I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author, C. F. Igguldon, and the publisher, Michael Joseph, for this opportunity. 
 When I saw that this was the newest release by renowned historical author, Conn Igguldon, I jumped at the chance to read it. I imagined his skill at recreating past societies with a wicked vividity would denote great things for his first foray into the fantasy genre. And I was almost immediately proven correct in that assumption. 
 This fantastical empire felt like an amalgamation of past culture with something undeniably innovative and exciting, plucked straight from the author's imagination. The city of Darien was its crowing glory. 
 This multiple perspective narrative initially overwhelmed me, a little, due to the disparate nature of the stories divulged. About the midway point of the novel each of the threads of narrative started to overlap. And all lead back to Darien. 
 Here the seemingly discordant stories all were combined as one, under their shared geographical location. The thrilling elements of each story were also heightened and it made for frantic reading to see how one act could impact each of the other characters' stories, despite their initial seeming incompatibility at combining as one cohesive whole. 
 The resulting chaos made the last portion one heavily dominated by action. Battle scenes often drown me in information, in literature, but here I felt I had a good understanding of each character and was able to easily discern what was occurring. 
 With just under two months until the official release date of this book, the means I have over a year to wait until the next instalment. 2018 can not come quick enough!