LitPick Review
Lysandro de Castel (the main protagonist) tries to make Lighura safe for it's people as it has become clear to him and most of the settlers in Lighura that Lothan Marek (main antagonist), who happens to be magistrate of Lighura, has no interest in enforcing the law. More importantly, Lothan has his own agenda, which is to inherit the powers of Argoss that he can obtain by stealing relics from the three gods found in the temples. Lothan has his own army made of Argoss' children. Lysandro has both the support of the village as he masquerades himself as the Shadow of Theron during the night as well as the support of his family, friends, his love interest Seraphine, and the Examiners (Eugenie and Asha) who were sent by the temple high priestess to recover the stolen relics. A lot is discovered about Lysandro past, his future, and his destiny as the story progresses.
Opinion:
This is the first time I read something where all the main characters were not interesting. I found that Lysandro was a weak character and not just that, but even people around him did not necessarily empower him. Take for example his love interest Seraphine. I see her as Lysandro in a woman's body. They are both idealistic and optimistic people. I'm sorry, but if my parents sold me to the highest bidder who mistreated me, I wouldn't be so quick to believe that someone can love me so quickly. As a matter of fact, I found myself enjoying the chapters that they were not involved in, few as they were. I really enjoyed Eugenie and Asha's arc. I felt like they complimented each other well. Eugenie is more reserved and she doesn't have physical strength, but she does have spiritual strength. Asha is physically strong, outgoing, and she protects and cares for Eugenie deeply. I have a feeling these two will change the way the temples are operated if the story continues. Lothan Marek was a huge disappointment as a villain. So many things put me off about him: his lack of physical combat skills, the fact that ultimately he was a coward, and the fact that instead of killing people who were against him, he was pretty much satisfied with killing his own brothers. In my opinion a villain is either really smart to compensate for the fact that he can't fight or he's really good at physical combat. But Lothan was neither. We were just told he's ambitious. Worse, he was killing the only people who could actually help him achieve his goals. He was less than a challenge for Lysandro.
Also, I was quite confused about the setting. Sometimes it seems like medieval times, but then it turns to modern times. For example on the subject of homosexuality, I'm not saying it didn't exist during the medieval times, however I assume there were no openly gay couples considering we are still fighting for gay rights. On the issue of arranged marriage when it came to Seraphine, her reaction to Lysandro talking to her father about possibly marrying her was a bit much. I'm not saying that she shouldn't want love. However, her exclaiming that she does not want a marriage of convenience when frankly speaking people of her status will obviously find themselves in the so-called marriage of convenience makes me wonder which times she thinks she's living in.
