This one is little hard to star. The concept are great. Drawing on a quite familiar imagination (death and life, sun and moon). I can see the inspiration for this book and what the author wanted to do with the story.
But if fell a bit short. The stakes fell short, meaning the tension also went a little slack. It's interesting because all the elements are there, they just needed a little tweeking to create the needed narrative.

We follow Elician, Prince of the a country organised around the God of Life, as he fight at the front against his country's long enemy : the country on the other side of a river, organised about the Goddess of Death. Both countries want the river, sacred to both of them. They can't find an agreement and go to war regularly.
Elician has a secret : he's a Giver, a person blessed by the God of Life, healer and able to ressurect people (but it's forbidden). Then Elician encounters a young man, who tries to kill him. This person is a Reaper : blessed by the Goddess of Death, able to kill just by touching. Elician is kind and decides to take the broken would-be-assassin to a safe-place. They bond, more or less, during the trip. It takes the whole first third of the book.
We learn more about both of them, and about Elician's sister too. But I couldn't see where the story was going, not until something else happens and we are thrown into a full political intrigue (it was already there but lurking at the back).

Like I said, there are good idea for a nice story. The prose is good, with a great sense of place, giving life to the descriptions. The worldbuilding is okay too. But if feels too slick. Like nothing much happened, at any point.
And it's not that nothing happens : the characters have growth and pieces are moved behind the curtains. But it felt more like a slice of life with a political background than a fantasy book centered around a political intrigue. I don't mind the romance being very at the background too, partly because of how the story's is structured, but I expected a little more actions or at least high tension moment. I couldn't feel any of it and questionned some of the secondary characters' decisions and plotting. The whole Reapers and Givers position in society is also something that I struggled a bit. For people blessed by gods, they are quite marginalised. Which make sort of sense but not enough.

Still, I enjoyed my read ! Hence my struggle and frustration to star it. I would have liked the story to have more tension so the ending could be more rewarding. With characters with more flaws too, to highlight their good side. Nonetheless, I read it start to finish and I will wait for the second book to see how things will play out.

I loved this book so much!!! I rated this book 5 stars because I couldn't put it down for a second. I recommend everyone to read this book because it's great!

The writing style and imagery used in the story was nothing short of magical. Fans of When The Moon Hatched will be familiar with the attentive language used to paint a scene.
I was invested in the plot and grew to like the characters, I thought the romance element would be more prominent but the storyline stood firmly without a huge need for it. The opposites attract/two sides of the same soul atmosphere was enjoyable for me.
The concept is what sold it for me and I’m looking forward to completing the duology.
I will update on more retail platforms upon publication.

2.5*. The concept of this book sounded incredible and I was so excited to read this. There were some promising elements including the magic system, Kreuzfurt, and the moral dilemmas surrounding these. Sadly, most of the book felt to me, for lack of a better term, rather dull. Definitely more YA than adult in my opinion.

Yes, I have no doubt the stakes were meant to be high, but it didn't come across in the writing at all. Deaths were meaningless because (minor spoiler) characters could be brought back, which had no emotional impact on me as a reader. The pacing felt off to me as there would be long chapters where basically nothing happened, then a time skip to several months later. Additionally, I felt that the culmination of the political motives at the end of the book made no sense, because in what was depicted as such a cutthroat political environment, there was absolutely no way anyone would support Elician being king.

Romance played a much smaller part in the book than I expected, which, under any other circumstance I would've enjoyed, but I wish more time had been spent on developing the romance instead of Fenlia's POV chapters, which were arbitrary with no payoff.

I will say, one of the plot points had me gagged, which might have been because I wasn't paying enough attention, but nevertheless was an enjoyable aspect of the story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for providing a copy of this book for review. All opinions are my own.

This is a fantasy novel with an intriguing magical base of Givers and Reapers, all with queer romance and royal politics sewn in. I loved the lyrical prose that Byrd writes with and the descriptions of the different settings gave me a vivid idea in my head.
I did feel that the last third dragged a little but overall the novel was beautiful.