Thank you to NetGalley and JA Williams for providing me with an ARC of The Spark of Rebellion in exchange for an honest review.

Before I had even properly started, this book was already earning brownie points. There is a pronunciation glossary at the beginning, which I totally appreciate. Normally, an unfamiliar fantasy name gets silently muttered in some strange form in my head for the rest of the book, so having something I could actually refer back to was rather handy.

Then there was the opening Margaret Atwood quote. She is one of my favourite authors, so even more kudos and I still hadn't technically started the story.

And then I read the prologue.

Wow. As an opener, just wow.

The Spark of Rebellion is the first book in J.A. Williams' Threads of Fate series and is set in a fantasy world where women are forbidden from wielding magic. Purity is law, and women discovered with magical abilities face brutal consequences.

Against this backdrop, rebellion is beginning to stir, secrets are starting to surface and characters who have been raised to accept the rules of their world are forced to question exactly who those rules are protecting.

There is magic, power, political intrigue, forbidden love and that enemies-to-lovers element running through it all.

I was sucked into this almost immediately.

The annoying thing was that real life decided to be ridiculously busy this week, because I constantly found myself thinking about this book and itching to get back to it. Had responsibilities not insisted on getting in the way, I would have flown through it.

The prologue sets the tone brilliantly and gives you that immediate feeling that something much bigger is happening underneath the surface. From there, the story keeps building the world, its history and the injustice that sits at the centre of it.

One of the strongest parts for me was the whole premise of women being denied access to magic simply because they are women. There is obviously a very deliberate commentary on power, control and patriarchy woven through the fantasy elements, but it never felt like I was being lectured. It sits naturally within the story and gives the rebellion itself much more weight.

The characters also felt complicated rather than conveniently good or bad. There are people working within the system, people fighting against it and people who have lived under its rules for so long that they barely question them. I really liked that because it made the world feel more believable.

The romance adds another layer to everything rather than completely taking over the story. There is tension, conflict and that constant sense that feelings are developing in circumstances where they really shouldn't be. For me, the rebellion, politics and magic were every bit as important as the romantic side, which is how I prefer my romantasy.

I also really enjoyed J.A. Williams' writing style. There is a lyrical quality to some of the prose and plenty of emotion running through it. It is quite a dramatic story at times, but considering the world these characters are living in, that worked for me rather than feeling overdone.

If I had one criticism, it would probably be that there are moments where there is a lot happening at once. There is the magic system, the history, politics, family relationships, rebellion and romance all developing alongside one another, and occasionally I had to stop and make sure I had everything straight in my head.

But to be fair, that is a fairly minor complaint considering how much I enjoyed the book.

This was one of those books where I knew I was invested because even when I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about when I could pick it back up again.

Fantasy readers who enjoy rebellion, magic, morally complicated characters, political intrigue and romance threaded through a much bigger story should definitely give this one a go.

The fact that real life stopped me from inhaling it in about two days is frankly quite rude.

A fantastic start to the series and one I'm now invested in. Bring on book two!