I really wanted to love it - I was so excited for a sapphic woc fantasy with themes about colonialism. But it was hard to get into this and though the plot eventually picked up, the book never really got better. I ended up feeling pretty lukewarm about the whole thing.
The world building and the North African influences were really cool - I don’t know a ton about the history of French colonialism in Africa, but I could see the influence. And I was also getting vibes re: Greeks coming into Ancient Egypt?
But even though the world was great I just could not like the main characters. Touraine and Luca both just felt like kind of a mess, and not in a fun way. I just could not understand either of their motivations or reasons for making decisions.
There were several points when I almost dropped the book - but I listened to part of it by audiobook, and the great narration kept me going. Still I’m not sure it was worth finishing.
Also I’m not squeamish, but a lot of the (Game of Thrones level) gore and swearing seemed unnecessary to me.