The primary characters come across as fairly well-rounded and three-dimensional. Elder Enchantress Hiresha begins the story as a person returning to her home a stranger. She becomes quickly established as someone with failed ambition, prides and fears. She has command of magic, yet that command has its limitations and her affinity for it also causes her problems. The same is true of her gowns, worn as a statement of her achievements but ultimately impractical and even imprisoning. As the story is told in first-person I found myself coming to understand her in a way, and when things seemed as though they were crashing down around her I felt a compulsion to read on.
The secondary characters I felt were not so fleshed out, but it did not detract from the experience at all.
The story was well put together and flowed naturally, starting out as a rather sinister mystery the twists and turns were both believable and fairly unexpected. The solution to the whodunnit is well foreshadowed; the clues were present but flew under my radar, when it was revealed it felt like the gradual solution of a puzzle rather than the simple presentation of an answer. The threat and fears of the protagonist feel real and lend weight to the final act of the story.
The world felt substantial and well imagined, the various types and mechanics of the few forms of magic with which we are presented show a great power that has limitations and comes at a cost, and once a rule was established it was generally stuck to. I'm always a fan of so-called hard magic systems, where magic is more a tool to be used rather than an arbitrary force that acts at the whim of the author.
All in all I was impressed with the writing style and quality and found the story to be captivating. I will definitely be looking to Marling's other work in the near future.
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![Brood of Bones by [A.E. Marling]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Jp18CezDL._SY346_.jpg)
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