Riven follows Mars, an 18 year old mercenary and secret magic user who drawn back undercover for “one last job” to earn his freedom. The job? To find a mysterious object and to keep safe an heiress who just so happens to be the daughter of the man he’d previously been hired to kill.

The concept and the first few chapters of world-building really drew me in, but I got stuck about a third of the way in because of the pacing. When I pushed myself to continue, I was disappointed to find that every “twist” you could imagine took place and played out almost as if I’d written it myself. Or just read the plot a dozen times before. Even the romance fell flat, Mars had better chemistry with the third wheel than the beautiful heiress.

A lot of the themes the book raised were only shallowly explored. This is one of those books where it being YA and myself being older than that target audience really came into play. Maybe a teenager or someone just getting into fantasy books would really enjoy this, but unfortunately, it was not the book for me.

Also, the ending tied things up just fine in my opinion. Why is this being stretched further?

Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC, that in no way effected my opinion.