4.75⭐ "And wasn't that the true evil of war? That it didn't have the decency to strip the humanity of those we killed?" I let the title, cover and romance-focused blurb influence my opinion and I thought this was gonna be another copy&paste romantasy that I was gonna dnf 30% in. I enjoyed myself SO MUCH reading this. romantasy? Is it romance-focused? For the first half, no. It's mainly fantasy, until the 50% mark, where the romance takes over for a while; and while I was praying it would not happen while reading the first half, because it was going so well... I loved the romance so much that I didn't mind either. Had we not had the first few chapters of the protagonists meeting as children and finding out that world-shattering truth, I would have thought the romance was too insta lovey, but those early chapters changed the dynamic entirely and I was curling my toes watching them meet again after life and their own choices pulled them into such different directions. concept and magic The concept of the whole societal order being built on a lie reminded my of Blood Over Bright Haven and when we got to the miner's side, the Peaky Blinders vibe got super strong and I ate. It. Up. The magic is elemental but because there's a large part of metals, it brought a soft magic system equivalent to Mistorn to mind. I do like hard magic systems more but I think this is handled well on that one, although I wish we could have dug into it more. pacing That's actually my main, well, not complaint, but rather what I wished we had. A lot happens; the first chapters opens with Nina and Patrick at 12, and they grow to be 25 by the end of the book, and I kinda wished it'd been split into 2. We very much brush over the school years and I think if we'd had spent more time there, getting to know people and develop the magic, and seen Nina's struggle with being a fraud, the big event happening at 18 would have been a lot more hard-hitting. Same thing with Nina's life between 18 to 25. We cover the way she's lived in a few pages, and although we do get a good idea of how it impacted her emotionally, I feel like going into more details and ending a book 1 with how Nina and Patrick meet again before going into a book 2 would have been amazing. characters -Nina as a character frustrates me, because she, as the blurb says, runs from the fight. The clash of her origins in the mining towns, against the teenage years she's had amongst the Artisans and the trauma of her graduation made her incapable of picking a side in that Crafter/Artisan war. But it's also understandable because she's very aware that a war means death, regardless of who wins, and deep down, she's the kid who just wanted art and beauty and peace, being faced with now being a weapon, forcefully aimed at either side. -Patrick.. well, Patrick had picked his side from the very beginning and regardless of the pressure, and trauma, and responsabilities, he never budges. He's going into this war eyes wide open, and willing to do anything to protect his people. They bumped into that terrible truth together, and the decision they each made at that moment was very different, and they led very different lives, but the fact is, they understand each other perfectly. Both for who they are, and what they did. -I loved all the people from the town. The Colsons are all so lovable and raw, the dynamic in the town in general is fascinating, once again, big Peaky Blinders vide. And I also loved the writing. The grittiness of the mining towns, the suffocating feeling of the mines permeating the live of every resident; not just the miners, but the family that's constantly bracing for a alarm to ring and tell them their loved ones have been buried alive, the kids watching their dads and brothers trying to soften the edges of their fear with alcohol and drugs, turning violent.. The mines really feel like another character, looming over the rest, really to swallow them all. "Crafters were born to parents without means. Ofter, those parents died young. The children worked at an early age for little pay, subject to occupational hazards an Artisan would never face. They medicated themselves against the trauma, the injuries, the knowledge that the next day would bring them nothing better, and if they survived to the right age, they eventually raised their own hungry children. It was a cascading line of falling bricks that built the bring."