I read these four books as I was finishing a draft of my own fantasy novel, and they were a brilliant companion. 

The setting is instantly fascinating, a quasi-eastern philosophical empire with city states, kept in power by the andat, ideas created by poets. These andats are concepts such as Stone-Made-Soft, which can weaken or strengthen rock formations for mining, or perhaps do more sinister things… 

The tone is melancholic, our main characters fall in love with people they shouldn’t and find themselves struggling for a place in society. 

There are four books in the series and I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that there is a time-gap of about 10-15 years between each book. This ageing process only adds to the melancholy of everything, watching our characters age drastically both in body and in wisdom. 

My favourite was A Betrayal In Winter, the second book. It had the right blend of drama and breathing between, I was most invested in the family conflict here. With each book the stakes are raised - from a city struggle, to an internal kingdom struggle, to a war between nations, to the potential end of the world - yet in each book it manages to remain personal, no matter what the stakes are.

The series has a beautiful finale, the final 50 or so pages, but somehow I found the last book a little unsatisfying, the plot sped along too quickly and characters we had not yet met or seen properly developed took a major role, whilst our main characters sat around moping. 

That doesn’t detract from the excellent world building, heart-wrenching atmosphere and interesting soft magic system. 

The characters are good, my favourites being the failed monk characters of Otah and Maati. They are the two central characters of the series and it is essentially their journey we are following, with many side-characters occasionally sharing the limelight - lovers, teachers, andat, enemies and family. 

I would absolutely recommend this series to any fantasy fan, they are a pallet cleanser, tersely written books (as opposed to the overblown door-stoppers) which have a lot to say about ideas and how dangerous they can be. The main theme is a constant one, every main character considers the price of an act. What will be the price for doing something very difficult that is moral, or doing something necessary that is less moral?

And living with consequences of your choices is what life is about, the price and the payment.