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Book Review - Along the Razor’s Edge (The War Eternal #1) By Rob J Hayes

Lee C Conley


A review of

Along the Razor’s Edge

By

Rob J Hayes

Along the Razor’s Edge is the first book of Rob J. Hayes’ new series, The War Eternal. It follows the story of a young girl called Eska. A child Sourcerer (yes, I spelt that right), who fights on the losing side of a great war between empires. She is captured, stripped of her magic and imprisoned deep within an underground prison known as The Pit. A prison mine, full of murders and scum, where they toil their lives away digging, doomed never to see the light of day.

Eska is quite a grim, but badass young woman. Eska burns through her friends as quickly as she does her enemies. A great character, and she just doesn’t know when to quit. I quickly found myself invested in her character, and situation, very quickly.

This book is dark (literally dark, they are underground) and Hayes does a great job of capturing the hopelessness of the subterranean gloom. This book is also violent, the Pit is not a nice or particularly safe place for a young lady – or anybody for that matter. Yet, she meets allies, you could even call them friends at a push, and together they must find some way to survive life in The Pit.

This book is a master class in foreshadowing. Hayes literally tells us major events from the later in the series, perhaps even how it will end, within the first couple of pages. We constantly get drip fed glimpses of Eska’s future exploits as she recounts her youth and time in The Pit. The timeline skips between Eska’s past as a child and trainee at a magic academy to her present day narrative in The Pit.

That reminds me, the magic system of Sourcerers and the sources which Hayes has created here is quite something in itself, refreshingly different, yet brutal to those able to wield it. Liked it!

Despite the choice to reveal those glimpses of the future story, I found myself totally wrapped up in finding out how those mentioned events come about, as I say, a master class in foreshadowing. This book is excellently written, and I particularly enjoyed some of the more creative and colourful language used in this book, some of the curses made me chuckle as I read them.

An excellent and action packed opening novel to his new series. I will be looking forward to continuing Eska’s journey to find out how that foreshadowing works out in the remaining books of The War Eternal series. Check this book out as soon as you can and remember,

No one escapes the Pit!

Thanks for reading,

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