We Who Will Die

Overall Rating: 5/5

She thought she could live her dreams once she had conquered the Sands...

Clearly the world had other plans. Her winnings were stolen by her uncle. And now Arvelle is doing the best she can to take care of her brothers...

And one of her brothers is dying.

Arvelle is doing the best she can to try and scrape together the funds needed for the tonics that keeps him alive, in the hopes that at some point she will be able to take him to a healer that he so desperately needs.... and to get her brothers somewhat out of the emperor's grasp... to allow them to grow up without the worries of the Sands....

Until she finds herself in a plot to assassinate the Emperor himself... finds herself in a contest where people who have trained their entire life at an attempt to get into the Praesidium Guard... and finds herself once more fighting for her life... forced to make unlikely allies...

And to discover things she never knew about herself.

Dark, twisty and utterly delicious, Stacia Stark has whipped up a world blending Ancient Roman elements with fantasy.... creating a fantastical world with not only vampires, wyverns and fantastic creatures of myth, but also blending it with a complex magic system and introducing us to the Sigilmarked Syndicate...

Not only that, but Stacia uses the elements in a way that allows her to slowly be able to build up the plot, adding new elements to the world without instantly overwhelming us. At the same time, can I just brag about how well Stacia's writing embodies the characters she has created for We Who Will Die... the author brings them to life in such a realistic and relatable fashion... allowing us glimpses of their past... glimpses of their history but also blending those perfectly with how they have grown, what they desire now, and their current motivations for life as well as what they still struggle with. She introduces a level of character depth that I have come to appreciate more and more...

Ending on a cliffhanger that leaves you thirsting for more, I am eager to see where this series leads... and I am looking forward to more of Stacia's works...