Gods this book was wild! My favourite fantasy series is The Stormlight Archive and this book felt so ooooooo very much similiar to that series!
It was filled with intrigue, action, emotion, plot twists that subverted expectations and I didn't see coming but made sense.

The magic system was a bit complex to wrap my head around at first, I spent a bunch of time at the beginning constantly thinking "What the hell is Luxin???" but once I understood it I was like "Jesus this is some fun as feck magic!".

The twist about 30% into the book was completely unexpected and brilliant, it made me question everything for a while, who's good, who's bad, what motivates this person and that person, why can't this person do this thing and what's holding them back etc.

There's so much overpowered magical ability balanced out with great drawback, which is something I love to see with a magic system, some semblance of balance. There's a very rich world being built here, all the factions, the history and grudges in play, the hard choices and difficult sacrifices that go against certain characters own beliefs. Kip, Liv, Corvan, Gavin and even Ironfist were all incredible characters that quickly grew on me. I will be fair and say I think Karris is a character I'm kinda "meh" about in this book, she's one of the four main perspectives on the book and she's and it's nice that she's a badass in combat and has skills etc, but I'd have liked to see her character fleshed out a bit and see her strength not from combat but from character

(She's lived 16 years in the dark, she's always wondered why Gavin called off the wedding, why he suddenly became good, she mourned Dazen who she truly loved while also dealing with the fact he killed her family)

We did see some of her past revealed and the effect it had on hardening her

(the birth of Gavin son and having to send him away and never see him again)

, but this was for a short enough chapter and was about it.

Overall, the book wasn't flawless, but I'm certainly nitpicking and it doesn't deserve to be docked any marks, this but was a thrilling pleasure and has reinvigorated my love of reading after finishing the last couple of Dune books 😂