Oh. My. God. This is absolutely one of those stories that alters my brain chemistry, preventing me from ever moving on. I can already tell I'm going to be rereading this series for the rest of my life, and I don't have the words to express how ecstatic I am that it is going to be a five-book series. Thank you so much to the author for the opportunity to receive an eARC of this story.

This is an Igbo-inspired political fantasy that is first and foremost a story about women. While Azul is our main character—the one we're rooting for from the beginning and love despite her seeming lack of ability to express the emotion—the author does an amazing job of exploring the different women in the world. Whether we love them or hate them, every woman in this story utilizes every and all tools that are at their disposal to not only survive, but thrive in an aggressively patriarchal and misogynistic world.

Apart from Azul and Ragnar (obviously), I surprisingly ended up really loving the characters of Chidinma and Somadina (love is used loosely and in relation to his place in the story, not as a person in his case). I hated Chidinma at first, but as we learnt more about her and understood her relationship with Azul more, I couldn't stop myself from considering her one of my favourite characters. Similarly, with Somadina, I started the story just hating him—while that feeling never went away because he's a piece of shit—he begrudgingly became a character I kept looking forward to seeing the pov of. He is so amusingly pathetic (derogatory) and obsessive in a way I didn't expect.

It is so hard for me to describe the level of devotion and love I have for Azul and Ragnar's connection. I was initially attracted to the book because the author did an amazing job promoting it with their beautiful art of the couple. At first, I was under the impression that the book would be more romance-heavy, and was pleasantly surprised when it was definitely more about the politics with romance as a sub-plot. With the personalities of the characters, this is actually a much better approach to exploring their relationship. Ragnar is so incredibly pathetic (affectionate) for Azul—and though I already knew this about myself—this definitely cemented this as my favourite trait an MMC can have. The way they met was iconic, and I adored the way Ragnar had such trust and devotion for Azul. I even liked how insta-love it kind of was, which is not something I always enjoy if not done well.

I'm not going to lie, I was pretty confused almost the entire time, starting from the first page. In the beginning, it was a little jarring to always feel like I had missed some context, but over the course of the book, I found that this style really suited the story. We don't get any more information than necessary till the last second, and the book doesn't hold your hand, trusting you to pick up what is happening as it's being revealed.

This book was an amazing exploration of feminine rage and truly morally black characters willing to do anything and everything to reach their own selfish goals. Most of the characters are unlikable to some degree, and that is truly where a lot of its charm comes from as well. I already have my hopes for what the next book is about and what may happen in it, but at this point I know I'll devour anything that comes from this series.

Edit: I just got my copy of the illustrated hardcopy in the mail, and it has truly become one of my most prized possessions. At this point, I'm even planning on purchasing the paperback so that I can annotate a physical copy of the book, and I can't wait to see what the author does with the second book. It's truly rare to see this level of care and design go into a book like this because it obviously takes so much time and money, and I am so happy I found this story and get to see it evolve from the beginning of its journey.