Lilibet Bombshell's Reviews > The Darkness Before Them

This was a thick baby, and I loved sinking my teeth into it.

It’s been rare over the past two years for me to get into a fantasy epic on the bottom floor, just as its’ beginning. It seems with almost every other epic fantasy series going on I came into the ARC reviewing/book reviewing scene after the series had already started and it’s a little hard to catch up to everyone else when you’re reading around 25-30 ARCs a month (let’s not talk about my inability to turn down every yummy ARC I see on NG). So when I saw the synopsis for this book, I was so intrigued I decided to give it a try and see if I liked it. If I did, then I had just done what I wanted to and gotten in on the bottom floor of a promising epic fantasy series.

I thought this book was absolutely wonderful. At nearly 600 pages I could’ve done it in one day, but I decided to split the reading over two days: I read the first 30% on the first day and read the rest on the second day so I could be fresh as a daisy for the middle portion of the book. It turns out I may have not needed it as I usually do for longer fantasy novels, because this book was compelling and intriguing from start to finish.

I don’t read a lot of epic fantasy. I’ll admit it’s because epic fantasy tends to be a genre ruled by white, male authors and I tend to dislike most fantasy written by white, male authors. I think what captivated me about this book from the start was our protagonist, Kat: I love thieves. I love underdogs. I love rebellions. I might as well say it: I love that Kat is a lesbian, too. While I’m not usually a fan of white men writing queer female characters (unless they have a sensitivity reader), it helps that Kat is way too focused on keeping herself alive for most of this book to worry about fluttering her eyelashes at anyone.

The worldbuilding in this book is excellent. Ward shouldn’t have cause to lack in this department, seeing as his background is in RPG worldbuilding. The magic system is a little fuzzier on the details, but I think that’s because there’s more than one way of conducting magic in this world and we don’t know exactly how all of it works yet.

While I greatly enjoyed the plot, with all its court intrigue, drama, crosses and double-crosses, there was definitely some predictability here and there. It didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the book, though, so I’m not holding that against the rating.

I’d definitely recommend it if you want to dig into a new series or if you’ve been wanting to try a series and just haven’t yet. It’s a lot of fun.

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. This review was written without recompense. Thank you.

File Under: 5 Star Review/Book Series/Epic Fantasy/Fantasy/Fantasy Series/Sapphic Romance