The author is prolific and quite gifted. This was my first introduction to Ms. Gifford and I am thoroughly impressed. I devoured this book in one sitting and was invested enough in the characters to go and buy my own copies of the extant series (3 novels total currently). The world building is rich and cohesive and the characters are written with insight and clarity. The main characters are very (very) different from one another but they complement one another and make a stronger whole as a team. They're honorable, intelligent, determined and brave. They are written to conform and carry out their internal motivations. They're both square-pegs whose situations and families are trying very hard to force them to conform to a 'round-peg' role. I really loved that the female lead (Merriweather) is intelligent, fiercely loyal, independent, and brave and that (thank you book gods), -not- suddenly turned into a pile of girly goo when she encounters a potentially romantic situation.
The dialogue was sublime and I didn't find any scenes which were clunky or badly written. In my binge-read, I wasn't yanked out of my suspension of disbelief once.
My only (small) quibble with the eARC I received for review was that there were a few typos which hadn't been edited out yet. Presumably they will be taken care of at some point. They weren't plentiful and they weren't egregious, so I haven't subtracted anything from my evaluation.
This is probably my current favorite read for summer 2019, and I recommend it unreservedly to fans of swashbuckling fantasy (with bonus magic and some steampunk).
Five stars. I'm sorely tempted to go binge read the other books right away.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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