What goes on?
A sort of mediaeval world of poets and seers and their politics and the scents of jasmine on the air, and a quest to save the land, told through multiple character perspectives.

Things I liked…
The whispers about the blood magic were chilling (in a good way) and the coming plague intriguing. The way that the character of Marlen was explored was interesting.

Things I thought weren’t so good…
I wasn’t really grabbed by the world, and didn’t connect to the characters. It felt a little formulaic to me.

What was it all about really?
In many ways, this book is a coming of age story in the fantasy genre. So, the protagonists grow into themselves and find out who they really are. Whether it’s growing in their sense of self or embracing self sacrifice a lot is going on here.

More broadly there are themes of: the role of censorship, the power of music, the place of women in society. I thought these were explored a little clumsily.

Overall verdict: A rather ordinary fantasy book, that doesn’t deliver on its promise 3/10.

p.s. good news is that I’ve started November’s book and I like it a lot more! 🙂 I’ll probably write a longer review for that one as I didn’t want to be too negative here!