perfect mix of giving enough information and also holding back enough that you stay interested in finding out more. The writing style in general was something I enjoyed (even if it did lean slightly YA at times, which isn't a bad thing, but I was under the impression this was adult fantasy).

I thought Leones was interesting enough as the main character, though I can't say I grew that attached to him. There was something in the story that kept me slightly detached at all times. I think the slow pacing of the middle really made me feel less invested in the story and the characters overall. His power was the most interesting thing about him, and I really liked the time-travel aspect of the story. I think the limitations that were set on his power did well to avoid some of the usual time-travel traps that create unnecessary plot holes. I do wish I felt more connected to the main character, and here I don't mean that he should've been more 'relatable', just that I wish he was more fleshed-out, with his personality/motivations developed a bit more. I do think he has a driving force throughout the book, sure, but those are all outside factors, I wished for more on his internal processes.

As far as the other characters go, I thought they were interesting ideas, but a lot of them needed more development. I thought Leones had a very interesting relationship with his friend Felix. Here I would just like to add that while I generally liked the writing style, the book suffered from repeated words/phrases. There was something slightly grating about Leones calling Felix 'my friend' every sentence, and never using his name or any other word at all. Nonetheless, I did like their friendship, but I wish Felix was a bit more developed outside of his connection with Leones.

I also wanted to add this - there were next to no female characters here, and while that by itself is not really an issue, the few female characters we saw seemed to fall under two stereotypes - a weak woman or a total bitch. The female characters were not fleshed-out and three-dimensional at all, and at this point, I would rather there be no women at all. I didn't particularly enjoy this, I felt like the female characters were just pushed to the side and that was the extent of them.

My biggest issue with the novel was that the bulk of it felt really slow, especially compared with the opening scenes of the book and it was failing to keep me interested at times. That combined with the fact I felt detached from the characters is what really sealed how I feel about this book. I liked the other worlds, and the magic aspects quite a bit, so I still might pick up the next book to see where the story takes us. I do think this was a case of the book simply not being for me and not the book being bad, so if you're interested I would still recommend you give it a go!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review!

𝗠𝘆 𝗧𝗶𝘁𝗹𝗲: Echoes of the Void
𝗙𝗮𝘃 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿: Paimon
𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: Normal
Type: Book
𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗿𝗲: Demon HighISH Fantasy with sci-fi thoughts
4.3/𝟱

🌱THE EXCELLENT
~ High fantasy with realms, demons, angels & human idiots
~ Well-written intrigue & deaths
~ Somewhat gory
~ Considerations of loyalty, friendships, time, endurance, etc
~ Messing with time paradoxes

Leones is killed on his 16th year - incinerated - after watching the same fate come to his father & the staff within his wealthy house- OR is he?! Because Leones discovers that he can play with time, & it’s only a matter of days & moments when he’s sent out into the world to become stronger & to solve the mysteries of demons & ‘gods’ & their servants.

I jumped into this one blind & feel rewarded. In this world, demons, angels & ‘gods’ ATTEMPT to walk the earth & so there is a lot of ‘casual’ violence towards human-like people and weaker beings. I believed the writing & could understand the motivations of the main characters.

✨𝗚𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱.

🌱THE MEH
~ Women are mostly there to nag/complain, be sexual companions or be annoying & die. Sad. 😔
~ Something about the characters was just slightly annoying 🤔 not sure what though…

♡🌱 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗺𝗲 ;)

3.5 stars

A Blade Through Time Follows was seriously kick ass. I loved the magic system, gods & demons, time travel, and sword fighting

Time travel and demons! Need I say more about why you should be reading this book? The world we get thrown into in A Blade Through Time is so magical, gripping and overall so cool I couldn't stop finding more things I loved about this book. It was easy and fast paced, I wasn't able to put it down because I needed to know what would happen by the end of the book. It was a book where you literally couldn't predict the plot twists if you tried to. In a way, that's what made it much more interesting. At every turn I was excited to see what happened because I literally wasn't sure if what I was thinking was going to happen would actually happen. Such a great concept!

I cannot wait to read more! Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this novel!