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Author: Tricia Levenseller
Series: Bladesmith
Series #: 1
Genre: fantasy
Age Group: young adult
ARC?: no

Eighteen-year-old Ziva prefers metal to people. She spends her days tucked away in her forge, safe from society and the anxiety it causes her, using her magical gift to craft unique weapons imbued with power.

Then Ziva receives a commission from a powerful warlord, and the result is a sword capable of stealing its victims’ secrets. A sword that can cut far deeper than the length of its blade. A sword with the strength to topple kingdoms. When Ziva learns of the warlord’s intentions to use the weapon to enslave all the world under her rule, she takes her sister and flees.

Joined by a distractingly handsome mercenary and a young scholar with extensive knowledge of the world’s known magics, Ziva and her sister set out on a quest to keep the sword safe until they can find a worthy wielder or a way to destroy it entirely.

Review

If you know me, you know I love Tricia Levenseller. She is one of my auto-buy authors because I feel like I’m guaranteed to like anything she writes. I also can’t decide if Daughter of the Pirate King or The Shadows Between Us is my favorite book of hers. I enjoyed this one, because the rep in it is stunning and gave me many feelings. It’s not my favorite of hers, but it is still a good book written in classic Levenseller style. I think my overall rating for this book would be 3.5 stars! This book is going to find its audience.

I’m going to lead off by saying that Levenseller has such a distinctive writing style. It isn’t juvenile, but there is something that makes it easily readable. Which makes you breeze through the books! It works on so many levels for me, and I know I can sit down with her books, finish them in one sitting and have a grand time doing so. It’s one of the things I love most about her writing, and that is evidenced in this book as well. It is an easy writing style that is helped along by the plot and the pacing.

The pacing in this book is good. I think overall in some spots it gets a little bogged down, but I think that is because of the nature of the “adventure”. They’re constantly on the move. This book in its pacing struggles a little bit, but doesn’t detract overmuch from the overall book.

The plot of the book is simple, but works. It’s mainly an adventure story with Ziva and her sister (and crew) fleeing from the warlord who wants the magical sword Ziva made. This is a cat and mouse type of book where our heroes have to dodge. In a way it reminds me a bit of the old computer game quest lines. Which may be why I liked it! This constant movement and action made the book fast-paced some of the time.

Ziva is one of my favorite characters. She has anxiety and I felt so represented in this book. Levenseller nailed how I feel when I’m anxious and I absolutely related to Ziva on so many levels. I can’t even explain how this book made me feel. Ziva was just such a relatable character and I love her. I also love her relationship with her sister, Temra.

This is also got a romance in it, again, is a fairly big part of the book, but it works!

The ending was a bit of a surprise to me, but I liked it! I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book ASAP! I need to know what happens.