Halfway through the book it went the way of Dune, where obvious bad guy who already sold off one of the good guy's sisters into servitude is also a gay rapist with a penchant for pretty faces and younger men. It's bad enough the one female representative up to that point is a one-note woman who only exists to be the acquisition of the main character and also only wishes to be the main character's acquisition. (There is Joanna, but she shows up for 5 minutes and serves only as the "Mom" role.)

Because of the above noted, this isn't a YA novel. Hiero grabs and tries to cut off one of the character's penises in an attempt to demasculate him (first sign of this not being a LGBT-friendly work (and the first clue that this author is anti-LGBT. Wish I'd known earlier before buying it.)). And as I've only gotten halfway... It was clearly noted that a boy was in sexual service of a lord. That in turn said slightly older version of that same character included noted groping. Later, more rape of another character, and then the explicit detail of that character's hands being forced onto the noted "hard" penis of the antagonizing villain and stroking. There's probably more. I was done. Age range on Amazon is recommended as 13-18. NO! Absolutely not.

Rep here is just bad. The age range is misadvertized. Had to put it down.

*After this post, the book was removed from the YA category and the 13-18 age range.