Knightmare Arcanist (1) (Frith Chronicles)

I read this book as part of a book club and, to be honest, if it hadn’t been then I probably wouldn’t have finished it… it ended up finishing stronger than it began, and I’m curious enough about where the characters are going that I think I’ll continue, but it definitely has a lot of problems lol. The world and characters have an insane amount of potential, but most of that was scraped to superficial levels. This book definitely would have benefitted from one or two hundred more pages to explore that. For example, the beginning of the book shows us that there’s a heavy societal divide on the island we begin on, with people in ‘unsavory’ occupations being regarded as just above criminal. And, even though they do explain that once one is an arcanist they are automatically respected, we get no follow up on that detail of the world after we leave the island. All the characters we meet thereafter are arcanists so there’s no reason to explore it, and we get no insight from Volke of his thoughts on the matter (besides how he interacts with Zaxis, who has always had it out for him). I was more annoyed because I could see how much better this could have been. Also! Why did they write the summary that way?! It completely spoils the ending aside from one little bit LMAO! I really did end up liking it, but yeah, I hope some of the issues get resolved in later books.