I picked this up because of a cover blurb from Pierce Brown, who called it “Bloodydamn glorious.” I wouldn’t go that far, but this was certainly a solid debut.
The plot blurb, briefly: Genova and Florence are two bronze-age cities that have been engaged in a grinding, pointless war for generations. The battle for a key bridge - the capture of which will *surely* usher in the final victory, totally for real this time - is interrupted by the arrival of a strange craft and a supernatural storm. Out of the craft comes a beautiful woman, possibly a goddess, named Claire. Claire is a lost traveler from the distant and wondrous city of Zanzibar, and is able to convince the kings of Florence and Genova to make peace. That accomplished, she travels to Florence as the guest of the king with the intention of beginning her journey home to Zanzibar after the winter. But ending a generations-long war isn’t necessarily that easy, and Claire gets swept in Florence’s politics.
I’m going to start with the criticism, which is relatively minor but also drove me a little nuts. I think this would have been a lot stronger if the author hadn’t called the cities Florence, Genova, and Zanzibar. Those are real places, and I have personally been to Florence more than once. The real places got in the way of the fantasy and made the immersion harder; if you’re not going to ground them in real-world history, don’t use real-world names.
Moving on from the criticism, this book reminded me more of Miles Cameron’s Traitor Son Cycle than anything else (which is definitely a compliment). I can’t quite put my finger on why, exactly, but it had a similar feeling to me. Something about the mix of battle, intrigue, and magics going on, I suppose. It slipped back and forth among those three. Intrigue dominates, but there’s a decent amount of bronze age phalanx warfare mixed in as well. The magic is mostly focused on a single sequence at the end, but it’s a doozy. Very well done.
Overall, I’d give this a moderately strong recommendation. It got a little lost at times, and could have been a bit shorter I think. But as I said, a solid debut.