Along the Razor's Edge

This is the first of Hayes' books I've read, which I decided I really should get around to considering how many of them I own based on reputation alone. I did find myself wondering, around the 20% mark, just how much of the book was going to be set in The Pit and when "the real story" was going to start. I'd gotten the wrong impression from the blurb it seems as the whole book is in The Pit and that is the real story.

As the first in The War Eternal series and Eska is our narrator and speaks as though recounting her memories from a distant future, dropping little teasers about her life after The Pit, and this is her telling the story of her time in The Pit and her escape. Interspersed between the dank environs of The Pit - a never-ending mind where prisoners are sent to simply dig their lives away in the dark - are snapshots of Eska's childhood, growing up within the Orran Academy of Magic.

Given she's only just reached 16 years old by the end of the book, it is fair to say the entirety of Eska's childhood has been filled with pain and torture; save for the brief 6 years she spent in her quaint home village climbing trees. Tortured by those training her to be a magical weapon at the academy, only to be captured and thrown into The Pit for even more torture.

A stubborn character, self-describing as a 'bitch', Eska is not a loveable protagonist. She's angry and determined. She wants her revenge and will stop at nothing to achieve it.

At times brutal and bloody, Along the Razor's Edge feels like an origin story. Whether it is for a hero or a villain, only time will tell.