I Finished One of My FAVORITE Fantasy Series This Month

I will again say that the reveal of the magic system and everything is absolutely mind-blowing and I had a full-on jaw-dropping moment with it. Once again, Wang's writing is really beautiful, but I feel like having read Sword of Kaigen and then going through Blood Over Bright Haven was really disappointing, honestly

Now, I read Down Below Beyond by T.A. Bruno a couple years ago. Absolutely loved it. It was in my book awards video and I think it was even in my top 10 potentially.

And the heart, the heart in this book, you guys, please, if you haven't tried the City Watch yet, if you're looking for a place to start with Terry Pratchett, highly recommend starting with Guards! Guards!

The last probably 40% of this I could not put down. And I immediately purchased book two and will be reading book two and book three in 2026 because this is a trilogy I have to finish.

I'm still, again, still kind of articulating how I feel about it, but still an excellent book. I definitely think that Lisa See is hands down one of the best historical fiction writers I've ever read. That has not changed. But this one fell a little bit flat for me.

And what I can tell you about it so far is that I'm enjoying it. It's very good. There are some things I do have some criticisms of this book.

And overall, I don't feel like the story was as strong in this second volume. I still binged it. I still enjoyed it.

But anyways, this was a random series that I picked up a couple months ago, and I bought volume two as soon as it came out because I enjoyed volume one a lot.

I love this book. I absolutely love this book. I didn't even think this was going to end up in my top three books of the series.

And if you're looking for something that has a bit of cheeky wit, a bit of heart, with that classic fantasy adventure kind of heist - faint heist feel, I highly recommend this and I'm really looking forward to continuing the series.

I've seen her work with themes in a much more subtle way than Blood Over Bright Haven in Sword of Kaigen, which I loved for the most part.