Saturday, January 14, 2017

Review: The Copper Promise by Jen Williams


Frith, the crippled, last surviving son of a noble house arrives in a foreign city intent on exploring the caverns beneath a vast and ancient Citadel. Rumours say it belonged to the lost mages and that great power is there for the taking, power Frith intends to use to take back his home and get revenge on those who killed his family. To aid him he hires two mercenaries, Sir Sebastain a knight who was forced to leave his order due to his sexual orientation and Wydrin, better known as the copper cat, a sassy thief and daughter of a pirate. The two adventurers have a reason of their own for entering the citadel, one of their companions ventured in weeks before and never returned. Together the three manage to find what Frith seeks but unwittingly unleash an angry god, bent on nothing but destruction on the world.

While the three protagonists have a certain charm to them, I found all three unoriginal and  based on tired sword and sorcery tropes. Pacing was  uneven being slow and steady throughout most of the novel before rushing through a finale. World-building was adhoc and unconvincing and I couldn't help but feel that names and places were thrown together without the author having any idea of their relation in her own mind. The villains were one-dimensional and lacked any depth. While the writing was tidy enough it often felt clumsy.

Overall this novel had multiple problems and was a chore to slog through. 4.5/10.