A soldier with a curse
Tala lost her family to the empress’s army and has spent her life avenging them in battle. But the empress’s crimes don’t haunt her half as much as the crimes Tala has committed against the laws of magic… and her own flesh and blood.
A prince with a debt
Jimuro has inherited the ashes of an empire. Now that the revolution has brought down his kingdom, he must depend on Tala to bring him home safe. But it was his army who murdered her family. Now Tala will be his redemption—or his downfall.
A detective with a grudge
Xiulan is an eccentric, pipe-smoking detective who can solve any mystery—but the biggest mystery of all is her true identity. She’s a princess in disguise, and she plans to secure her throne by presenting her father with the ultimate prize: the world’s most wanted prince.
A thief with a broken heart
Lee is a small-time criminal who lives by only one law: Leave them before they leave you. But when Princess Xiulan asks her to be her partner in crime—and offers her a magical animal companion as a reward—she can’t say no, and soon finds she doesn’t want to leave the princess behind.
This band of rogues and royals should all be enemies, but they unite for a common purpose: to defeat an unstoppable killer who defies the laws of magic. In this battle, they will forge unexpected bonds of friendship and love that will change their lives—and begin to change the world.
This was an Asian inspired fantasy that I picked up because I was intrigued by the back blurb that called it a mix of Avatar: The Last Airbender and Pokemon. And because it was a standalone fantasy and I always need more standalone fantasy in my life. This story follows a main cast of 4 characters whose points of view we rotate between throughout the story. The story takes place in a world that has just seen the end of a war where rebellions have successfully won their respective countries back from oppressive rule, and now the crown prince of the defeated country is being escorted back to his home by one of our characters to be crowned king, while two of our other characters are on a mission to kidnap him for their own political benefit.
Krueger did a wonderful job creating a world that felt fleshed out over the span of one novel, a feat that is hard to do in fantasy and often why fantasy tends to be series heavy. It was a cross between silkpunk on the culture side with more steampunk elements on the tech side. Often I find the inclusion of more modern tech in worlds that otherwise feel less technologically advanced can come off as kind of clunky and doesn’t work well, but it was pulled off very well in Steel Crow Saga. My only complaint with the world building was the lack of map. I very often use maps as a visual aid to sort out the geopolitical relationships in worlds, which is something I didn’t realize I did until this book when I couldn’t do that. Without that visual aid, it ended up taking about a third of the way into the book to feel like I’d finally sorted out which country was which and that confusion did drag down my enjoyment of the beginning somewhat.
And as for magic there were two different types of magic present in this book. One being bonded spirit animal companions and the other being people with elemental style metal bending powers. I went into this book only expecting the animal companion magic, and was surprised to see two unconnected magic systems being explored but it was done really well. It never felt like one magic system was put aside in favor of explaining the other and I enjoyed both of them.
I did find that this book had somewhat of a slow start which a product of being more character focused than plot focused, however I still enjoyed it because I quickly became attached to the characters. Krueger did a great job of really giving each of the four characters a really unique voice. And I think I loved them all equally, a rarity for me. This novel also had a delightful mix of queer representation across different main and side characters.
Overall this is a fun, standalone fantasy. I liked that the plot of this book didn’t feel like an all or nothing, either the heroes win or the world ends kind of story. Instead it felt more like one episode in a bigger story, and that was a nice change of pace from the fantasy I often pick up. I gave this book 4 stars and would definitely recommend it as a very solid fantasy standalone.
Erin's Library 