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Naila attends a magic school for mages without magic. That is, she has the aptitude for it, but for whatever reason, she can't perform any of the same magical benchmarks as her fellow classmates. She's been at this magical school for some time now and has already resigned herself to washing out and all of the baggage that entails, when one of the most powerful wizards in the city takes her under his wing. He's determined to figure out what to do about her problem, and why her magic is different than everyone else's.

We also have Entonin, a priest from a neighboring kingdom with a poor view of mages, arrives in the city with his bodyguard Karameth. Entonin is here ostensibly for negotiations and to try and smooth over feelings on both sides, but is actually there as a spy for a secret organization.

Alongside all of this is Oriven, leader of the city, casually standing up a magic army, seizing control of the food supply, and pitting mage against non-mage citizens. We don't see too much of him directly in this book, but his magical fingers are busily sowing unrest with an eye toward seeing non-mages removed from the city.

I feel like some of the reviews here are too harsh. I will say, the onboarding in this book is difficult to get through. A lot of terms, places, and concepts are thrown at you from the very beginning, and I found myself consulting the glossary in the back fairly often until things started to stick. There's a lot of information dumps early on, paving the way for the rest of the book. I feel like things start smoothing out after the first quarter or so of the book. I also feel like the bad guy of this particular book, Oriven, didn't get nearly enough direct viewpoints. He shows up in two chapters for maybe two pages apiece, and his existence in the rest of the book is other members of the government talking about what new laws he's enacted or what new controversial thing he's done. He's more of a force in this book than he is an actual antagonist.

But I thought the good parts of the book were enough to really make me enjoy this by the end. I thought the writing was descriptive and really pulled me into the city alongside Naila. I thought the political story being told was intriguing, and the last quarter of the book or so really had me on edge. I thought Naila was a really great female lead, and she had one particularly stand-out scene near the end that I loved. The side characters were also all interesting in their own right, which was also nice. I could go for an Entonin/Karameth novella/series, honestly.

All that to say, if you can get through the information flung at you in the beginning, you're rewarded with a pretty interesting political story, a strong female lead I can get behind, and a fantastic ending that leaves me waiting impatiently for the second book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free ecopy in exchange for an honest review.

Instead of being Yet Another Mythology Retelling where an author picks apart Greek mythology with a female protagonist, we get something a bit more inspired from a reputable author. The result is kind of a fairytale-esque story written using figures from Mayan mythology in a 1920s Mexico historical setting. It sounds like a mishmash of concepts, but I thought it worked well together.

Casiopea works as a servant in her grandfather's house, a glorified floor scrubber and errand runner for the household in a small town in Mexico. But when she accidentally frees the spirit of the Mayan god of Death, she's given the opportunity to finally see the larger world and all the things she's only dreamed of. But it's a dangerous journey she's about to go on with many opposing forces trying to keep the two of them from reaching its end.

I thought it was a really sweet story. There's a bit of romance here between Casiopea and Hun-Kame, but done in a hesitant way since the two of them realize that their situation isn't permanent. I liked that we get to see a lot of personal growth in both Casiopea and Hun-Kame from the journey as well, and some introspection about how the journey changes a person. The setting in Mexico is beautiful, and I loved the descriptions of the different cities they visit along the way, with the author taking care to make them feel distinctive.

I will say that, because of the way the story is intended, the ending is a bit predictable. Ending spoilers here: it never really feels like Casiopea is in danger from anything she's asked to do, despite the warnings she's given, and it does take you a bit out of the story when you realize the thickness of her plot armor. But if you enjoy a journey more than the ending, there's a lot here to like.

A mermaid, estranged from her husband's court (having killed/eaten them all, I presume), is accompanied by a plague doctor who finds her in the aftermath on a journey to escape. On their way they come upon a village consisting entirely of almost feral children—and three surgeons whom the children call saints. The children claim the saints can bring them back to life better than before, but the surgeons are nigh immortal and children brought back are sometimes missing organs. It doesn’t take long for this duo to catch onto the reason behind the immortality, and it’s the plague doctor who wants to save the children whether or not they want to be saved. Unfortunately, good intentions lead to sad conclusions.

Or, at least, that’s what I’m assuming the plot was. Honestly, it felt like the author sorted a thesaurus by least commonly used words and wrote a book using only those. This prose is so purple, it’s almost black. There’s a creepy folklore story buried in here, but not being able to follow along fully with what was going on from scene to scene sometimes really took me out of it. I wish I could rate this book higher, but not being able to fully follow a story makes it difficult for me to recommend it to other people.

Also, there’s lots of visceral detail here. So if excessively detailed surgical scenes, cracked ribcages, eating of eyeballs, descriptions of entrails, and much, much more is not your cup of tea, pass on this.