Thank you Hodder & Stoughton Audio and NetGalley, for providing me with this audiobook arc, in exchange for my honest review.

Sci-fi is my favorite genre so I’m grateful and I was really excited I got the chance to read this one early!!

The narration by Georgina Sadler was well done overall. I just liked some character’s voices better than others but it is a well narrated audiobook.

This is a fast paced, high stakes story, that was easy to listen to (the author’s use of language is pretty plain) and I easily got to almost 40% in an afternoon. But unfortunately I DNF’ed at that point because as it sounded very interesting at the start, it was never really engaging and I felt like I didn’t care about any of the characters and didn’t feel what I should have felt when really bad things happened to innocent people. So reading on wouldn’t have been very enjoyable for me. I think for readers who are okay with superficial, fast paced dystopian adventures, this might be an enjoyable book.

The story is about 19 year old Remy who lives with his friend T. (Tiranee? (audiobook struggles, sorry)). They are both orphans. T. is a weaver, which means she can see tethers between people but not touch them. Remy is a witherer, which means he can’t see them, but he can cut them.

When Remy finally finds a way to use his power on the man who killed his brother, he finds out that he is fate bound to that man (Idrian) when it’s too late. He has sentenced both of them to death.

Remy tells T. what happened and they soon find themselves in a race against the clock to find Idrian. When they do, they find out that Remy isn’t the only one fate bound to Idrian and about to die.

They end up joining Idrian and his crew of criminals, to hopefully find a way to save Remy’s life. I think the reader is supposed to start liking Idrian or at least see and accept there’s a better side of him too but he’s just such an awful guy and kills people so easily, so I just couldn’t. T. is the only character I somewhat liked, Remy was very immature and him wearing woman’s clothing, heels and all, all the time apparently caught me off guard. I mean there was a slight (easily misinterpreted) hint to it at the beginning of the story but we basically learn of it in the middle of an action scene, well into the story.

I’ve mentioned before that Sci fi is usually not my favourite genre, so it takes a huge leap for me to enjoy a sci fi story so much. I really loved the almost believable premise of this one - that seems to be the trick for me, if I can see the potential of fact in the fiction it hits and I’m engaged.

The story is really strong. It’s powerful and emotional especially surrounding the topic of grief but I thought the author done a beautiful job and handled jt with great care. Nice to see lgbtq+ characters taking the lead in such a way too. I thoroughly enjoyed the narrators voice. As a final note I should add that this novel very much read as a YA to my ear, I don’t think it’s advertised as such, but I imagine it’d be a hit with a younger audience.

With special thanks to Hodder and Stoughton Audio for providing me an ELC to review.

Delightful book! Dark at times, but all the better for the story of grief, pain, and identity it's telling.
The magic system is new and unique (confusing in the beginning, though), and the characters leap off the page! My favorite part was the emphasis on platonic relationships (MC is gender nonconforming/aroace), which we so rarely see explored to this degree.
My only complaint is that some characters felt a little too immature for their age at times, but overall it didn't take away too much from my enjoyment.

The narrator did a great job bringing everyone to life, thoroughly enjoyed the experience of listening to this on audio!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.