Excellent world-building! The work grabs your attention, by providing small details with only a little context, that sucks you into the world. Over time, the details start to add together to complete the mystery, while adding more attention grabbing details, further expanding the world. This is done masterfully, making this book so hard to put down! This work does have a small amount of times where the provided detail is so small, that if you somehow miss one word, it leads to great confusion, and a little rereading. The gradual, subtle mystery surrounding the main character, Kath, slowly gets filled in throughout the work, adding greater depth to his backstory as well as his gradual, slow growth as a character. Kath represents a very realistic person in need of redemption from the start to the finish. He grows, yet the work still ends with him needed to grow more---he ends incomplete, but more complete and heading in a right direction.In a world with forced romance, or drama masquerading as 'story', this work is once again refreshing. The relationship is cute, and not forced. They respond to each other in a realistic manner, that makes sense given their characters. It does not serve as the main driving force behind the plot, and so it does not hijack the story.The constant web of villains, neutral peeps, and 'good guys', paired with Kath's own distrust leads to another great hook---every time protagonist Kath meets someone and immediately distrusts them, us readers are left with the mystery of if we trust them or not. . . and eagerly await their actions to see if we were correct.The few combat scenes are described in great detail, allowing the reader to form an accurate picture of what is happening.Really really hoping for a sequel to further flesh out the history, mythology, and further cultural details of this exciting world! Be warned: once you pick this book up, you won't be able to put it down!