War? Check. Political Intrigue? Check. A world where writing fades away after the writer dies? Triumphant check!
As the Tides and the Crown cross swords, an unlikely alliance comes by the way of a marriage of families. Cael Oberlan is one of the Tides' greatest warriors and he just took out the Crown's version of him in single combat, only for the King's nephew and murderer of Cael's older brother, Emil Trestinsen, to wound him in battle. The leader of the Tides, Ordan Oberlan, and the King's brother (and Emil's father) come to an agreement that would stop the war: Emil to marry Ordan's only daughter, Merrily. What follows is political backstabbing and trail of bodies, leaving only the traitorous the victors while the losers' written pacts lost to the ages.
What worked for me:
The title should give much away to what works. There's traitors, a plethora of them and they commit lots of treachery by the end of this book and leaves our "heroes" in a bad spot (I put heroes in "" because they are not exactly what we might think of heroes, more on that below). Honestly, I'm curious to how Mr. Roberti was able to keep all his treacherous threads organized, because there were a lot of plates spinning all at once. The most enjoyable aspect of this story was trying to figure out where the inevitable betrayals were going to hit and to whom. While I figured out the main traitor fairly early on, I didn't see one death coming, so that was an excellent twist.
Also, there was a lot of blood in this book. Never going to complain about plots and backstabbing and murder of characters who are set up to be big roles in the story. Love that type of story!
No heroes here (ok, well maybe Emil is in his own mind). Cael, Merily, and Emil are the three main POV characters and each of them are fairly complex in their own way. Cael, yeah, he's a right bugger, but I liked him all the same. Emil, won't lie, took me a hot minute to warm up to him, but that's because he's fairly self-assured, self-confident, basically anything with "self" in it because he's kinda all about him. Merily was fun, humorous, and had a spark about her that I truly enjoyed. Ordan, the main traitor, was not a nice man, so let's just leave it at that.
One bit that I found super intriguing is the disappearing writing after death of the writer. Now that's a cool bit of world-building! I mean, you could literally wipe out everything a person has every done by just offing them (although I suppose that's why there is a scribes guild...). The concept wasn't used a ton, which was good because when the final traitorous twist occurs, major things were undone because of some character deaths. Definitely sets book 2 up nicely for the fallout.
One thing that was done well was that the first 30% of the book is basically all-out warfare, battles galore, but after the marriage agreement, the story becomes this slow burn political thriller. This transition could go way off course if not handled correctly, but I think it worked well. I enjoyed the web of lies that built off of the ending of the war, and each needed time to bloom.
The ending twist was exceptional. Again, part of it was pretty plain to see coming from miles away, but there was yet another back to stab. Definitely didn't disappoint!
What didn't work for me:
Aside from some minor grammatical or formatting errors, there wasn't a whole lot in this story that didn't work, but there are two small things I would have liked to see.
One, while Ordan was indeed a clever jerk, I wanted to see it played out more than being told about it. Sure, there were some interlude-like POV scenes that show Ordan's plans unfolding, but when in his POV, I would have liked him engaging in his other plans more, more of him setting things in motion as opposed to just going along with him. Also, if Ordan is supposed to be this clever dude, I feel like some of his actions were a little too plot armor-y, kinda makes him seem not as clever (or maybe that was intentional by Mr. Roberti and I completely missed it!). I guess what I'm trying to say is that the character of Ordan had a lot more potential that wasn't tapped, but there is a prequel novella, so perhaps we get more of his dastardly machinations in that story.
Two, while the political intrigue was handled nicely, I do think a little more aggression between the characters would have made more sense. I get it, these two families are enemies one minute, then become allies through Merily/Emil's marriage, but there was a slight lack of distaste for each other really soon after the announcement (aka treaty). A little more tension, especially from Merrily's POV (let's face it, Emil is kinda a punching bag, but in a good way!) would have gone a long way to making this story even better.
Rating:
4.5 out of 5
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Dave Mcintyre
A rival to Abercrombie
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 8, 2024