This book has a great premise. The protagonist, Essiya, is the heir to a kingdom that had been destroyed when she was a young child. The kingdom of Jasad was the only one that possessed magic - it had gradually faded from the neighboring kingdoms over the centuries, and these neighbors banded together to destroy Jasad out of jealousy/desire for power. Essiya is generally believed to have died along with her kingdom, but she’s been hiding her name and her heritage ever since as the peasant girl Sylvia. The surviving Jasadis are not safe - if one is found (usually because they use magic and someone notices) they are taken and killed.
Life gets more complicated for Essiya/Sylvia when the heir of the kingdom that led the assault on Jasad, and that kingdom’s chief magic-hunter, chooses Essiya/Sylvia to represent his kingdom in a regularly held competition that honors the gods. He knows Essiya is Jasadi, and is using her despite as part of a complicated scheme. If she wins and survives the competition, she gets a life of luxury and protection. Losing/refusing to participate means she dies, and people she cares about are being used to force her cooperation.
As the book goes on, she trains, she competes, she develops complicated feelings for the magic-hunting heir, and she starts to realize that there was more behind the destruction of her kingdom than she had been told.
All that sounds awesome, and was the reason I jumped on this book. And yet I really struggled with it. It just didn’t hold my attention. I only read a couple of pages at a time, and that was a conscious effort on my part.
I suspect there’s a “it’s not you, it’s me” situation going on here, and this just wasn’t the kind of book I was in the mood for. I’m not going to recommend against this book, but I can’t really recommend for it either. But as I said, I don’t think that’s necessarily the book’s fault.