The Court of Broken Knives ~ Anna Smith Spark (Empires of Dust #1)

★★★★★

Nothing is pointless, as long as one is alive.

For being a grimdark fantasy novel, this was surprisingly optimistic. Well, if you can look past the whole "death and all demons" parts.

Why we march and why we die,

And what life means...it's all a lie.

Death! Death! Death!

Yeah, that kinda dampens the mood a little.

I really enjoyed this. At first, the writing was somewhat difficult to get into, particularly the first chapter, but once I got into it, it flowed amazingly well and painted quite an enrapturing image. It was scenic and epic and I loved it entirely. (My only qualm with this being that Thalia's 1st person perspective every once in a while was jarring and didn't feel entirely necessary, but was well-written nonetheless.)

Amrath and the lore was probably one of the coolest things I've ever read. This gave me the strongest Game of Thrones vibes in the world, mixed with a little bit of Six of Crows of all things as well. It has a little something for everyone who likes fantasy: political intrigue, court squabbling, epic battles, dark anti-heroes, unreliable narrators, and mysterious pretty bois. Gosh, this was great.

The main characters Marith, Thalia, Orhan and Tobias were all absolutely great, believable people with distinct personalities and positions in the plot. The representation was pretty great too, as Orhan was gay and Marith was bisexual, but wasn't a flippant sex-addict like a lot of bi rep seems to be. Their relationships with their respective partners read like real relationships, not pandering, and I really liked them.

Also, even though this is very much adult (lots and LOTS of blood), it didn't have sex scenes, which was extremely appreciated, because I really don't like reading sex scenes and will now and forever have Empire of Storms war flashbacks whenever fantasy turns into erotica.

The themes of death and dying, like I said, were actually strangely optimistic. Especially on the part of Thalia. Marith was darker (and has some kind of issue that turns him into a psychotic murderer willing and able to destroy literally anything, which was kinda rad tbh). Thalia, though having her own demons, wasn't swept under depressive behavior like Marith was.

It was just so good.