Synopsis
At just sixteen, Eskara Helsene fought in the greatest war mankind has ever known.
She lost.
There is only one place her enemies would send a Sourcerer as powerful as her, the Pit, a prison sunk so deep into the earth, the sun is a distant memory.
Stripped of her magic; she’s surrounded by thieves and murderers, and there are rumours that demons stalk the deep tunnels. In order to survive, Eska will need to make new allies, play the inmates against each other, and find a way out.
But no one escapes the Pit.
Review
“Reputation is a blade with no hilt, it cuts both ways.”
I really enjoyed this book. What a title. What a cover. What excellent narration by Moira Quirk and what beautiful writing by Rob J. Hayes. I had to abandon my other current reads and focus only on this one. I am hooked. I already have book 2.
I have to start the review by talking about how Hayes has nailed the main character Eska. I’m partial to older main characters these days and yet I couldn’t stop reading about a teenage MC here- especially one whose headspace is constantly angry and defensive, has a heightened sense of ego and bravado, and is primarily motivated by revenge. It can be tricky to write the whole story from this POV but the author has handled it masterfully. I am not really equipped to explain why this works so well but it does. I’ll just say that it makes Eska’s sense of self-identity stronger and as a result everything feels so real- her backstory, her emotions, her relationships, her pain, and herself as a whole. Having done this, it was very easy for Hayes to make me like and hate every character he has conjured and ultimately break my heart a little over the middle of the book. Hayes’ strength over character voice here rivals Joe Abercrombie and Fonda Lee for me.
“There is an art to doing something foolish. It often involves deciding upon the smart choice, the safest choice, and then doing the opposite.”
Next we have to talk about the magic and the world-building. Hayes is building something so broad and thrilling here but is only drip feeding us parts of the lore intentionally. It in turn fascinates me to think about all the endless ways the magic system is gonna be used, the monsters I’m going to meet, and the places I’m going to see. I can’t even list all of the interesting creatures and places mentioned in the book but it includes flying cities, a mountain sized Jellyfish that contains a lost djinn city, imps, bears covered with razor spikes, hell hounds, an ever growing slug, and so much more. This whole book happens in the pit- a location deep underground where prisoners from the war are kept to dig and is one of the most interesting places I’ve traveled to in fantasy books. Hayes’ writing was very atmospheric and I could feel the textures of the ground and the walls in each scene.
Coming to the magic system, It is a hard magic system where some people have the ability to ingest certain crystals and then can use the magic of the element the crystal contains. There are severe limits to using it and each person is only attuned to use some of the 20 different types of crystals introduced so far. Only a glimpse of how magic works is shown in the book but some of these displays of magic are captivating already and I cannot wait to see how magic is used in the series.
“Drop a pebble in a lake and the ripples will reach every bank.”
In conclusion, Rob has robbed my heart with this book and I cannot wait to start book 2. This was a dark, grimy, dangerous, fast introduction to what I hope is an all timer epic fantasy series for me.
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