THE OBSIDIAN TOWER: Rooks and Ruin, Book One

In the middle of a global pandemic Obsidian tower feels very timely as the Main character Ryx is a failed viviomance or life witch unable to control her power she is unable to touch people. she is feared with people making warding gestures when they see her.Set in the same universe as as her swords and fire trilogy a renaissance style fantasy world, where that followed the serene republic this time events follow Ryx a descendant of a Vaskandar Witch lord. The series is set sometime after the original trilogy with a international organisation known as the rookery having been set up to monitor and help control potential magical incidents.When Ryx and her grand mother a powerful witch lord play host to a peace conference things rapidly go wrong with a dead envoy, a deteriorating political situation and a potential powerful evil waking up.This book is a slow burn lot of political intrigue and mayhem anchored by a protagonist that due to her condition has learned to be cautious. Ryx is a likeable protagonist haunted by past mistakes while being very competent, the crisis brings opportunity to forge new relationships some romantic, some not even as relations with her own family become strained.This is a above average and a promising start to a new series the author does play there cards very close to there chest and maybe takes tell don’t show a bit far as such if your looking for bang and action this isn’t the series for you. If you want a well crafted tale with a lot of intrigue and what means to have friends, and more, for the first time then this is well worth checking out.

Ryxander, or Ryx, is the granddaughter of a powerful Witch Lord, the Lady Of Owls, and the scion of a family of mages. However, her own magic is broken and deadly to anyone who might come close to her.Add to that a mystery her family has been guarding for centuries, and a brewing war between foreign and home powers that Ryx must somehow prevent, our protagonist doesn't have it easy.There's a lot to enjoy here: I love the worldbuilding, and might appreciate it even more had I read the previous series set in this world. I like the politics and lore, and the hints at a deeper richer world that exists just outside the book and out of scene.However, despite a promising first quarter, the plot grinds to a slow halt. We have scenes and scenes of Ryx walking into one room to speak to people, then more conversations, then another room...One pet peeve of mine was the overuse of the "and then a voice behind her said..." method of introducing a character to a scene. This. Happens. A. Lot.Ryx is likeable due to her vulnerability, however she is a passive protagonist. Stuff happens to her and she drives very little of the action.In fact, much of the meat of what drives the plot happens off-screen. We have too many scenes where characters give some exposition about something from their past, some of which is relevant, some not, but we don't have many action scenes. By that mean, in which the story *happens*, as opposed to us being told about stuff that has happened.I wanted to enjoy this novel, and I did initially, but overall my frustration with the slow plot pace took over and I speed-read the last quarter.This is maybe for fans of the first series, but I won't be rushing the buy the next installment.

Just finished Joe Abercrombie's second book in his current trilogy, started three other books which didn’t hold a candle to that or hold my interest. This book, The Obsidian Tower by Melissa Caruso had that raw naiveté of someone who just wanted to share her story with you. Her writing is enthusiastic and unusual, and highly entertaining. That’s the good news.The bad news was the authors habit throughout the whole story of having different characters use "Suffice to say." On so many occasions, it became quite jarring. The publisher and editor and proof reader should have pointed it out.I have a friend who uses a computer programme to highlight repeated phrases close together in a book and suggest alternatives, it's not rocket science, sufficed to say.Last negative is yet another YA style book with a heroine who has great power and yet fails to use it even at the most opportune moment. Just once to truly let go and be all she could be would have been nice, and not beyond the ability of this author to write, suffice to say!

This is my first Melissa Caruso novel (she has a complete trilogy already and I'll check that out soon)The Obsidian Tower is book one of a new trilogy and there are a lot of good things on show here.Ryx is the Warden of Glomingard Castle. The rest of her family are vivomancers - they can use their magic to help the land, livestock and crops. They have have a strong bond with nature and animals. Ryx is the exception. Her magic will kill with a touch so she leads a solitary life within the castle having to keep arms length (literally) from everyone whilst running the castle for her grandmother.Running the castle includes preventing anyone from accessing the Obsidian Tower in the castle. For generations it's been closed, warded and protected but now.....(I think you know where this is going)This book reminded me of Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy (especially book 1) Written in the first person with a group of characters revolving around Ryx - as they do with Fitz in the Farseer books - in a (fairly) closed setting.With first person books everything hinges on the main character and thankfully Ryx is very likeable; smart, strong, kind hearted but also a bit too trusting and inexperienced. She makes an intriguing central figure. Well done to the author for not making her a typical 'Mary-Sue' genius know it all. She's actually quite endearing.So it's essentially a mystery novel with a host of characters in the castle and Ryx trying to hold everything together between warring factions and chaos ensues.Another positive I want to highlight is the author's approach to diversity. There's gay, bisexual and gender fluid characters which of course reflects society. But it's done in such a matter of fact way; it's no big deal and it's just fantastic to see LGBT characters represented but with no PC agenda.It's an interesting plot and a lot of though has gone into the world building.But it's not all good. A huge portion of the book is taken up with Ryx having the same conversations with different people. A lot are also superfluous and it felt like padding; constantly reiterating the same thing. It hurt the pacing a lot.It's also guilty of falling into a trap I hate. If you overpower the 'bad guys' with magic you paint yourself into a corner and leave the protagonists with nowhere to go.7/10

I genuinely did not know where this book was going to end up and I loved it.For readers of the Tethered Mage series, the world feels familiar enough to understand the power struggles, as well as having noticeable changes from where we left Amalia and Zaira to feel like an entirely new story.This time we get an insight into the world of Vaskandran politics and are introduced to a new neutral organisation who deals with controlling rogue magic, introducing some interesting characters. The book gives us enough of an introduction to them for us to be intrigued and invested in them but also leaves room for more development throughout the series.As some other reviews have mentioned, the struggles in this book are mainly political and depend on the relationships, negotiations, motives and trust between all the characters rather than epic battles - but that's what I enjoyed in the previous series, so yay for me.The antagonists (no spoilers!) are unexpected and cause confliction for the protagonists, leaving a wonderfully grey area for everyone to operate in. We're left at the end with clear goals for our team to tackle in the rest of the series, but without any predictable way to achieve them, so I'm excited to see where we're taken in the next book.If you've read this and are fed up with the vagueness, then please read the book, it's brilliant and you won't regret it!