Published: March 2021
Pages: 713
Summary
Long ago, The Lord Aiduel emerged from the deserts of the Holy Land, possessed with divine powers. He used these to forcibly unite the peoples of Angall, before His ascension to heaven.
Over eight hundred years later, in a medieval world which is threatened by war and religious persecution, four young men and women begin to develop supernatural abilities. These forbidden and secret powers will shatter the lives that they have known, and will force each of them to confront the mystery of the ethereal Gate which haunts their dreams. What does the dream mean, and how is it connected to their burgeoning abilities?
As they experience conflict, love, lust and betrayal, in lands which are being overtaken by war, they must try to stay ahead of and to survive the sinister forces which are now pursuing them. For they are being hunted…
My thoughts
I have just finished this book, officially the first book I finished in 2025, and it was fantastic. There are many things I thoroughly enjoyed, starting with the writing.
The writing – and partly, the plot – reminded me of Empire of the Vampire meets The Name of the Wind. Jackson is great with words, he told a story that gripped me from the end of the first chapter. I was emotionally attached to these character (apart from one but more on that later) all through this story.
Although the overarching plot was slow at times, we spend this time to really get to understand these characters and what they’ve been through/ are going through, what they are battling with. We see them come into their abilities and how it begins to affect them. The key thing here is that we SEE this all unfold, we aren’t simply told and that makes a huge difference when creating such an immersive story. Additionally, there are enough twists and turns to keep the slower parts engaging and I found that I was trying to puzzle the pieces together.
The narrative is incredibly compelling. There is an overarching mystery, what is this dream these characters are having, why are they having it and why are they being hunted? Amongst that we see our four main characters move through very different lives. In the space of a few chapters I felt anxiety, anger, hope, and heartache for these characters, which really demonstrates Jackson’s skill to evoke such emotions from his readers. The four main characters we have are Arion, Corin, Alanna, and Leanna. Corin was my absolute favourite of the four, who doesn’t love an underdog getting his vengeance? I am a sucker for it (hello, The Rage of Dragons).
I enjoyed the worldbuilding but could have done with a little bit more. This is a very religious medieval world but it wasn’t until near the end that I figured out the islands have a different way of life, different religion. To help set up some of the events I would have liked a bit more background which I think would have helped fully understand certain situations. However, this is a trilogy so hopefully more to come in book two!
The character I did not get on with is Alanna. I have many thoughts, in general, I strongly disliked her. Her character development is how to become even more selfish. I understand there are dangerous games at play, but there were many times through this book where she is consciously ignorant and places herself above all else. I could not relate, or even try to understand her thought process so I had no care to see her succeed. If someone helps you, you don’t hate them because they couldn’t help you enough, you should be grateful they risked so much to help you to begin with, especially when your life is at stake – ugh it frustrated me, but again, props to Jackson for writing a character that made me feel such strong emotions.
Otherwise, I found that the character development in this book is stronger with the two males than the two females. Arion and Corin go on a journey, they face adversity which they overcome and fight on, learning and changing from what they’ve been through, they are different people by the end of the book. Alanna defaults on her beauty every step of the way there’s almost no development with her. We also have Leanna who is a priestess. Having most of her life devoted to Lord Aiduel, she’s remained ignorant to the world outside. I really want to see what she can do in the next book, her character has so much potential that I hope gets explored.
Back to Alanna, my other issue is the way she is portrayed. Every single passing character always mentions her beauty and every man in this story wants her. I don’t mind a woman using her beauty at times – hey, if you got it, flaunt it – but this woman has just turned 18 and it felt uncomfortable reading grown men lust over a girl (also, is beauty not subjective? How beautiful can a girl be that every man wants her? It feels like the author is leaning on a female stereotype which didn’t sit right with me).
It also frustrated me to have a young girl use her beauty to make every man do her bidding like the drop of a hat. It’s not believable to me that grown men that are in love with their wives, that lead armies and command ships, completely lose all willpower, all manner of thought and change their direction because this young girl was able to plant a seed of lust in their minds. Are we really claiming that men are so incredibly weak to lust? Again, it feels though another stereotype is being leaned on heavily.
But it also raises another issue. We can call it magic but when we ground it down, this is assault. Perhaps the men have a desire but they haven’t consented, by twisting their minds and making them believe they are making the decision, it is still assault but this never gets addressed at all. I don’t mind reading books with heavy topics, not all characters have a conscience and they may choose to do evil things, but call it out for what it is. Show us that Alanna is aware of her actions, she knows, she thought about it but she’s going to do it anyway. Perhaps Alanna has no remorse and these aren’t thoughts she has but I’d like to see her come to those conclusions. I also wanted to see more of her strength and intelligence but she defaults onto lust every single time, it got tiring reading her plot line at times.
But when it comes down to it, my niggles aside, I flew through this book. I struggled to put it down. Allana’s story line I didn’t enjoy to the level as the others but I still raced through the pages to desperately know what happens next. I was intrigued and so invested in these characters. I felt a wide range of emotions through this story which is a job well done to Jackson’s skill of weaving words and developing such a complex yet compelling narrative.
Would I recommend?
Yes, this is great addition to the fantasy genre. If you want another chunky epic fantasy to bite into then this would be a good option for you. I can’t wait to read book two!