Published Aug. 8, 2010 by Orbit.
Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky. There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to the king. But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle with cousins she never knew she had. As she fights for her life, she draws ever closer to the secrets of her mother's death and her family's bloody history.With the fate of the world hanging in the balance, Yeine will learn how perilous it can be when love and hate - and gods and mortals - are bound inseparably together.
Really interesting story in a fascinating world. Perhaps a bit too much going on at times as it's a world where everything is so strange and different it can be hard to keep up with what's happening and why. It's also solely told amongst the elite, and that leaves open a lot of questions about how this world works on the ground, but maybe the rest of the trilogy will cover that.
This is more of a fun read than the Broken Earth series. Probably correspondingly less rewarding in the end. I think it could almost qualify as YA, as long as your idea of YA includes some (tasteful) sexual content.
Race and privilege are part of the setting in a way that feels quite natural. One thing I liked is that the mechanics of magic and interaction with gods also feels quite natural. It can be challenging to construct plots with such powerful characters who still face challenges and conflicts. It does get a bit Deus Ex Machina at the end (the plot device, not the video game). On the other hand, at least the rest of the book was about gods, so it is less jarring than it could be.
