Goodreads Summary:
More than a century has passed since Liliath crept into the empty sarcophagus of Saint Marguerite, fleeing the Fall of Ystara. But she emerges from her magical sleep still beautiful, looking no more than nineteen, and once again renews her single-minded quest to be united with her lover, Palleniel, the archangel of Ystara.
A seemingly impossible quest, but Liliath is one of the greatest practitioners of angelic magic to have ever lived, summoning angels and forcing them to do her bidding.
Liliath knew that most of the inhabitants of Ystara died from the Ash Blood plague or were transformed into beastlings, and she herself led the survivors who fled into neighboring Sarance. Now she learns that angels shun the Ystaran’s descendants. If they are touched by angelic magic, their blood will turn to ash. They are known as Refusers, and can only live the most lowly lives.
But Liliath cares nothing for the descendants of her people, save how they can serve her. It is four young Sarancians who hold her interest: Simeon, a studious doctor-in-training; Henri, a dedicated fortune hunter; Agnez, an adventurous musketeer cadet; and Dorotea, an icon-maker and scholar of angelic magic. They are the key to her quest.
The four feel a strange kinship from the moment they meet, but do not know why, or suspect their importance. All become pawns in Liliath’s grand scheme to fulfill her destiny and be united with the love of her life. No matter the cost to everyone else. . .
My Review:
I don’t necessarily know how I feel about this book. I did like the character develop and the multiple POVs. However. it was slow. It wasn’t slow in a boring way, just a dense one. A lot of characters had first, last, or nicknames that all started with the letter “D”. This got very confusing. The story was interesting, though. I didn’t find Liliath to be a likable character, per se, but rather a complex one. She definitely helped the story along. Some things seemed unnecessary, but I could see why they might’ve been added. Overall, it was a good book, just not one of my favorites.
As I said before, the book is slow. There’s no real way around it. I would mainly recommend this book to people who like worlds of high fantasy and reading over long periods of time. This book took me less than a week to read, and it was 500 pages. It’s mainly just a dense book, and honestly some of this may just be a fault of mine. I don’t regret spending time on this book, but I wish I could’ve spent a little less.
Overall, I would give this book…
⭐⭐.5-⭐⭐⭐/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.
The Fiction Feature 