Solid opening to a series. Looking forward to more. ( )

Thank you to NetGalley and TorBooks for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This falls somewhere between 3 and 4 stars for me. It took awhile to get going - like 50 % of the book, but the ending had a ton of action and was hard to put down and there are some really interesting ideas and concepts in here that I like. I am looking forward to the next books for the continuation of the story.

It is marked as adult but I felt like some of the writing and pacing of the book was more reminiscent of a young adult book (which isn't bad, just not was I was prepared for). One thing that irked me through the book was having different spellings of words (or the pronunciations would be really close) - for example Urth is their world - either spell it Earth or give it a different name! And using y instead of i or e in other words like spyll - that just seems lazy to me. ( )

You know, it's been a really long time since I rage quit a book. Like literally rage quit. Usually I just kinda meander off and lose interest in it. Anyway, I ranted about this book for a long time and seriously do not recommend. ( )

I've long been a fan of James Rollins, and I love long, multi-POV fantasies, so I looked forward to seeing what he'd do in the genre as soon as I heard this book was coming. In the end, though, I'm not entirely sure how I feel.

I absolutely loved the world-building and fantasy elements, and it was those things which really kept me turning pages, along with Rollins' always fascinating twists in storytelling. Where I was left thrown-off was with the characters. The character who gets the vast majority of page-space is the young woman among the group, still a teenager/girl, and something about her voice never caught me--in fact, in the first half of the book, I found her incredibly off-putting, and I think it was my lack of interest in her and her personal stakes/position that caused me to take so long to finish the book. Every time I'd see her name at the start of the next chapter, I'd say to myself, "Oh, it's Nyx again. Maybe I'll stop here for the night." Later on in the book, I got to the point where I didn't find her so off-putting, though I still didn't care so much as her for others, but initially, having her be such a prominent POV in the book was a big obstacle for me to really engage and keep going. Obviously, a character's interest in different characters/storylines changes as a book progresses, and that happened for me here, but always seemed to hold true was that I was most interested in the POVs who were getting less page-time and attention. Early on, I wanted more time with the theif, and got very little. Later on, I wanted more time with the prince, and again got very little. I've never had my engagement with character trajectories and storylines be so diametrically opposed to the directions a book was taking, and honestly, I'm not entirely sure what to make of it, but for the fact that I know it affected my engagement from chapter to chapter.

I'll certainly read the second book in the series, but it will be more for story and world-building and concept than character, which is a tricky thing with such long books. I'll just have to hope the same thing doesn't happen in the next book, particularly given the length, or I may end up sticking to Rollins' suspense in the future rather than following him into fantasy. ( )

One member of our 3 person RL book group is a big James Rollins fan AND reads a fair amount of fantasy, so when Rollins announced that he’d written a fantasy, I knew we would be reading it before long.

And you know what? I really enjoyed it! What I expected of Rollins (based on listening to parts of his thrillers during road trips; I’ve actually never read any of them start to finish) was excellent pacing. Beyond that I had no idea what we might be in for.

To be clear, I don’t think this could be considered a typical fantasy novel. I’d call it a fantasy/thriller hybrid. There is a well-defined alternate reality and a clever premise involving a planet that long ago stopped revolving but may soon face disaster if that situation can’t be reversed. As usual with Rollins there are multiple groups of initially unrelated characters whose destinies gradually intertwine as the story reaches its climax. Plus unique human-animal interactions and heroes and villains of both genders.

And plenty of action! Tests and challenges and evildoers to overcome and imminent doom to avoid. Comings of age and the wisdom of the ages. Derring do and interior contemplation. And a forward momentum that doesn’t hesitate for a moment.

With all that said Rollins still manages with his uncomplicated prose to create vivid images of this complicated other-world he’s created. If you are looking for pure entertainment with characters you want to root for, you should consider giving it a try. The distraction from pandemics and politics was a treat for me. ( )