“Once upon a time, in the final days before Salt and Marsh Witch War, four Boneless Mercies turned their backs on the death trade, and went west, seeking immortality.”

The Mercy trade is a life of death, and it is a trade only for woman. This book follows four Mercies who travel town to town performing mercy killings, never revenge or vengeance. It's a hard and sad life, one that makes them outcasts from everyone they come across, they have themselves and no one else. But one day they decide to change their path, to seek a life that could change it all. A chance at a warriors glory like something from the old Vorse tales.

This book is very atmospheric and the author does a wonderful job at building this world and painting the forest they travel through. The story follows the single POV of Frey, which is a shame as I would have liked to read from the other girls as they're all so different and come to the trade for different reasons. Frey's blood sings for glory and wants more than the sad work of Mercy killing.

As they travel closer to their destiny you see such a change in her fellow Mercies, which is why it would have been nice to have different POVs, the people they meet and they stories they share and tell has an impact on them. They are a family and they decide their fates together.

Truly I loved how this was written, every moment felt right and written with depth and care, but it was defiantly lacking something. There didn't feel like a sense of urgency, or any real wow moments, when I think back to any fights they did have on the road or going into the Marsh to face the Cut Queen it wasn't quite punchy enough. But on the flip side I loved the entire section with the Cut Queen, it felt weird and creepy and unpredictable but it lacked that something, that drama.

There's a lot to love about this book and there's a lot that needs some va va voom, there is a standalone companion book set in the same world I will be giving a read.

“I wanted to change my fate, to force it down another road. I wanted to stand in the river of time and make it flow a different direction, if just for a little while.” 

Starting out this book held so much potential. The first few pages had me sold and I was sure that I had found my next great read. Well, boy was I sure disillusioned! A common theme that became increasingly obvious was the lack of diversity. Which is already one of my biggest peeves, when it comes to modern fiction. It's 2019 at this point it is highly unrealistic that every character is heterosexual! Like come on now, it's highly unbelievable that given all the cultures within the book; that everyone is straight. Plus the blatant way the author has to point out that their straight is even more puzzling, as to why that is needed.

While there were some points within the stories that I enjoyed, such as learning about each character's background and the section with the Sea Witches and the Cut-Queen. The brief backstory is all we as the reader get, and there's not a lot more depth than that. I wanted to see more than just the base of what we got. A lot of the characters were just very bland, it feels like there was little to no character development. The pacing of the story was rather slow, but when it came to the action scenes everything was over too quickly and came too easily for the characters. Plus it takes half the book to get to the actual plot which is wrapped up just as quickly as all the rest of the scenes. I spent half of the book being so done with it all, but I was already that far along so I didn't want to drop it. By the end of it, I was just relieved to be done with it, and that is not a fun feeling upon finishing a book.