For anyone who has never read an Abraham novel before, be aware of what you're getting into with his first book in a series. The City of Kithamar is stunningly brought to life, a character in its own right that fully lives and breathes. Instead, it’s intimately involved in the story surrounding these two girls and their life in the city. Until something does–a job goes wrong–and Alys’s older brother, a person of whom she thinks the world, comes running to her aid and is killed for his efforts.

Our other main characters, Adomanka and Tregarro, are it’s foremost members and although I wouldn’t class either characters as the “villains'' in this story, (their motives are far more complex than that), their powers dabble in the use of dark magic, sacrifices and blood, which I found unnervingly creepy.

It is a well-developed fantasy world, but the action takes rather awhile to develop and it often does not succeed in fully capturing the reader's attention. Overall a very promising start to what is an exciting new fantasy series full of lots of familiar and comforting elements while still feeling like its own book. Abraham reflects the way grief is never a singular formulaic response; when we lose someone we hold close to us we lose a part of ourselves, and the way our mind copes with the trauma is different for everyone.

In fact, it took until about halfway through the book, before I had any idea whatsoever as to what was happening on the larger scale. Fiona is a former secondary school teacher and current stay at home parent to two very wild and active children. Some people will tell you that the first book in an Abraham series is a slow burn and you don’t really appreciate so much it until you’ve read the full series. Kithamar is a centre of trade and wealth, an ancient city with a long, bloody history where countless thousands live and their stories unfold. I might read future books in this series if I spot them in the library, to see if the weaving-in of future stories is as genius as the blurb exclaims, but on its own, this is okay, but a bit forgettable.There are also no attempts to explore outside the gender binary, even though there is opportunity to (I can’t really say much without spoiling it, but there’s a character whose identity is not fixed to their own body; their only comment on it is that they have been in male and female forms, nothing more).