Erm….not really sure what to say about this book. It had a lot of potential but it just seemed really messy, I’m not overly sure what the point was? What the plot was?

My thanks to Netgalley and Books Go Social for the copy in exchange for an honest review

I enjoyed this book. I liked the story and the character development; the protagonists were sympathetic and women played many of the roles that would normally be written for male characters. The world-building and pacing were very good. There was also some humor in the book and the magpie helped with that. I had previously tried reading the book but gave up as I found it confusing, but I started over and I liked it better the second time around. I’ve seen comparisons of writing in this book with the writing of Sir Terry Pratchett. I don’t see it. This book didn’t have Pratchett’s intense social commentary or clever wording. I did find the writing similar to that of Tom Holt, however. Overall, the book is worth reading for fans of the genre and I am happy that another book in the series is coming out. Thank you to Netgalley and BooksGoSocial for the complimentary reader copy.

This is one of those books - I've seen a few lately, so I assume it's a new trend - that brings back an older narratorial approach of an omniscient implied narrator with an ironic tone, moving freely between the viewpoints of a number of hapless characters, who may or may not be protagonists. One of the characters even gets his heavy accent into the free indirect speech in which his viewpoint is depicted. (I didn't find it especially credible, by the way, that someone should have such a very heavy accent who, although originally from a remote mountain area, had grown up mostly not in that area. But this was a minor point.)

That ironic tone, the sometimes gruesome trials and often reduced agency of the characters, and the fact that children were always referred to as "brats" were not especially appealing elements to me, and did not prepare me for the ending, where <spoiler>one of the characters who had not previously shown any heroic tendencies, or much ability to act with agency, heroically resolved the entire plot by acting in defence of a child - using a device which he stumbled upon by complete chance</spoiler>. The intersections and progressions of the various characters are strongly driven by coincidence, which is not my favourite way for a plot to be driven.

The setting is one in which women are the fighters and labourers (apparently being the physically stronger sex) while men do the accounting, reading, and philosophizing. Both genders can be rulers. There's reliable contraception through chewing "maidenroot". All this was more in the background than the foreground, but gave an interesting spin to the world.

The copy editing was mostly OK, apart from some capitalization issues ("Brother" should be capitalized when it's part of a person's name, and "Harbour" when it's part of a place's name) and a few minor typos.

It's capably done, and the ending was unexpectedly satisfying, but the journey had too much ironic detachment from truly nasty events, too many clueless characters, and too much coincidence for me to really love it, or to add it to my Best of the Year list.