I'll spare you my life story and just say, in a moment of clarity, which is rare for me these days, I realized I could do better on the review. Since I rarely bother to write reviews and this is the only one I've written on this site, I felt compelled to give it a redo.

What's this story even about? It's about a scavenger named Kayla, with a mysterious past, getting into trouble, getting into love trouble and then getting into "magical" trouble and then more of the previous types of trouble. It feels misleading to categorize this as fantasy because it feels more like science fiction powered by fantasy elements. I'd be more specific but since any explanation of the "magic" would be getting rather deep into spoiler territory, you'll just have to take my word for it. That or read the spoiler below.

Spoiler

So, it's more like supernatural powers blended with tech than actual magic. That said, it's hinted that a more fantastical source, specifically "dragons, " being behind the supernatural powers. Maybe, we get to see some of this actual fantasy stuff in the sequels but not here. I don't know, I haven't read them.

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Should you read this? If the answer to the previous question at all interests you, you'll likely enjoy it. If you go in expecting heavy romance or an epic fantasy adventure, you'll be disappointed.

While my rating stands, I will explain that a 5 star rating scale really lacks in granularity. Simply put, 4 stars does a lot of heavy lifting for me on this small of a scale and would be where anything significantly above average would land. To earn a full 5 stars, you'd have to write something on par with Lord of the Rings. That is to say, nothing on this site even comes close to 5 stars and this novel was the closest.

So, I'll say this upfront this one time. I've been burned out on romance largely due to an overdose of romcoms in the '90s and I've never gotten over that. So, any minor compliments from me on the subject should be weighted as coming from someone who is definitely not a fan of the genre. On the other hand, the action, adventure and fantasy genres couldn't be any more in my wheelhouse, if they tried.

The writing seems well balanced and consistent. The few (literally three of them) grammatical writing errors I caught in my casual reading were the kinds of things that spell check would not point out, though a grammar checker might catch it. The story has decent pacing, interesting characters and, for its size, a decent amount of both character growth and plot progression. The romance was trashy but fit in with the story well enough and was light enough, that it was easy to ignore.

There were no major mistakes, that I noticed. There were some minor mistakes but they are very easy to overlook.

My biggest complaint is that there could have been more. There could have been more character development, more story, more everything. However, given the length of the novel and the fact it is directly continued in other novels on the author's website, I figure I can't complain too much. In a lot of cases, you get just barely enough of any one thing to get by, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. While trimming away too much can be bad, adding too much can be equally bad. Hence, why I said it's well balanced.

I feel like the novel had a set number of goals at the start and met most, if not all of them. While I could criticize it for not aiming higher, I feel like that wouldn't really be too constructive. Sadly, it's better to lower your aim and meet your goals than to aim too high and miss entirely. That said, I would hope that the sequels aim at least slightly higher.

Overall, if you go in expecting it to be what it is, it's a decent, fun read with better writing than you'll typically find on this website.

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