What grabbed me about this book wasn’t necessarily that the setup felt completely new. Davian starts out as a young guy in a world where magic comes with a lot of rules and restrictions, which is pretty familiar fantasy territory.
What made it interesting was how quickly those rules started raising bigger questions.
Who decided them? Why do they exist? Who benefits from them? And how much of what everybody believes about the past is actually true?
That’s where the book really started pulling me in.
Davian worked for me because he gives you somebody fairly normal to follow while everything around him keeps getting more complicated. He’s trying to understand his abilities at the same time the reader is trying to understand the world, so I never felt like I was being dropped into a giant magic system with no way to follow it.
I also liked his relationship with Asha. Their connection gives the story something personal underneath all the mystery and politics. When the world starts getting bigger and stranger, having that relationship there keeps Davian from feeling like he’s just moving from one plot twist to the next.
Wirr adds another layer because his responsibilities start pulling him in directions that don’t always line up perfectly with what his friends need from him. I liked that the friendship between these characters isn’t treated like nothing can ever complicate it.
And then there’s Caeden.
Caeden was probably one of the biggest reasons I wanted answers. A guy who can’t remember his own past is already interesting, but Islington makes it even better because everybody else seems to have opinions about who he is before he can figure it out for himself.
That creates this constant question of whether he should trust the people around him—or even trust himself.
The magic and the world also have this almost sci-fi feeling at times, which helped set it apart for me. There are rules, restrictions, strange abilities, and pieces of history that start fitting together in ways that make you realize the story is probably a lot more complicated than it first looked.
Islington does throw a lot of information at you, and there were definitely times where I had to stop and make sure I understood what the hell was going on. But I also liked that the book keeps changing what earlier information means instead of just piling on more names and history.
You think you’ve figured something out, then another piece shows up and suddenly your whole theory needs to change.
That’s probably the biggest reason I kept reading.
Who I’d recommend it to: Readers who like Brandon Sanderson or Patrick Rothfuss-style fantasy, complicated magic, big mysteries, and stories where figuring out what’s really happening is part of the fun.
Caution: There’s a lot to keep track of, and some of the explanations can come at you pretty fast.
Discussion question: Which mystery had you more interested after the first book—Caeden’s past or what was really going on with Davian’s abilities?
— Cory Lane