This book was pretty good and easy to read but it was missing a few things.

I liked this author's style of writing, and the plot was pretty good. But I think this was a case of trying to do too much in one novel. If this one had been split into two, I think the author could have covered everything better and in more detail.

You never get a real feel for who the characters are. All we know about Rani is that she came from a merchant family who sacrificed everything for her to move up in society by becoming a glasswright's apprentice. We never get the feel of her character, her beliefs and morals--her personality. And as for the other supporting characters they are simply Lord something. . . or the leader of this or that . . . or someone's relative. They characters are very shallow. We really should have been given more insight to Bardo(Rani's Brother) and Prince Hal.

The plot is okay. It begins with Rani taking lunch to one of her masters(Who is working on a window in the Cathedral) who doesn't want it. Since Rani is there so she decides to watch the Royal Ceramony going on that day. The son of the King is being inducted as the new religious leader of the land. Rani notices something amiss in the window that has just become completed, its an arrowhead. She calls out to save the prince and ends up getting him killed. She is then wanted for Treason. The Glasswrights are outlawed and their guild destroyed. Rani's family is destroyed, and she is on the run within the city. She travels through all the casts including the lowest class of the "Touched" who beg on the street to make a living, to living in the palace with the Royal Family. While trying to solve the murder, and find a "home." She discovers a secret society that committed the murder of the prince for what on the surface seems to be the right reasons. . It moves too fast with too little detail.

I would have preferred to know a little more background to the society and lead up to the murder maybe in the middle? And know a little more about everyone's life before. When I started this novel, it seemed that I was walking into the middle of a story instead of the beginning.

This is an okay novel, but there are plenty of better ones including "Assassin's Apprentice" and "Luck in the Shadows" (I have written reviews on both of these). They are so much better than this novel. I would only suggest this novel if you have nothing else to read.


Recommended: No