This book is the author’s foray into portal fantasy. I love them, so I knew I’d love this book, and it doesn’t disappoint. A typical portal fantasy will have our heroine thrown into some sort of fantasy world (book or video game) they’re incredibly familiar with, and they use that knowledge to their advantage in that world, often in a nearly godlike fashion.
Maggie wakes up in Kair Toren, which features in her two favorite fantasy novels – due to life circumstances at the time, she’s read this books more times than she can count. However, the third book was never published. And Maggie’s familiar with the portal fantasy genre, and it’s immediately clear that she’s not going to get the special treatment that those heroines usually get.
Maggie has to work for her security. She’s also a really good person, and she knows the fates that await the people she’s meeting, and in some cases, growing to care deeply about. She gets involved fairly quickly because it’s the right thing to do. She’s very much a female main characters in the typical stamp of these authors – quietly confident and not afraid to do anything she can to save those she loves.
The cast of characters is huge, and varied. It sounds like the books had the kind of multiple character viewpoints featured in Game of Thrones, so Maggie has a fairly intimate knowledge of a number of people, but that knowledge is not complete. I particularly like how that features with the male lead – it’s pretty obvious where things should be heading between the two of them, but the story hasn’t taken them there yet, for really interesting reasons.
I knew I was going to read the next book when it comes out anyway – I’d read the instructions on a package of toilet paper if I knew the authors had written them. But I really need to know what happens next, so it’ll be pretty high on my list.