Ana E. Way

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for this eArc! This is, you guessed it, a first volume. In here you follow Calla, Anton and August in a chaotic city plagued by poverty. Calla and Anton enter an annual game in which the winner is the last one standing (alive). Both of them have a very personnal reason to win and they will form a tentative alliance in order to kill the competition. It is a story full of politics, betrayals, murder, conspiracies and complicated relationships. I was very curious to read Chloe Gong but her previous series didn't tempt me as I'm not really fond of mafia related stories. This is her adult debut and I really liked it! At the beginning I had a hard time understanding the worldbuilding, the magic and the politics at the same time but I was immediately engrossed by Calla's motivations that seemed so naïve to me. How killing the king without a plan for the aftermath will change anything in the politics of the empire?? I'll never understand socie