Rane Aria

 Mask of Shadows had alot going for it, peace trying to grow in a war torn land, A Queen trying to hold the ragged strings of peace with her band of assassins to keep the unsettling silence. Here is where Sal grows, their home wiped from the face of the earth, victim of dark cruel and uncontrollable magic. Sal finds their chance to work with the Queen as one of her assassins, a chance to get revenge for their family and home and get justice once and for all. As Sal plays the game and walks through the court, they learn more that makes this so called peace nothing more then a magical illusion.

 I was curious in how Miller would write a gender fluid character and perhaps one of if not the best part of the overall book was the way Sal was shown as being gender fluid and great understanding and beautiful storytelling weaving that it just flowed. Sal as a character was interesting as they slowly uncover clues but use their mind to figure out whose pulling the strings.

 If Miller followed, I think, this line of plot of just Sal it wouldn't have fallen into something that felt like it was done before. Sadly, this felt like the Hunger Games with all those in the tournament giving an all go to kill one another. Unlike the Hunger Games the rest of those in the tournament wore masks with numbers on their face being called by a number, you never get to "know" them at all. Even the "love" interest was ok but again nothing that really drew the character to the reader.

This had an amazing history but instead of discovering it in the book it was given as a summary toward the end in a timeline.

While in the end this ended up being an okay read with a big cliffhanger, this may turn out the be a better series in book two- we shall see.