Overall, a powerful and well crafted book. It made me think. I enjoyed the characters, with their fears and passions.

There was quite a bit more death – let’s be honest and call it “slaughter” – than I am comfortable with, but that’s part of the package. We’re not supposed to be comfortable with it. Likewise some of what happened to the main characters.

The animal names also took some getting used to – the world is very much like Earth, and there are, for example, several species which seem to be a mix of big cat, dragon, and steed.

I enjoyed her descriptions, especially of the people.

It’s just fabulous to read a modern fantasy adventure story that seems to do for Yoruba/Santeria traditions what countless Arthurian fantasies do with Celtic/Arthurian legends. I would be really interested to hear or read what people who are familiar with the Orishas think about how Adeyemi repackaged them for the general public to read. I imagine I was a not uncommon reader, going into this story having seen the names of a couple of Orishas on various consumer goods (jewelry, art cards, etc.), and knowing nothing of Santeria except the word – so as the story unfolds, it’s not all completely alien territory, but it’s certainly not familiar either.

Now what I really want to know is where QuickDraw McGraw’s sidekick Baba Looey came from, and I think I heard that name in another, equally random, context, decades ago in the forgotten dawn of time …

Anyway, I would love to see these books come out in an illustrated second edition (preferably paperback), with line drawings of the various big cat-like “ryders,” as well as the characters and some of the landscape.