It is clear that the city is sunlight bright in the author’s mind, a place painstakingly developed and offered to the reader with loving enthusiasm.

The plot does also eventually tell us that one of the two sides in the story is the unambiguous faction of black hats and which is the unambiguous faction of white hats, rather than trying to present both sides as deeper and more complex, perhaps with good reasons for doing what they're doing. They are also on the hunt for a knife and young boy of royal blood, two things which they will kill to get.I highlighted all those people’s names when I was reading the prologue, and when reading, I kept asking: where are you? If you are looking for a book with beautiful writing, great world-building (or city-building) and interesting themes, then it is worth checking out Age of Ash! And finally, despite wanting to know more about the magic and the lore since it was kept at arms length, I will say I thought it was a very cool idea that I hadn't seen in a lot of fantasy books. We get to learn quite a bit about several of them and then others are just a fleeting glimpse or perhaps may come up again as the story progresses. As much as I appreciate the worldbuilding skill on show here by Abraham, he fails to match it with plot and characterisation.

Or perhaps it would be more apt to state that the story flows like the river that cuts through the city. When the details of this story are included in the larger story, a lot of these events become important in their own way, but individually, not only do they seem somehow mundane and unimportant, but they’re also completely overshadowed by the details of the central story when it finally comes into play. Abraham builds on The Dragon's Path to create and sustain a rich, satisfyingly complex epic fantasy. Longhill is one of the poorest districts in Kithamar, and its people face many hardships and challenges. But the narrative is so rambling and inconsistent in both its focus and pacing that we’re about halfway through before we start to see the big picture with any clarity.

Now, the real winner of this book is not Alys or any of the other characters, it is Kithamar itself. I would say that this book mostly delivers, though I could see how there is room for disappointment depending on the type of expectations one goes in with. There are a few offhand mentions of prostitution as a practical part of life in Longhill, but no sexual violence, and the girls are never refused jobs on account of their gender, plus in the glimpses we see of the upper classes, being a woman doesn’t seem to get in the way of inheritance or otherwise holding power. Sammish seeing her beloved Alys suffer and struggle under her grief, tries to help her friend in any way she can, but the more she learns the truth about the murder and the multitude of connections surrounding it, she soon realises she has to try to save more than just her friend. And it is working through these and coming to terms with these issues that we become the individuals we are today through.

However, as the book develops, other POV characters appear with varying degrees of prominence, which feels like it does mix up the flow at times.The first several passages were so gripping, by the time I was “supposed” to be reading it, I was already almost 20% in. The plot, too, isn’t really compelling enough to hold up how very slow and observant the narrative feels; it’s about halfway through that things actually start happening, and even then, it’s still very small-scale and day-to-day. Having said that, the city is vast with many districts described in vivid detail, each with their own particularities.

I loved Alys's character, her journey is raw and painful, and although many times she sorely needed to realise the downfall she was heading towards, I understood why she couldn’t. A person so plain she passes unnoticed in a crowd, a girl who can all but become invisible - a pretty handy trick when you’re part of a thieving crew and your job is to sneak the stolen items away before any of your crew members are caught, no? Nevertheless, I have full faith in his ability to hit pay offs later in series that elevate that original entry. There are no fireworks in terms of plot, the magic is only very subtle, and the pace, as you can surmise, is very sedate.You get bored, you might find your foot tapping impatiently for the pace to increase, for the things to start happening, for the people to do something! When things finally started to pick up, I didn’t care enough to try and get fully reinvested in the plot. When Alys’s brother Darro is murdered, Alys sets on a journey of discovery and revenge, which leads her down some very treacherous paths.