The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood
Published 20th February 2020 by Tor UK
Star Rating - **.5
Goodreads Challenge - 13/50
I was kindly gifted a finished copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis (from Goodreads)
What if you knew how and when you will die?
Csorwe does — she will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice.
But on the day of her foretold death, a powerful mage offers her a new fate. Leave with him, and live. Turn away from her destiny and her god to become a thief, a spy, an assassin—the wizard's loyal sword. Topple an empire, and help him reclaim his seat of power.
Csorwe does — she will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice.
But on the day of her foretold death, a powerful mage offers her a new fate. Leave with him, and live. Turn away from her destiny and her god to become a thief, a spy, an assassin—the wizard's loyal sword. Topple an empire, and help him reclaim his seat of power.
But Csorwe will soon learn – gods remember, and if you live long enough, all debts come due.
My Thoughts
I was really looking forward to this one. I requested an ARC a few months ago but I wasn't able to get one due to it being so popular but I was lucky enough to get my hands of a finished copy unfortunately, it didn't live up to the hype for me.
The premise was really interesting and that's what really sold this story to me. All of the key elements from the synopsis were there in the story however, it wasn't what I was expecting and I think this threw me off a little to begin with. That being said, the actual crux of the story was good and I enjoyed most of what I read however, I did have quite a few issues with the writing and pacing of this story. I found the transitions between key parts of the story to be quite clunky and I often found myself confused about how we got from one thing to another and how they linked together. Along with this the pacing was a bit off, we often covered long periods of time in a short number of pages and I don't feel like this was conveyed well. Also I felt like the action scenes could have been improved. When reading an action scene it felt like just as we were getting to the climax it just ended.
I did enjoy the characters though and I thought they were interesting. I liked how we seemed to have different races of characters from around this would although it wasn't explicitly said. Our main character and the others from her country had tusks and another main character, from a different part of the world, was described as having pointed ears. I liked the development of the characters throughout and their was a twist involving one of them that I didn't see coming so this was a nice surprise.
Overall I was disappointed with this one. Although I enjoyed the main points of the story itself and the characters were interesting the writing had a few to meany issues for me. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be continuing on with the story.
The premise was really interesting and that's what really sold this story to me. All of the key elements from the synopsis were there in the story however, it wasn't what I was expecting and I think this threw me off a little to begin with. That being said, the actual crux of the story was good and I enjoyed most of what I read however, I did have quite a few issues with the writing and pacing of this story. I found the transitions between key parts of the story to be quite clunky and I often found myself confused about how we got from one thing to another and how they linked together. Along with this the pacing was a bit off, we often covered long periods of time in a short number of pages and I don't feel like this was conveyed well. Also I felt like the action scenes could have been improved. When reading an action scene it felt like just as we were getting to the climax it just ended.
I did enjoy the characters though and I thought they were interesting. I liked how we seemed to have different races of characters from around this would although it wasn't explicitly said. Our main character and the others from her country had tusks and another main character, from a different part of the world, was described as having pointed ears. I liked the development of the characters throughout and their was a twist involving one of them that I didn't see coming so this was a nice surprise.
Overall I was disappointed with this one. Although I enjoyed the main points of the story itself and the characters were interesting the writing had a few to meany issues for me. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be continuing on with the story.
Overall Rating (2.5*)
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