Obsidian: Awakening (Book one of Obsidian Series)

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In any fantasy, names and titles are the best part, and this book holds no exception to this unspoken rule of mine. They’re all so broken and twisted and messed up in so many ways, and all of them are just aching to be loved and accepted and known in a way they’ve never been able to experience, even if they don’t know it.

My heart ached for him, and all I wanted to do was embrace him and let him know that someone loved him, with a love that has nothing to do with sex, accepted him, would die for him – but would not obey him or submit to him. It’s a desert storm of enthralling confusion, of incense smoke and mirrors, packed with duality, prophecy, foreshadowing and hidden meanings, and offering reflections on the failings of our own world. He tells his men they won’t keep him from the streets, from trying to rescue his wife, and if they wish to, he’ll kill them. Their love/hate relationship with each other gave me LIFE, and I am pretty sure I ended up picking the most evil character in the bunch as my favorite because he was so charming. At first I was quite put-off by some of the disturbing on-page savagery, but then in hindsight I slowly found myself appreciating some of those events more as I saw how they continued to have a long-lasting impact on the characters and realised how pivotal they were to their personal journeys.Obsidian Awakening is one of those books that feel easy to read, but when you look back you realize how much depth it had.

Every word earns its place and many of the passages are works of art in themselves, irrespective of the story they tell. From these 300 first chapters, I selected about 30 books (10%) where I wanted to read on, with the intention of only reviewing the books I finished and enjoyed.I've had some reads in the past where it seemed like the author was just going for that shock value and it didn't really seem to add much to the story itself. But don’t be fooled, they develop their own voices soon enough and that initial sameness and arrogance washes away. Forced to flee into the most hostile territory belonging to deadly desert warriors, he is captured by Djari, the dutiful daughter of a tribe leader who offers him a choice between death and a lifetime of servitude.

The plot is largely political as Djari and Lasura, in particular, are brought together by destiny/prophecy to stop the war. My husband, as my alpha reader, is always hitting me over the head about not cramming every novel in my head into a single book. They need each other, and they love each other, but even with Baaku – perhaps especially with Baaku, though he is Nazir’s one refuge from his visions – the torment of Nazir’s visions is with him. He wants to know the location of her people’s sacred city*** (so he can massacre the shit out of them).That he can be the one exception to the rule that Muradi trusts no one but Ghaul, lets no one but Ghaul truly close to him. Yet the humanity, tortured and twisted and anguished but still humanity, that lingers and hangs on and is why even their darkest, most monstrous deeds happen, screams that they can be redeemed. Part of the author’s skill is that the reader may find themselves torn as to who they want to win, and who they want to live, despite the flaws of the primary characters. That at the opportunity to gain that trust with Muradi, Jarem did not trust Muradi or act trustworthy, and instead went and did something out of that desire… More on this later.

The opening chapter features warlord/conqueror/heir to the Salasar Empire, prince Muradi, who has just slaughtered a tonne of Shakshi on a campaign in the White Desert. And Muradi tells Ghaul to leave him … ostensibly to get food, water, and firewood, but everyone knows it’s to let Zahara kill him. He has been through a lot, including prostitution, before becoming a first-class assassin and protégé of Deo di Amara. One could live with some justifications for causing death when it had to do with vengeance or self-preservation, and expect a measurement of forgiveness from oneself or others. Their beginning descriptions were pretty similar: full of pride and absolute conviction in what they believe, refusing to accept the trauma of their life and everyone else sucks if they do.She was the light of his life, and since her death at the hands of the Rashais, there has been something he’s never had again. He expects Deo di Amara to kill him, but instead Deo di Amara points him in the direction of the White Desert and abets his escape.