1.75 ⭐️

!!!!!MILD SPOILERS!!!!
.
.
.
.
Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Make sure you read all the CW for this one before you dive in.
.
.
.

This book’s worst crime is being incredibly dull. Mediocre. A snooze fest. I’ve read science fair pamphlets made by middle schoolers that were more captivating.

•Realizing that this book was supposed to be character driven made me angry. I didn’t feel anything for the characters at all. They were one way in the first 60%, another way in the next 20%, then another way for the last 20% without any real fleshing out. I think because this book promises intrigue and action in the synopsis, that’s what you expect, but you end up with these constantly flat chapters that can’t decide if they want to world build, character build, or move the plot forward, so you end up with a dreadful mashup of all three possibilities.

•I think balancing character and plot is both really easy and really hard. Once you figure it out, it’s hard to mess up. This book didn’t figure it out. I think it could have been a dynamic, clever, politically intriguing adventure with characters you can’t help but fall in love with but it wasn’t. It didn’t feel sloppy per se, just underbaked from every aspect. The magic is easily the most interesting part of this book, but the writing didn’t do it service. It didn’t feel rich. It felt like I was reading a summary in bullet point form at the end of a spell book.

•The first 70% of this book is the same three bullet points repeated over and over again. Over and over again. They weren’t mentioned once and elaborated later, they weren’t mentioned then put in parallel with themselves at a different point in the book, we didn’t get to read them as a unique, beautiful metaphor every time they were brought up. No. They were delivered with the same straightforward manner every time. At every scene. In every POV character’s head. Banging my head against the wall would’ve been just as repetitive but much less painful.

•Most of the scenes read like the kind you would write in a first draft where you aren’t sure where you would take your story. Stuff just happening because.

•Dimitri was always always sad in a way that got exhausting to read. It can be argued that that’s the point (you’re supposed to be sucked into his depression), and I see where that could have been the intention, but it I believe it wasn’t well done. Usually when a character is stuck feeling the same emotion, especially sadness, the author will try to offset it with unique metaphors and a mysterious backstory to keep you invested, but this isn’t done here. I swear the same sentences were copy pasted from the way it was hammered into my head. Even Vasily and Alexey had that same monotonous voice. Alexey was slightly more interesting but also boring. I didn’t feel like the world building and magic were done in a way that submerged me in their richness. Any interest I had was from my own brain filling in the blanks.

•The character of Vasily was incredibly confusing. His thoughts and personality didn’t make sense to me at all for what he was— a spymaster. He read more like a peasant being forced into the role of a spy. He’s not clever or charming. We’re supposed to believe he is but his dialogue doesn’t stand out at all. He just finds stuff out. By having normal conversations with people. Who just give it to him. For absolutely no reason. Maybe it’s the curls?

•If you’re going to have such a large chunk of this book lack action and intriguing politics, your characters and prose need to be more compelling. In terms of prose, either quirky or beautiful. Shadow and Bones’ prose is similarly simple, but it had the plot beats and general intrigue about the world to make up for it. The writing style didn’t have that “YA flow” nor was it sophisticated or fun in any way. The few attempts at humor fell flat for me.

•The POV switches didn’t feel coherent and didn’t add much to the story. The chapters didn’t end in a way that compelled me to keep reading. POV switching can keep readers in suspense but I didn’t find myself caring about the characters or the events of the story enough to be on the edge of my seat.

•The amount of sex scenes and physical attraction didn’t make up for the characters’ general lack of romantic chemistry. The most compelling relationship was the one we weren’t supposed to root for, which was disturbing.

What I think should have been done?
1. Dimitri should have infiltrated the court himself, under disguise using shape shifting magic he found in the library. It would have been interesting to see his POV interacting with his evil husband and his evil husband’s POV as he interacted the love of his life, unbeknownst to him. Vasily should have been a spymaster for Alexey that eventually joined Dimitri’s side (after falling in love and confronting his past). The story could have focused on the suspense of Dimitri swaying the court to his side while Alexey was none the wiser, and trying to find a way to reverse Alexey’s immortality. This idea could’ve balanced character work and plot really well.
2. Maybe the story could’ve taken place at the beginning of the civil war, before Dimitri exiled himself. I think the inner turmoil and general nature of war would’ve made up for the lack of cohesive plot.
3. Or, if we aren’t going to change the basis of the story, just have it begin earlier. Maybe with Vasily finding the ad from the palace and having an emotional send off with Dimitri and co. Have Vasily spend a longer time trying to sway Alexey over rather than Alexey being immediately convinced (that felt so so so lazy).

Overall, the writing style for this book is what made it so flat. Even if any of the ideas above were executed they would have to be written with a completely different approach to prose to sell it to me.
.
.
.
Anyway, this book seems to have found its audience so for that I’m glad. It’s not a bad book and I enjoyed what it was doing for queerness by having a queernormative world (did I use the right word?). Will I read anything else by this author? Yeah sure if the synopsis appeals to me. This is a debut after all so the only way to go is up.

Thank you to Net Galley for the arc.
I wanted to like this so badly but it just wasn’t for me. The pacing was completely off, it felt like the middle book of a trilogy. There are references to these important events that happened in the past but nothing happens in the actual book. The solution was way too fast and convenient and the last chapter makes you feel like you read the entire book for nothing. There were some pretty big plot holes or things that were not explained well, as well as some other little things that could easily be fixed in editing (like whenever there’s a scene with 2 male characters the author uses “the other man” a million times). If you’re expecting any action you’ll be disappointed. The entire book is just politics and sex. There are sex scenes back to back and they all feel the same and unnecessary. Another thing that bothered me a lot (which I think has to do with the fact that this book reads like a sequel) is that the author does a lot of telling and barely any showing. The world and the magic system had SO much potential but it’s hard to get to know it when every other scene is set in the characters’ beds. Although the characters themselves weren’t super developed, I really loved their friendship. The queer representation was also great.
If you want a dark version of Shadow and Bone with no action, a lot of politics, and a lot of sex, this is the book for you.

The Tzar of Novo-Svitsevo is violently overthrown by an indestructible man who claims to have been chosen by God Himself and brought back from the dead to serve his purpose. To make matters worse, the new Tzar is the husband of the Tzar that he displaced.

This novel follows Dimitri, the rightful ruler of this kingdom and his Spymaster, Vasily, as they attempt to regain the throne from the abusive hands of Alexey Balakin. I’m going to start with a warning that 1/3 of the chapters in this book are told from the POV of the abuser Alexey, which I found to be in bad taste. I feel like these chapters didn’t endear me at all to Alexey and that this antagonist could have been easily built up by the other two POVs of Dimitri and Vasily. As someone with personal experience of domestic violence, I have no problems with this being covered in literature, but I think platforming an abuser’s narrative is unnecessary.

I did enjoy the world-building in this dark fantasy, with the author taking inspiration from Jewish customs and folktales to create a fantastical version of an Eastern European country. The queer representation in this book was also expertly done, with a wide range of characters across the LGBT+ spectrum, where their queerness was not their only character trait. It was clear that the author had worked hard to create a fantasy setting in which queerness was just as acceptable as straightness, and I applaud her for that.

For my own tastes, there was too much sex and too little plot to make this book a worthwhile read. I know that smut is big in the BookTok community at the moment, and I’m sure this book will do incredibly well with that audience, but I found that for the first 50% of the story, I knew more about the sex lives of the characters than the actual stakes. The majority of the sex was also quite violent and very mechanistic, which made it difficult for me to read. There were also a couple of scenes that included heavy drug use which I felt didn’t really fit in with the world at all and really brought me out of it. I will say that the latter half of the book became more plot-driven and therefore more enjoyable.

I think that the book would have benefited from starting at a different place in the narrative, as it picks up in the aftermath of a brutal war, rather than in the depths of a battle. If the story had started earlier, perhaps even before Alexey’s transformation, I would have bought more into the connection between Dimitri and Alexey. The way it happened, it was difficult to see why Dimitri still held Alexey in his heart. Especially as Alexey’s only redeeming quality seemed to be that he loved Dimitri in his own strange way. The heavy use of backstory in the novel sometimes made it difficult to follow and feel genuinely immersed in the narrative, especially when this backstory didn’t really add anything new. [Mild spoiler] I was also confused at the reference at the beginning of the book to Dimitri not being able to shoot his husband on a battlefield and how he tortures himself over this throughout, because surely if Alexey is unkillable then it wouldn’t have made a difference if Dimitri shot him or not?

I do think there will be a lot of people who enjoy this book (as I can already tell from the majority of Goodreads reviews!) but unfortunately, I’m not one of them. I’m grateful to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for allowing me to access an ARC copy.

When I began reading this novel, I began writing down every thought I had to be able to compose this review. Straight away, I adored the art at the front of the copy, thinking about how I would buy them as prints, as well as the etchings on the chapter title pages. I love that the author has chosen to add content warnings before the beginning (and on StoryGraph). This is something that is all too overlooked in media today. Upon reading the words, I straight away fell in love with the imagery used within the writing, and if this was a physical copy I'd have been marking every few pages to return to. However, my attention to detail quickly fell away as I became entirely entranced within this novel.

The plot is captivating, almost from the start. I have seen other reviews, and I can understand how it may be slower for some people, but, in my opinion, this is down to a matter of one's personal likes, rather than writing skill. I loved the fact the plot picked up from the back-end of a major tragedy - it wrote into the characterisation of Dimitri, and it provided a backdrop to build the world around. But above all, I fell in love with the characters, quickly, and there may lie bias in how well a queer-normative world was built up (to even see this representation at all!), but the introduction of a non-binary character, with neutral pronouns, so casually, just existing, was truly beautiful to read, despite the affliction the plot is built upon.

From here on I may spoil some parts of the novel. I will try to be as ambiguous as possible, but please read on with concern if the novel is unread for you.

All the reveals within this novel, every single one, struck me, such as finding out what the illustrations in the front of the novel are, and how this so subtly, but so wonderfully, revealed the relations from Vasily towards Dimitri, for example. But also finding out what Alexey has done - I don't know if I can say all of it was a shock, as you gradually learn enough of his character to predict the actions he is capable of, but it was still done so well, and with care. There lies concern writing from the point of view of a manipulator, or a villian, and particularly with one of Alexey's demise, but I think the author has done this brilliantly. Firstly, even balancing all three perspectives was seamless, and there was no hitch or break in the story telling that you can sometimes find in multiple-pov novels. But even so, reading Alexey's pov in particular, you understand his thinking, you understood his motivations, so well that it wasn't question, and yet it was still obvious that he was the villain, the manipulator (with the author even explicitly using words such as this) without ruining the character of his point of view.

Some of the moments in particular which got me, that I was present enough to stop and write down in my notes, include: the end of chapter 7, where I have written how happy I was, and how the author has already managed to create such strong connections to the characters; how i already was emotional with tears within the first one hundred pages of the book; and then a jump to the end of chapter 32, because I become so enhanced with the plot and characters, where, and i quote my own notes, 'i am screaming'; the transmission to the next chapter... it was captivating. Moreover, the overarching themes of trust and found family and belonging sung to me, I adored it.

I think the only hinderance I held throughout the plot was (extreme spoiler), in chapter 34, following Alexey and Ivan's following interactions, there is a sentence that reads on p. 336 immediately following the scene break, the illicit use of this word, made me believe Alexey had sent Ivan to his demise in a rage. Considering his character, this was entirely believable to me, and this may fully be a reflection of me finishing this novel late at night, because I went back and reread this paragraph when I realised. It did not dictate from the story, and nor did it ruin the unveiling of events in any way, but I wish to include it in an honest review for the author. Nevertheless, for a debut novel, I have fallen in love, and I truly truly look forward to (what I hope will be!) the second instalment in this series. And finally, I admired the explanation at the end, and I respect the choice to include the further reading. This book was an easy five stars, no questions asked. I have added links to where I will review the book below, in due time.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Random House for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

4/5 stars

This book was very different from what I have previously read. I don’t typically go for the ex love / new lover trope but I really enjoyed the plot and story.

Dimitri had a beautiful growth arc as he dealt with the grief of losing his husband and home. We saw him at his lowest and watched him claw his way back. The author did a really nice job with pacing where you could see the struggle. Where he didn’t really want to do things but did them in order to save his family and people.

Alexey was very much the villain. He clearly made a few mistakes on his religious path. He was very much obsessed with power but did have a weakness. It was interesting seeing how he would react to things and how he very much missed Dimitri.

Vasily was by far my favorite character. I enjoyed seeing what personas he would put on and what new information he would find.

Overall I enjoyed the world building and lore in this book. It was a refreshing fantasy read where you could feel the characters flaws and emotions.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Canada for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I went into The Sins on Their Bones not knowing much about what to expect but absolutely loving the book by like, the 20% mark.

Dimitri Alexeyev is the exiled Tzar of Novo-Svitsevo, living in hiding with his court, plotting to reclaim the throne from his sort-of ex-husband, Alexei.

Alexey Balakin has successfully claimed the throne and is busy spreading the Holy Science across the empire, a religion that allowed him to resurrect himself as an immortal and (according to him) speak to God Himself. Also, he can summon demons.

Vasily Sokolov is Dimitri’s spymaster and sort-of lover, and when presented with the opportunity to infiltrate Alexey’s court, he takes it even though it comes with great personal risk.

First and foremost, I love mess. I love when characters are messy and their choices are messy, and these characters??? They’re walking human disasters. Their interpersonal relationships are so interesting and complex and delicious, and I loved getting all of their perspectives, even when they verged on uncomfortable (maybe especially when they verged on uncomfortable). Samotin’s characters are so well written and I really liked how deep they were, especially the side characters. There was a good balance of the three POV characters and they each brought something interesting to the story. I also appreciated the queer-normative world. The atmosphere was wonderful and I enjoyed Samotin’s prose and felt that it matched the story well. I also really liked how she rendered body horror, it felt appropriately gross and visceral while not feeling tonally out of place. Samotin does a good job at depicting difficult topics with care, such as intimate partner violence and sexual abuse, and I enjoyed her explore what it means to heal and how love plays a role in it.

Plotwise, this is a character driven slow burn, and while I immensely enjoyed it, there was a time where I realized we were 30 or 40% into the novel and still not much had happened compared to where I had thought we’d be. I enjoyed the slow pace and thought that book one ended well and made sense (this is, I believe, a duology), though I do think the second half moves noticeably faster than the first (from a slow to medium pace, though, and it does feel natural). I’m definitely curious to see where the second book will go, and while I do think this can work as a standalone, I’m excited to get some other questions answered.

I absolutely recommend this and Samotin did a wonderful job crafting her world, characters, and relationships. A new favorite for me for sure.

I enjoyed the LGBT aspect of this story and think that it was done well. But, I didn’t find myself particularly connected to any character or storyline. I didn’t really get the “point” of the book, there were a lot of different things going on that didn’t feel like they worked well together.

This was one of my most anticipated books of the year so I was very happy when I found it on Netgalley by accident with a Read now button, allowing me to get access to the ARC instantly

It did not disappoint. I think labeling it as romantasy or spicy is not entirely accurate. There is a romance between Dimitri and Vasily, but much of the focus in this book is on Dimitri and Alexey, who are now enemies, though still have feelings for each other, and examines the trauma Dimitri endured at Alexey's hand. The sex scenes too are more about that trauma than that they are spicy, and I think this aspect was very well done but can be hard to read for some. It personally didn't bother me. All explicit sex scenes in this book are between consensual adults, though sexual assault is hinted at.

Dimitri is a wonderful character, someone who endured something horrible and now believes it's all his fault. He believes what Alexey did is his fault, losing the war and his throne is his fault, and through that all the awful things happening in his country. At the start of the book, he is in a deep depression and not really motivated to get better because he believes he deserves it, and that makes his arc very satisfying.

A third of this book is written through Alexey's POV, which might be a controversial choice, but I think it worked well here. It pushes the story forward by giving more insight into what Alexey is actually doing, and makes the book all the more horrifying. I loved how the author delved into Alexey's mindset, he is cleary awful yet believes he's entirely justified, and approaches every relationship with a need for control, something which became harder when Dimitri was tzar while he was only the tzar's spouse. I like how we got a lot of their backstory through Alexey's POV, if anything his thoughts make it more obvious the relationship was bad than Dimitri's POV who still kind of romanticizes what they had before Alexey became a monster.

Vasily is the third POV character, and he's such a fun character and a great foil for Alexey. He has his own trauma, but seeing Dimitri blame himself for everything that went wrong helps Vasily realize his own trauma wasn't his fault, just as what happened to Dimitri wasn't his fault. He is in love with Dimitri and it isn't always easy for him, but I loved watching their romance develop, though it wasn't the biggest part of the book.

The world building was interesting and I liked the role religion played in it. I'm not super familiar with the Jewish folklore the religion is based on, but I could follow along quite well, and I liked the religious conflict between Dimitri's more traditional beliefs and Alexey's Holy Science.

Would recommend this book to people who enjoy dark fantasy and healing from trauma narratives, do be sure to mind the content warnings.

This book was a knife to the heart. Each word felt like a blade worked to split open my skin, and carve me into sobbing, unrecognizable pieces. But then, weaving through the agony, this book would occasionally feel like a gentle caress. A warm kiss overtop old scars, and a healing salve to soothe the new.

The prose within The Sins on Their Bones is utterly beautiful. I found myself setting the book down often, and needing to take a small break merely to digest and bask in the glory of what I had just read. The characters are stunning, the world building is magnificent, and the story it tells is so beautifully heartbreaking. It will tear you to pieces, but knit you back together within the very same breath. I'll be carrying this with me for the years to come.

The Sins on Their Bones mainly focuses on love, loss, trauma, friendship, and family.

Very short summary: Dimitri and his gang reclaiming the throne from Dimitri's undead ex-husband in a world inspired by Jewish folklore and culture. A lot of hurt and some comfort.

I just love books with flawed characters and messy relationships. It makes everything so much more interesting.

I truly enjoyed the found family dynamic. It was a fully queer set, and they were so domestic with each other. I find it rare to come across characters so vulnerable. Dimitri was a very intriguing one. Vasilij, however, I did not care for him. Or whatever he and Dimitri had going on.

It was definitely a character-driven book. There wasn't a lot of detailed complex worldbuilding, I wish we'd seen more, as I'm a sucker for big worlds. The characters were mostly either at home, in a carriage or the palace.

I don't feel like this needs a sequel. It would've been a good standalone had it ended without the last chapter. However, in my opinion, not having an entire book preceding this one or even a prequel novella rather than all the flashbacks and memories is a missed opportunity. Yes, Alexey is not a good character, but I think it would've been interesting to see his corruption arc unfold.

This is being marketed as a romantasy, it is not. Detailed content warnings shared by the author:
• Heavy discussion of and explicit on-page depiction of spousal abuse and domestic violence (please note that TSTB features the POV of both the victim and the abuser—those readers who would struggle with the juxtaposition of these two internal monologues should take special care)
• Features a POV character with PTSD, anxiety, and depression
• Discussion of self-medication with alcohol
• Features a POV character who experienced past childhood sexual abuse by a relative
Graphic sexual intercourse (all scenes take place between consenting adults)
• Gore
• Desecration of a corpse
• One scene of experimentation on an unwilling prisoner ending in their death, off-page descriptions of this happening multiple times
• Battlefield descriptions (off-page, in the context of PTSD flashbacks), discussion of conscription of soldiers
• Very brief mention of rape and child abuse in the context of war, occurring off-page
• Explicit drug use

The Sins on Their Bones is a dark fantasy novel that blends elements of Shadow and Bone with Fullmetal Alchemist, infused with Jewish mysticism and exploration of sexual trauma. Set in a post-war world, the story follows Dimitri, a self-exiled Tsar grieving the loss of his husband Alexey, who has become the acting Tsar hungry for power. Vasily, Dimitri's friend, aims to take down Alexey and provide Dimitri with the happiness he deserves, but it requires a risky plan. The novel delves deep into the effects of trauma and abuse, weaving a tale of resilience amidst darkness.

While the narrative is rich with intricate backstories and complex characters, it could benefit from a slower reveal of past events to enhance intrigue and pacing. Despite its graphic depictions of violence and sexual abuse, the story offers vivid commentary on trauma and sacrifice. Though challenging, the book is ultimately rewarding for those able to handle its intense themes.

Readers will appreciate its exploration of Jewish mysticism, its deeply flawed yet compelling characters, and its profound themes of love, agency, and forgiveness. With its immersive world-building and compelling narrative, The Sins on Their Bones is a gripping and thought-provoking read.

This book will break your heart. It was so beautiful, and there's so much to love about it. It's rooted in Jewish culture, mysticism, and folklore, it's queer, and it's dark. The character development and depth was phenomenal. This book did such a great job of feeling rooted in a world that felt real, while weaving in fantasy elements that were intriguing.

The more I read, the more this book drew me in. It was captivating and I loved it from start to finish. If you want a book that will emotionally shatter you, this is it. Just check the trigger warnings.

This book wasn't for me, but that's not the fault of the writing. Personally I found it slow paced and I didn't get sucked in or drawn to the characters. Plot-wise it was original and the vulnerability of the characters was refreshing, I just wasn't interested.

I believe getting advance review copies is a great privilege, hence why I always make a point of reading them through to the end before leaving a review.
In this case, however, I must make an exception. Despite being one of my most anticipated releases of the year, <i>The Sins on Their Bones</i> turned out to be so excruciatingly boring that I simply could not bring myself to finish it.

To begin with, I feel like the story started in the wrong place. The characters kept referencing past events that marked both their personal lives and the history of their country, but because we don’t actually <i>see</i> these events unfolding or these characters bonding, it’s hard to get invested in them. Even though the stakes are literally as high as they get, we are given no reason to care about the fate of this world or the people in it. This felt like reading the sequel to a first novel that doesn’t exist.

Which brings me to my second problem: the pacing. In the two hundred pages I read, pretty much nothing happened. Characters did little but sit around moping, talking about their past, and revisiting their trauma. Alexey, the villain we’re supposed to root against, was the only one driving the plot forward and therefore the only compelling character out of the whole cast. Call me cold hearted, but I can’t bring myself to be interested in a protagonist who does nothing but sulk, drink, and have rebound sex with his equally bland best friend.

Speaking of which, what’s with all the gratuitous sex in this book? I usually don’t mind explicit scenes, but here they felt excessive and repetitive to the point that I started skimming them. We don’t need to read about the same characters having the same dysfunctional sex over and over again to understand they’re messy and tortured—we got the point the first time around. It almost feels like the author chose to throw in some random smut to compensate for the slow, uneventful plot; unfortunately, I found the romance (and the characters’ relationships in general) just as dry as the plot itself. The two main leads had no chemistry whatsoever and I simply couldn’t figure out what they saw in each other besides physical attraction.

The one thing that managed to hold my interest was the mythology. I love folklore and mysticism and enjoyed reading about this re-interpretation of Ashkenazi religious traditions. However, the lore alone wasn’t enough for me to push through the book.

<i>Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Canada for this e-ARC.</i>

I received a free ARC of this book and here's my honest review.

CW: domestic violence, abusive relationship, manipulation, trauma, PTSD, anxiety, depression, grief, alcohol, drugs, mentioned child abuse, graphic sexual content, gore, death, injury detail

The author told me that if I like pain, I'll love this book and she was right. This was very painful and I loved every page.
I love the world building, the plot was good and I really love the characters. I cried and I'm very much looking forward to the next book. I don't know what else to tell you, I have no notes.

Be aware if you want to read this check the CW! Because this deals with a lot of heavy topics, especially the domestic abuse (It features the POV of victim and abuser).

Thank you NetGalley for providing this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book is a multi POV of an attempt to stop the Tzars ex husbands attempt of destruction and wrecking havoc upon its people.

Ok so the positive of this book is that the foundation and premise of this book is wonderful! It is a great idea to do a book based off of Jewish mythology and Russian monarchy!
The characters seem to try to be dynamic and the world is expansive!

Now the negative,
To begin, tell me why book goes at a SNAILS PACE? I hate to be negative but honestly nothing happened for the first ~200 pages! Now some people will say that it takes that long to develop the world, the characters, etc. But I believe even if you are world building or introducing the characters there still needs to be something that drives the plot.
Also, the world is expansive but I felt confused multiple times throughout the book because it seemed like the author just infodumped like “Hey this country over here who is our trading mate…” and that’s it? Like I feel that even though nothing happened in the first 200 pages I believe that the world should have been explained more thoroughly.
Last negative- Tell me one good reason why I couldn’t read this on my kindle?! I understand it’s my fault for not recognizing I couldn’t read it on my kindle but I sincerely believe that I would have enjoyed this book tenfold if I didn’t have to suffer through it on my phone.


So all in all, I believe this book has an extremely strong foundation but what’s built upon the foundation is shaky. I don’t want to judge too harshly because it’s this authors debut and I believe to a certain audience this book would be great! However I am not that audience.

When I received the notification about this book, I knew I was uniquely interested in reading it. I studied Judaism in graduate school ending with achieving my Masters in Second Temple Judaism. This book is so richly coated in the Ashkenazi traditions that I felt as though I was reading something familiar and known to me. The author did a fantastic job of blending real traditions and the ones written for the book in a way that was engaging.
The characters are pretty well fleshed out and the author goes a decent way to make sure we understand the extent to which the characters have been damaged by their pasts. The story shows that while we have our traumas and things we have experienced, it doesn't make us any less valuable. The "bad guy" in the book gets detailed chapters as well so we get the unique perspective of seeing what caused him to behave in the way he did. I can't say I see very many books that do this as well as this one did.
The only thing I didn't enjoy was the amount of gore in the book. Now there wasn't much but it was graphic when it was included so be aware of that as I honestly went into this one blind. There is also a fairly detailed relationship of abuse including sexual, So be aware of these warnings if they are something you don't typically read.
In closing, this is a very well-written book, full of tradition and culture. I greatly appreciated the author's notes at the end of the book along with the additional reading which I will be checking out.

5 star read for me. This story is fantastic, the characters are chefs kiss. Loved the story line so much.

2.25 stars
Hate to say it, but I found this book to be terribly disappointing. I'm aware that there's a large extent to which the issues I had with this book are likely just things that didn't work for me personally more than being true flaws with the book, but I'm still finding myself wanting to play plot doctor with this as I try to identify why it didn't work for me.

There are two main things that I thought this book did really well. First off, I thought the characters in this book themselves were excellent, and they were the main thing that had me at all invested in the story. There are some really wholesome found family dynamics between Dimitri and his court, and seeing the moments of them caring for and supporting one another was really enjoyable. The way they were all so in-tune to one another to sense what they needed, and seeing their comfortable platonic physical affection made me really happy, and was easily my favorite part of the book. While the side characters didn't get a ton of development, I thought the main three POV characters were all well-fleshed out, complex, and layered. (Granted, I think that this element could have been even stronger if we had been able to see these relationships form, rather than being dropped in with all of them already established, but I'll get into that more later.)

This book also had some really excellent representation. This is a queer-normative world, and you are hard-pressed to find a straight character anywhere in this book. We got to see characters be casually queer and bi and aroace and non-binary, while also making sure that these characters weren't solely defined by their queerness. The author's note also said that a lot of the fantasy elements were inspired by Jewish legends and mythology, so while I didn't have the background knowledge to pick up on those elements myself, I think it's still a great thing to see more of in fantasy.

I think by far the biggest thing I struggled with came down to the book's overall structure, and the pacing issues that resulted from it. Right from the start of this book, we are thrown into the story a couple months past the aftermath of an attack and coup, and we're watching as the former Tzar and his court lick their wounds and work through their respective traumas as a result of this. However, rather than opting for more of a dual-timeline narrative structure, as is more common with a set up like this, the entirety of the book proceeds from there, with only occasional paraphrasing and the even more rare flashback serving to catch us up on everything that happened.

I felt like the issue with this structure was that, because we were only getting what essentially amounted to second-hand accounts of this world-shifting event (and everything that lead up to it), these moments did not carry the emotional gravitas that I think they were intended to. It essentially became a problem of telling rather than showing, because we don't get to see for ourselves how the characters were thinking and feeling and struggling in those impactful moments, but only how it has affected them afterwards. While we understand exactly how much these characters are reeling after everything they've been through, it felt like the book spent all its time just trying to convince us of that via repetition rather than through immersion. I think that if this book had done a more dual-timeline approach— letting us live through the coup ourselves and see the transformation — it would have helped make everything feel as dire and world-shifting as the characters are telling us it is.

I also think there's a degree to which I would have been more invested in the plot if information hadn't been revealed as quickly as it was. We're basically told within the first few chapters everything noteworthy about Alexey's corruption, betrayal, and abuse. I'm not advocating for this to take the form of domestic abuse being a plot twist (looking at you [author:Colleen Hoover|5430144]), but I think that had the other elements been concealed so we had been left wondering longer what happened to cause the estrangement between Alexey and Dimitri, it might have made me more invested in continuing to see what happened.

Obviously, how the author decides to pace her story is her own choice, but I think that the way it was done here ultimately lead to a lot of the issues I had with the pacing. The plot beats of this book are structured as though this book is trying to be a political fantasy, but there is simply no clever politicking to be found. So much of the page time in this book is spent listening to characters talk about making plans and doing things, but it takes about 2/3 of the book for anyone to start actually acting on them. Instead, we spent most of our time watching Alexey rub his hands manically as he plotted his evil schemes, while our heroes sat at home wringing theirs and occasionally reading books to find ways of magicking up solutions to their problems.

I also didn't feel like the magic system leant all that much to the story, outside of it setting the stakes for Alexey's power. According to the author's note, a lot of the magic and myths in the book were inspired by the author's own Jewish culture, which I think is great, and I love seeing authors incorporate their heritage into their books. However, the way it was applied in this book largely felt like it only existed for the sake of plot convenience when the protagonists wouldn't have had any other way to solve a particular problem. I have no problem with soft magic systems generally — I think they can often be super compelling and a great way to round out the world — but I think that you have to see those systems in use for purposes other than just resolving particular conflicts in order to feel like it's a full part of the world. I can recognize why it wouldn't make sense in the context of the story if these characters were just running around using magic all the time, but I think there were other scenarios in which it could have been used to make it a more well-incporated system.

While the romance in the book that we're supposed to root for is not intended to be at the forefront of the story, I wasn't exactly sold on the elements of it that we did get. While I thought the characters worked well together and were a good fit for one another, I never felt like the intensity of their emotions was exactly earned by the end.

The other thing I found odd with this book was the sheer number of on-page sex scenes we got between an abuser and their victim(s). Granted, the way these scenes were actually written in and of themselves, I didn't get the sense that they were intended to titillate, but rather were present to illustrate the power imbalances and mindset of said abuser. However, it does still leave me wondering what the intention was of having multiple, descriptive scenes like these in the book. It seemed like it had made its point about the abuse after the first one, and could have communicated the same information via paraphrases or implications when needed, and not made us sit through multiple occurrences of someone being manipulated.

Despite my critiques, I do hope this book finds its readers and the people who will enjoy it. While I obviously had my issues with the structure and the pacing, the writing itself was enjoyable, and I think the concept had a lot of potential. I recognized pretty early on that I wasn't vibing with this book, and probably would have DNF'd if it hadn't been an ARC, so I realize that a lot of my issues are on me for choosing to finish a book I knew I wasn't enjoying. I can't exactly say that by the end I feel this book was worth me finishing it, but, if nothing else, I can appreciate it being an exercise in determining what things I do and don't enjoy.

Thank you Netgalley for sending me an arc. I love Samotin’s beautiful writing, the vibe indeed reminds me of a blend of Shadow and Bone, Six of Crows and King of Scars. So if you love Bardugo, slow pacing and sexy gay romance this book is for you. But it does get repetitive at times.