This is a bad place, Vis. Dangerous. You can still back out, but this is your last chance to do it. Is this opportunity worth it? Is it worth your life?
The Will of the Many
by James Islington
Genre: Fantasy
About: An orphan boy who fights in the gladiatorial ring and works in a prison is not the first choice for adoption into one of the most powerful families in the Hierarchy. But Vis isn't exactly who he says he is, and his adoptive father isn't exactly looking for a model son. He needs Vis to uncover the truth behind his brother's death at an elite academy. It isn't the first death there, and it won't be the last.
Thoughts
This is one of those books that starts out strong, carries on strong, and just keeps going until you've devoured 600 pages and want/need/frantically search for more. Vis is an incredibly likeable character; the fact that he isn't naïve but still has so much heart in such a brutal world really drew me to him. There's humour as well and great character development of so many of the side characters. I loved the complexity of the relationships and how every conversation had subtle levels where you were never entirely sure of someone's true motivations...
The magic system was really clever and interesting, though I didn't try to understand everything because it was super complicated and as long as Vis knew what he was doing, then I was happy to go along with whatever. The ruins aspect of the story added to the complicated nature of the magic and although they were never my favourite scenes to go through, I did like that they gave more mystery and history to the world and quite clearly are going to be majorly important to book two.
I did find the foreshadowing of certain twists a little heavy handed. Like wolves getting mentioned so much at the beginning that you knew Vis was going to have a significant interaction there. Or some of the reveals of characters I could guess early on and didn't necessarily find very twisty but that didn't alter the fact that all the characters were so well thought out and developed. I liked the changing nature of the relationships and that Vis couldn't let his guard down pretty much ever.
I was surprised that the big competition element of the story was left to the last hundred pages because that made everything feel a little rushed. The book never feels slow paced so there's nothing that could have been cut in order to give more space to this part of the story - my solution is just that I would have happily carried on reading to the 700 or 800 page mark. Because yeah, there were some deaths and decisions being made that I felt a little rushed through.
So to wrap up. Loved the characters. Loved the world. Every moment felt epic or heart-breaking or had me smiling. This was so compelling and never lost its momentum. Looking forward to re-reading as much as I'm desperate for book two.
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