Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.
This standalone YA fantasy book follows Corvus, a teenager who is the sole heir to an upper-class family, who starts out the book organizing a rebellion to overthrow the king because he is in love with the crown princess, Saphyr, who is about to be married off by her father. After being betrayed, he is forced to go on the run with Saphyr and his best friend, Kanis, eventually working to take back the kingdom.
The pacing of this book was excellent for a standalone fantasy book. Although the beginning had relatively little exposition, which made it a little difficult to get my bearings, the rest of the book was very well paced; it never felt too slow, and it never felt rushed. The plot flowed very well; although there were some aspects that I had a little difficulty understanding the logic behind, for the most part events led very nicely into each other. While the plot wasn’t overly complex, the constraints of writing a fantasy story to fit a single, relatively-short book mean that that didn’t bother me at all. Although I think this book alone could easily have been expanded into a duology or trilogy (I’m unsure if the author intends for there to be further installments or not, but I’m referring to this book’s plot in itself), I’m glad that it wasn’t; the condensed nature of a single book definitely worked for this story. The worldbuilding was also interesting; it incorporated sirens, selkies, dryads, and some other elements of folklore, all of which I very much enjoyed.
One central issue that I had with this book, and the reason for my 3-star rating, is the characters. I found Corvus to be very unlikable and arrogant. Additionally, Saphyr had essentially no agency, and the way that Corvus treated her and reacted to her had some sexist and overly-possessive undertones. Kanis, meanwhile, had essentially no personality other than serving as a plot device for issues between Corvus and Saphyr. Frankly, the only character who I genuinely liked was Morgana, the queen of the sirens; I would have read an entire book just about her.
The book also doesn’t give a lot of justification as to why we are supposed to like Corvus or why he should be the person at the head of all of the action of the book. I think the story might have been more successful and had more intrinsic logic, both plot-wise and character-wise, had the plot remained essentially the same but featured Saphyr (with a more multidimensional personality) as the protagonist. Although I had a couple other issues with it, such as the occasional clunkiness of the writing style and some of the worldbuilding aspects (the religion seemed to essentially just be Christianity, and there were some portions that felt like unexplored on capitalism/communism, neither of which are problems in themselves, but which are both aspects that I feel could have benefitted from being addressed more), the characters were definitely my biggest issue with the book.
Overall, I did enjoy reading this book, and would definitely recommend it to anybody looking for a relatively quick YA fantasy standalone without too much complexity, or who I think would enjoy the more folklore/mythology based aspects. I’m giving it three stars; although it was enjoyable, and had the capability of being a really strong fantasy book, I just didn’t feel like it lived up to its potential, and I would have enjoyed it much more if it had been restructured significantly, even if it kept much of the same story.
Immortal Souls, by Phoenix Vieira, comes out December 12, 2021
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