There is definitely a Hunger Games vibe to this book with the whole “champions having to kill each other in a tournament”, but it's between 7 champions instead of 24 tributes. The selection process is also a little more complex. Instead of being picked at random, the champions are chosen by their families, and you can see that while some of them <i>want and need</i> this opportunity, having been raised with this single goal in mind, others are just forced into the role by their family and would like nothing more than to have an escape that wouldn’t mean abandoning their family and being an outcast.
In Ilvernath, there are seven families who have been fighting to control the high magick for centuries. They are all more rotten and despicable than one another, fighting to gain power. Every twenty years or so, during the Blood Moon, each of the seven families sends a champion to compete in a tournament to the death. The victor’s family wins exclusive access to Ilvernath’s high magick supply, until the next tournament.
I would have liked to know a little more about world-building. It seems to be a Fantasy setting, yet there are photographs, paparazzi, and use of technology. There is mention of a government, but we don’t know much about the way the country/land is governed. It does not impact the story so far, but they’re little pieces of extra information that would have been interesting to know, and I hope that we will get these details in the next book.
Each chapter is told from a different point of view, allowing us to get inside some champions’ heads, and understand a little better the dynamics between the seven families, and their goals too. The chapters follow Alistair, Isobel, Gavin, and Briony and they are different from one another, yet they all share some common traits (including being ruthless, resilient, and willing to kill others);
Alistair is wicked and vicious, yet he would do anything for his brother and wants his family to be proud of him and to love him. Isobel is her family’s champion because she is the strongest, but she never wanted to be part of the tournament and is stuck between her loyalty to her family, and her desire to flee. Gavin comes from the weakest family, the one everyone makes fun of, the one that never ever won a tournament, and he is determined to prove to everyone that the Grieves family is worth something (and he does have a ruthless and cold side that surprised me). Finally, there is Briony, born and bred to be a champion, she couldn’t wait to prove to everyone her worth and to be remembered as a strong and mighty champion (and ended up being the one trying to convince everyone to stop fighting...).
I find it interesting also that some characters had a history together, before the whole tournament was revealed to the public, and before they were kind of forced to cut ties with kids from the other families. Some were best friends or involved romantically, which will no doubt add a layer of complexity to the plot when will come the time to kill or be killed. The weak romance that was dropped in the second part of the story was not the best though, It felt forced and weak, and while it did add some extra "ouch-you-betrayed-me-even-if-we-kinda-love-each-other" to the story and a little complexity to the champions' feelings, it was not really necessary to the plot and was not very well developed either.
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From the Publisher
So far so good! Right off the bat you’re already taken to this world. I couldn’t put it down. It reminded me of hunger games and Harry Potter. I can’t wait to finish it!!!
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Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on November 21, 2021
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So far so good! Right off the bat you’re already taken to this world. I couldn’t put it down. It reminded me of hunger games and Harry Potter. I can’t wait to finish it!!!
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