4.5-5 still thinking about. ( )

Daughter of No Worlds by Carissa Broadbent is the first book of the War of Lost Hearts trilogy. This is a magical fantasy story with some humans being magic wielders. There are two types of magic wielders, Valtains and Solarie. The story starts out following Tisaanah, a slave who is “fragmented”, or only considered to be part Valtain. She escapes slavery and flees to the Orders, a structured group of magic wielders. To join the Order, she is forced to apprentice with Max, a reclusive Solarie magic wielder. But he has his own reasons for not wanting anything to do with the Order, and not wanting to train her. The Order increasingly places demands on her with an end goal even Tisaanah and Max are unaware of. Tisaanah must decide what she’s willing to sacrifice in order to save those she cares about. Tropes include grumpy MMC, slow burn and who did this. Some say it includes found family but I didn’t really see that.

The Lovely: I liked the world building and the magic system. It’s beyond a basic system and comes off as unique with two different groups having different types of magic. I like seeing how it has been used in the context of war, and the resulting ethical considerations.

The Mundane: I like the concept of Reshaye - it’s unique and something I haven’t seen done before. But the execution of it is confusing and frustrating. The italicized text with brackets are supposed to be his thoughts and the just italicized text is supposed to be Tisaanah’s thoughts to him. But it gets to be unclear who is referring to who and who is talking. Like, is it Tisaanah talking, or Reshaye taking over. I like the idea, just not how it was done.

The Dreadful: The plot tension in this book is practically non-existent and thus I had to force myself to keep reading. I did a lot of “read a couple chapters, check my phone, read a couple more, get a snack.” The first half of the book is Tisaanah “training” with Max. It was until the last 100 pages (so last 20% of the book) that things got interesting.

Rating: 3/5 Stars

Recommendation: While I’ve loved everything else I’ve read by Carissa Broadbent, this book did not do it for me. I’ll still read the rest of the trilogy but I’m not eager to jump back into it. Hopefully it will get better and the characters will grow on me. ( )

Pg. 70: Good so far. She is a tough one, going through all that she has. And Max needs to get over himself already. Although, I find it weird that she's not wary about staying with a strange man. But I think I see where this is going. He doesn't want to teach her, then he'll give in and eventually help her while realizing she's amazing.

pg. 207: This is getting really good. I love Max and Tisaanah's story. It's so pure. I love her accent troubles. It's funny. The fart joke was hilarious, I actually laughed out loud. And when Max gave her the necklace with the home spell? Oh my heart!! I was waiting for her to just jump him right then and there. If I ever find that I could fan-buy this necklace, I would.

pg. 347: I don't trust Zeryth one bit. Max was right, he could have gotten her out. But was he getting something out of it or just didn't care about her and fooled her? I love that Max is protective. Wow. I can't imagine having some demon in my head. Doing that to Max's family? And how can he look at Tisaanah and trust her after 'it' tried to kill him? Man, this is something I would have never imagined. Love the original writing on this!

Finished: This was a very good book. The story was incredibly original and I loved it! Possessed by some magic demon in her head to give her unfathamable power? And she has to learn to control it otherwise it will control her! I loved it. This plot was above and beyond! I can tell that this is one of Carissa's earlier books, by the writing. But this is still a really good story. One spice scene, and it was decent. Not a lot of buildup or tension. I can't wait to continue the trilogy and follow the story of Tisaanah and Max! ( )

I was pleasantly surprised by this charming and brutal book with a protagonist I actually liked.
It had just enough romance as well - I love fantasy books with proper adults who do adult things.
It was dark but not too dark for me.
The cover was also gorge. ( )