At Sabha, you did what you were told especially if you hadn’t been through life long enough to grow a spine. It’s very character-driven, by an author who refuses to tone anything down or to follow any patterns or plot devices or advice that does not fit her story (after all, life does not fit into a preconceived format like some novels are written to).

I am not kidding when I say that I read the final 300 pages of this book in one day, because it was simply that compelling to me. An award winning epic fantasy inspired by the nomadic cultures of Mongolia and the Middle East, the rich traditions of Asia and Africa, strung together by intense Thai flavors that will stay with you for life.In the introduction to Obsidian: Awakening, Sienna says that the book was inspired by her time spent with the Bedouin of Jordan and Egypt, Mongolian nomads, as well as time spent travelling the Gobi Desert, in Petra, Wadi Rum, and the White Desert of Egypt. 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. Forced to flee into the most hostile territory belonging to desert warriors who will kill him on sight, Hasheem is captured by Djari, the dutiful daughter of a tribe leader who offers him a choice between death and a lifetime of servitude. As she puts them to the test and demands unimaginable sacrifices, all must decide what they want to set on fire: the lives of innocents or what they hold dearest to their hearts.

There are also a lot of side POVs and its hard to keep track at times, however, the book is easy enough to read that you never feel overwhelmed and once you realize the new POVs place in the story you can adapt to them easily. If you didn’t like the cold reality that Game of Thrones explored then you won’t want to touch this either. Moreover, Frost adeptly gives us several main characters who are on opposite sides of a long and bitter conflict. I’m probably being more critical with Obsidian:Awakening than I would be with a book I liked less, purely because I did enjoy that first chapter so much. Inspired by, rather than based on, Arabic and Mongolian cultures, the peninsula setting of the Black and White Deserts is so rich and in-depth, and the worldbuilding is weaved masterfully through the narrative.And on top of that, there is also some casual and quiet representation of queer love that I was not expecting, but pleasantly surprised by. And even with me hyping it up so much in my head, it still managed to completely blow all my expectations out of the water. Seven broken heroes, born on both sides of the war between an empire and a nomadic race of the desert, must survive being tossed into the midst of chaos and forced to decide what they treasure more: loyalty to their lands, or what they hold dearest to their hearts. Thrown as a child into a prison of depravity and torture, none of the atrocities this man who rode with his troops to conquer the Vilarhiti, commands or commits with his own hands rival the things he saw, suffered, feared, endured.

I was so impressed with the characterwork, which plays on popular tropes that people love while also being sharp and original. Now, corrupted by hate and brokennness and atrocities as that love is, he’s come face to face with it. And, when the chapter ended, beautifully written, there was no way that any straight woman with my diseased and twisted mind could NOT want to read the rest of this book… I tried to illustrate a woman prisoner kneeling in front of a topless dude in a tent, but MidJourney image AI decided that was just too spicy for community standards, so here are two romantic dragons enjoying a cake instead… You’re welcome. It might even be impossible to sympathize with his choices and his path, but he suffered more than anyone should ever have to. 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.She had, after all, thrown in some difficult words on purpose for a chance to see that arrogance being subdued a little. The character dynamics are so complicated and I was especially impressed with the nuanced depiction of familial and romantic bonds in this story.

There are some dark and brutal elements to every character arc presented, and this is not a story with a happily ever after. I think it would have been even better structurally to let either of those plotlines work through at a natural pace. 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. Not because it's hard to follow, but because there are so many details sprinkled in that will be relevant later in the series.One was that there were a few action scenes that I really struggled to picture as I was re There are a lot of characters here and the author likes to showcase that there are no really "good" or "bad" ones, no main protagonist or antagonist, everyone is a little bit of both. Lots of maneuvering and politics, making you wonder what will happen next or what is really going on and what everyone's motivations really are.