Lila tries to stay under the radar in the magical town of
Cloudburst Falls. Her mother’s death when she was caught between the feuding
magical houses drove that lesson home long ago
Not that she keeps her hands clean – she’s a thief and a
very very good one. She’s also very handy with a blade and more so with her
powerful magic – but even then she needs to keep that quiet; powerful magic is
another desirable trait the magical families will target her for.
But she can’t close her eyes when an attempted
assassination happens in front of her – and finds herself inevitably drawn to
the Sinclair Family – and in the sights of the powerful Draconi family.
Having read Jennifer Estep’s Elemental Assassin series and generally being a huge fan, I was
eager to pick this one up.
What struck me was that this book is very similar to that series. In both cases we have a corrupt system largely controlled by supernatural organisations/families/houses/criminal enterprises that have little or no respect for the law which they pretty much own. We have lethal protagonist who have lost most of their family to the cruelty of this organisation (and are carrying around great bucket loads of angst because of it). They are dangerous, lethally skilled and have a super-special, super-rare woo-woo that makes them even more dangerous though they generally keep it hidden. They don’t play by the rules, are a rogue, even a criminal but have hearts of gold and have to do what’s right even if they know it’s not exactly sensible
There are a lot of parallels and the general style of
writing made these two series seem very similar in so many ways
And that’s not a bad thing
No, really. I love the Elemental Assassin series, I’m not going to complain about another series
that has a similar tone and brings many similar elements from a setting I love.
That’d be like playing a game, loving it then not wanting to play any games
that are similar. I loved the series, I will probably love any series that is
similar to it.
Of course, that works so long as there are sufficient original elements to the new series – after all, “similar to” and “complete copy” are very different things. And this book does do that – the magic system is very different, the world setting with the monsters lurking in the corners is really fun with added little sinister darkness to the background. I like that the threat here doesn’t just come from the corrupt organisations, but lurking in the corners are the lethal monsters of legends ready to pounce on anyone who doesn’t know the old stories, the old fairy tales; it’s a nice creepy addition. The protagonist also approaches this corrupt world from a very different angle – working much more within the system and having a much more business-like approach rather than the family approach that characterises the Elemental Assassin Series
So I like this world setting, I like it’s mix of open
magic and carefully hidden underworld. I like the corrupt, manoeuvring political
families and I like that the protagonist is involved in all that political
machinations – we get these wonderful elements of the old series I loved, the
writing I loved and added different angels, different focuses and lots of new
elements to bring originality.
As to the protagonist – I can’t say I’m the hugest fan of
Lila. She’s not a bad protagonist but I think that’s kind of where I remain on
her. There’s nothing wrong with her, she’s strong, she’s capable, she’s
skilled, she plans well, she has the super-woo-woo but doesn’t rely on it to
make her special (though she does her lethal combat skills). Her reactions are
reasonable and while she does have the beginning of a relationship that I’m not
a fan of (very unoriginal and not really interesting and Devon increases the
amount of angst in the book to unfun levels) and a whole lot of parental angst,
neither of them are overdone or excessive or all consuming. I just don’t really
see anything about her that really makes her stand out; for good or bad. She
doesn’t annoy me, she’s not bad, she has several good elements but nothing raises
her above the pack.
We do have several POC – we have one prominent Black character
with Mo, Lila’s caring father figure she has to keep at a distance because of
her angst. I like him, he’s clearly caring, capable and fun – but without more development
and exploration we have a Black character who wants to support and help a White
protagonist without a whole lot of development as to WHY he is so invested in
her which doesn’t work well with an ongoing trope of POC servants to white
protagonists
One of the major families of the city, Ito, is Japanese
and Poppy is a moderately appearing character from that family (I also like
that their family means we don’t see all the Houses working against each other
and these two houses can co-operate). Love interest Devon’s best friend Felix
is Latino as well. They’re not the biggest characters, but outside of Lila and
Devon there are no characters that are more important.
The majority of the people around Lila are men but there
are some interesting female characters. Poppy is an interesting character and
potential friend. Deah is demonised but at the same time complex – she’s from a
rival House but equally not utterly demonised despite Lila’s personal disdain. Lila
can hate her, even have reason, but that doesn’t make Deah a terrible human
being. Even Claudia, Devon’s mother, is ruthless and capable and passionate
about her house and, equally, clearly a far better and compassionate house
leader than her rivals even if Lila does, justifiably, hate her (since she uses
that ruthlessness to coerce Lila). Even the women who are enemies of Lila are
not demonised which I really appreciate. It is possible to have a villain
without demonising them – and especially to have women who even dislike each
other without one side being irredeemably loathsome.
There are, sadly, no LGBT characters
I like this series, I like it a lot. I love the world
setting it has so many elements I love. I like the theme and sense of the
place, I like all of the possibilities in their politics and I like where the
story is going. The plot and the world has definitely been sold to me – the characters
are decent enough to carry it and have a lot of potential to grow and develop
further. I want to see more, I want this series to keep going – I want to
become a fan of this long running series. Please make it so!
