altlovesbooks
Twins Mokoya and Akeha have some serious family baggage to sort through. Traded to a monastery by the ruler of the Protectorate–and their mother–to be raised, it’s not until their gifts start emerging that their mother starts taking an interest in them again. Unfortunately their mother being who she is, she’s only got selfish and power-hungry reasons for wanting to break the twins up after being raised together for so long. Frustrated and angry, Akeha begins to explore his own path away from his upbringing and his twin. A rebellion is growing within the Protectorate, and Akeha wants to be a part of it to free them all from his mother.
This book had some serious world building going on for something that’s just a novella’s length. I almost wonder what we would have gotten if the author had given themselves the space to expand on it all some more, because as it was, it felt very rushed and undeveloped in some areas. We handwave away a lot of cool sounding things, jump years in a matter of pages, and accept that anyone outside the small cast of main characters is a name and that’s it. As an example, (plot spoiler) at one point a character is sent on a quest to go to the top of a mountain and retrieve a phoenix feather to prove their willingness and worthiness to a cause. Rather than go with them on this quest, we get the resolution wrapped up in a single sentence, saying that they did the thing successfully. I get it, it’s a novella in length, but it really felt like the author was trying to do novel-length things with a novella number of pages making everything feel rather frantic.
It also kind of felt more like a family drama in a fantasy setting, as nothing really fantastical happens. Sure they have cool powers and all, but the bulk of the book was (plot spoilers here) Akeha coming to terms with being left behind by his sister, his mother being a right bitch, and feeling comfortable with his own gender and in his own body. These are all good things to explore, but everything being so down-to-earth made the rest of the fantasy book feel rather ordinary.
But that cover art though, right? I wish I liked the book more to have better things to say because of the art alone, but I don’t think I’ll be continuing the series.
Twins Mokoya and Akeha have some serious family baggage to sort through. Traded to a monastery by the ruler of the Protectorate–and their mother–to be raised, it’s not until their gifts start emerging that their mother starts taking an interest in them again. Unfortunately their mother being who she is, she’s only got selfish and power-hungry reasons for wanting to break the twins up after being raised together for so long. Frustrated and angry, Akeha begins to explore his own path away from his upbringing and his twin. A rebellion is growing within the Protectorate, and Akeha wants to be a part of it to free them all from his mother.
This book had some serious world building going on for something that’s just a novella’s length. I almost wonder what we would have gotten if the author had given themselves the space to expand on it all some more, because as it was, it felt very rushed and undeveloped in some areas. We handwave away a lot of cool sounding things, jump years in a matter of pages, and accept that anyone outside the small cast of main characters is a name and that’s it. As an example, (plot spoiler) at one point a character is sent on a quest to go to the top of a mountain and retrieve a phoenix feather to prove their willingness and worthiness to a cause. Rather than go with them on this quest, we get the resolution wrapped up in a single sentence, saying that they did the thing successfully. I get it, it’s a novella in length, but it really felt like the author was trying to do novel-length things with a novella number of pages making everything feel rather frantic.
It also kind of felt more like a family drama in a fantasy setting, as nothing really fantastical happens. Sure they have cool powers and all, but the bulk of the book was (plot spoilers here) Akeha coming to terms with being left behind by his sister, his mother being a right bitch, and feeling comfortable with his own gender and in his own body. These are all good things to explore, but everything being so down-to-earth made the rest of the fantasy book feel rather ordinary.
But that cover art though, right? I wish I liked the book more to have better things to say because of the art alone, but I don’t think I’ll be continuing the series.