Sunbolt Review: Just Read it Now!

Premise: Orphaned at a young age, Hitomi has learned to hide her magical aptitude. Most of all, she must conceal her role in the Shadow League, an underground movement working to undermine the powerful and corrupt mage, Blackflame. When Hitomi finds herself captured, it will take everything she can summon to escape with her life. ~ From Goodreads

Title and Author: Sunbolt by Intisar Khanani
Length: 142 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Series or Stand Alone: Book 1
Content appropriate for: Grades 9-12
Format: Digital copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley

Three adjectives that describe this book: unexpected, intriguing, intense

I have a major thing for world-building. I love to read Brandon Sanderson and Hugh Howey precisely because they invent super creative worlds and develop them completely with carefully placed details that create the world without boring exposition. Sunbolt does this too. But the amazing thing about it is that the author richly developed this world and these characters in under 150 pages. That is some seriously talented writing!

And the plot? Sunbolt is chock full of fight scenes, creative magic, strong women, and scary nonhuman villains. The plot also twists and turns, so that at first it seems like a political intrigue book and then a vampire story and finally a magic powers story. I need book 2 now!