“Glimpse the past, illuminate the future.
Yosarai Patican dreams of becoming an illuminator in a country that values art above all else. A lofty goal that finally seems within reach when she earns a position at the prestigious Academy of the Seven Arts. Although Yosarai loathes to leave behind her quiet country life, she travels to the capital, determined to live up to her mother’s fame as one of Indel’s greatest artists.
Prince Xander never planned to become king. Indeed, he never wanted to become king. But when his father dies suddenly, he is thrust into the middle of coronation preparations—and assassination attempts. With everyone around him in increasing danger, Xander decides to hide in neighboring Indel until the time for him to be crowned king arrives.
Posing as an inventor struggling with aesthetics, Xander enlists Yosarai’s aid as part of his cover, but soon he suspects she knows more than she should. But when danger threatens and secrets are exposed, entering a competition reputed as cutthroat may be the only way for them to protect everything they hold dear.”
Series: Book #1 in “The Sceptre & the Stylus” trilogy.
Spiritual Content- Dedication is to the Lord & has a poem; Quotes that are Scripture-like are quoted, mentioned, & remembered; Prayers (including lighting and extinguishing lamps in a ritual); Two songs praising Sustainer are written out and sung; God is called “Sustainer” in this world, Jesus is the “Effulgence”, Christians are “Tipheret”, & The Scriptures are called “the Writings of the Scribes”; Talks about Sustainer, trusting Him, His plan, & Him providing; ‘H’s are capital when referring to Sustainer; Xander hides his belief in Sustainer at home due to being mocked in his country and also in Yosi’s country because many mistrust foreigners who have an interest in “their God”; Xander’s bodyguard and friend does not share the same beliefs; Yosi wonders why Sustainer would bless her and protect her from troubles when she hasn’t done anything to earn it (which also makes her wonder if her faith is so weak that normal troubles would destroy her); Yosi has visions (also called “flashes” or “spells”) of different past and future events when touching items or writings (such as when she touches a doll, she sees how the doll was treated by the owner; she touches a drinking glad and becomes the glass, hearing what it hears; she visually sees what the writer was picturing when writing a letter or the hidden meaning behind the words; she sees a future event where an important decision will have someone’s life depended on it); Yosi’s gift is called an “elchan gifting” and it unnerves others especially priests as it’s believed to no longer exist (because of this, it is kept a secret); Yosi’s original dream was to create illuminated script based off of the original Writings of the Scribes; A couple side character believe that servants shouldn’t be allowed to change their status because it would be a defiance of where Sustainer put them & another believes Sustainer to be favoring her (despite her mean words and actions to others); The Academy of the Seven Arts includes religion; Many mentions of Sustainer, the Writings of the Scribes, & those and events in them; Mentions of Sustainer’s grace, trusting Him, His plan/will, & Him providing; Mentions of prayers, praying, thanking Sustainer, & praising Effulgence; Mentions of blessings & being Blessed (and Sustainer removing a blessing if not appreciated or used enough); Mentions of priests, morning prayers, & a religious festival;
*Note: Xander says about his countrymen believing they can be “as wise as any god” and are so enlightened to feel like they “no longer need a divine crutch to survive”; Another POV has someone who thanks “the Fates” (twice, which is said in the glossary to be an “impersonal deity”); The characters go to an underground lake called “the Spring of Life”; Many mentions of “Eshom the Gatherer” (who had to gather six people from the different realms and is viewed as a religious figure in this world); A couple mentions of luck; A mention of Yosi not being superstitious; A mention of ghost stories; A mention of a picture of a unicorn.
Negative Content- Minor cussing including: a ‘confound’, an unfinished ‘what the…’, and four ‘stupid’s; Fiction phrases are exclaimed like ‘nuts/cogs and bolts’, ‘rusted cogs and threadless screws’, & ‘stilts and modified garments’ (up to thrice each); A few mentions of curses (said, not written); Insults like ‘lava slug”, “tatterscamp”, and “water trog” are aimed at others along with those of mixed heritage being called “half bloods” and “mixers” (which the glossary says all of these are derogatory); Lavidah mentally screams every derogatory and degrading name she knows at Yosi; Some eye rolling; Yosi says a lie that she thinks is bitter, but necessary for the circumstances; Being hit/attacked, Being poisoned and passing out, Being attacked with rotten food and stones, Pain, Injuries, Blood/Bleeding, & Throwing up (up to semi-detailed); Seeing someone threatened with a gun and with words; One side character drinks wine and another drinks a (fictional) cocktail & both Yosi and Xander have drinks at a party with names like “Nectar of Paradise” and “Lava Bubbler” (which are not said to be alcoholic or not, but there is a note that alcohol is being “liberally distributed”); Yosi has a moment of thinking about stealing something and is quickly horrified by that thought coming to her mind; Yosi feels someone’s despairing grief and it swallows her, feeling despised and unwanted; *Major Spoilers* At the very end, it’s implied in a side character’s POV that they killed someone and Yosi is told that her father is dead *End of Spoiler*; Many mentions of assassination attempts, assassins, attacks, injuries, weapons, poisons, threats, & bribes; Mentions of deaths & grief; Mentions of servants being mistreated by their masters (being physically hurt and scarred & being starved); Mentions of thieves, thefts, & stealing; Mentions of prejudice & racism towards those of different ethnicities (including someone saying that the servants shouldn’t be able to change their status as it’s a defiance of where Sustainer has placed them); Mentions of alcohol & drinking; Mentions of hatred; Mentions of lies, lying, & liars; Mentions of gossip & rumors; Mentions of hunting (a test has a room of stuffed birds and animals to shoot); A few mentions of potential wars; A few mentions of vandalism; A few mentions of throwing up; A couple mentions of someone’s throat being slit in a competition; A couple mentions of an explosive; A couple mentions of bullies; A mention of a possible suicide; A mention of murder (Yosi thinks that giving arbitrary judgement would be on par with murder “for it was the death of justice”); A mention of a parlor game where someone has to choose between death by strangulation or by stabbing; A mention of a story about a family planning to marry off their daughter to a cruel man & her running away from them;
*Note: Xander has a near-panic attack (up to semi-detailed); Prejudice and name-calling towards those from another country (including Xander facing this in Yosi’s country and slurs being written and said towards him and others); Yosi’s cousin strives for her mother’s approval no matter the cost or else she thinks there will be nothing left to live for; A mother makes a few belittling comments to her daughter & restricting her daughter’s meals to keep her on a diet due to her figure; Mentions of allergic reactions; A couple mentions of a special school for children that are “deemed deficient”, but a king believing they are also gifted by Sustainer and the world focuses too much on their outward appearance (and thus pays no attention to those who aren’t wrapped in “acceptable packaging”); A mention of Xander’s half-brother stuffing his mouth with rotten lakeweed and forcing him to swallow.
Sexual Content- A hand kiss; Some Touches, Dancing, Hand holding, Nearness, & Smelling (barely-above-not-detailed); Noticing (barely-above-not-detailed); Yosi is called a trollop twice because of hanging around Xander (who is from another country) and her cousin accuses her of throwing herself at him; Yosi’s cousin makes comments about a female student only getting into a prestigious academy because of her mother being “friendly” with the director and that she has paid “favors” to the proctors which is why she ranks so high (the cousin also adds that it’s being said that Yosi’s father promised she would do that same); Xander is the illegitimate son of the king, but has been accepted by the family (including the queen who had “set aside the pain of her husband’s betrayal to accept him as a son”) even though his council wished for his father to make Xander disappear (his father instead made his indiscretions known and claimed Xander as his son; When Xander says he shouldn’t have existed, Yosi tells him that while his father made a wrong choice, he couldn’t create a life so he exists because Sustainer wanted him to exist when stuns Xander to think about); A couple mentions of dalliances/affairs; A couple mentions of flirting; Very light interest/attraction;
*Note: A few mentions of young women’s figures.
-Yosarai Patican, age 20
-Xander
P.O.V. switches between Yosi (1st), Xander (3rd), Lavidah (3rd), & Someone else (1st)
375 pages
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My personal Rating-
This was…different than I was expecting, for sure.
Like the rest of the plot, the faith content was uniquely written. I liked some parts (such as how much there was—it might be the most from an Enclave Published book I’ve seen yet!) and was also a little confused because not everything had direct correlations to Biblical events or characters. It wasn’t an allegory and must have been part of the fantasy elements but with God? It’s difficult to explain and was difficult to make notes on it for this review.
At first, I was pretty confused because of all the different words—either Indian origin or maybe even Jewish?—or just plain fantasy made-up words, so I had a bit of a time getting into this book. Because of the mix of different cultures and the fictional fantasy elements as well, I had to read this book slower to be able to figure out what was happening and what the characters were referring to. There’s a glossary at the end of the book that explains most things, but I didn’t realize that was there until halfway through. Once I started figuring things out though and had the help of said glossary, it didn’t hurt my head as much.
I wasn’t quite sure how Yosi’s country is supposed to be very religious and have a yearly religious festival, but that a part of the festival is more of a cut-throat competition. Interestingly enough, however, we don’t really see that and just hear about how it has been brutal in the past. It was more riddles and them figuring things out for the competition. Perhaps it was because of not fully understanding what was happening or that we don’t have enough context or details about the riddles to figure it out for ourselves, but I wasn’t very invested in the competition parts.
The chapters were really long—all the way from 40 pages to 90 pages with some breaks. I don’t usually notice this, but it caught my attention with this book.
I have to say that I really liked and appreciated seeing both main characters having a faith. It’s not often when that happens in the books I review, so it was refreshing to see this. Even if one has to hide their faith, the conversations and discussions made me happy and I hope that will continue for the rest of the trilogy.
I think it was supposed to be a part of the different cultural elements or maybe even the writing style, but there were many times were a sentence felt off due to a missing word or missing letter. Such as someone being tackled and saying, “off of me!” instead of “Get off of me!”. I don’t think it was a typo, though, because this happened throughout the book. Along with this, some words used didn’t have their common meaning, but a different one. This kept happening and added to my confusion because the well-known meaning of such a word didn’t make sense for the context.
A lot of the conversations felt…lofty? Stuffy? I’m not quite sure the right word, but it felt like the characters were trying a bit too hard to look wise. Perhaps this was because of the poetic writing style which I didn’t care for much. There is also a side character that nearly exclusively talks in quotes from some book in this fantasy world.
Because of a classic book I had heard this book compared to, I was bracing for something specific to happen during the whole book. Needless to say, the ending was mean. Very, very mean.
I think overall that the plot of this book was interesting, but because of being lost for half of the book and then the poetic writing style, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I may read the next two books in the series when they release, but even with that mean cliffhanger ending, I can’t say I’m super eager for it. I think other fantasy readers may enjoy this one because of the unique setting and pacing—make sure you read and refer to the glossary often though! You’ll need it. 😅
See y’all on Friday with a new review!
*BFCG may (Read the review to see) recommend this book by this author. It does not mean I recommend all the books by this author.
