Book Review: Crier’s War by Nina Varela

Wow, what a brilliant ride this book was. I usually get a bit nervous when I read books with a similar concept to my own, but as soon as I started reading this, I was hooked.

The world-building is quite hard to understand at first, I found, but when you have taken in the lengthy page full of background history notes, you’ll be fine. There’s a lot to digest in this book, but the main concept is this: two girls, one Made and one human. It’s a great enemies to lovers romance, in an interesting way. The Automae, or the Made, are a kind of robot, but they have human-like skin and violet blood, and they rely on this heartstone to survive, which I thought was intriguing. Like they’re kind of on the bridge between android and human, whereas in my upcoming novel, Steel Princess’s world, they are all completely made of steel. Also, the world is ruled by a cruel king, (in mine, a queen), and our MC is Crier, his daughter who only wants to belong in his world while also finding her own way. But when she’s betrothed to Scyre Kinok, she loses all credibility and her father hands over what should be her position to her future husband.

Then there is Ayla, a human servant girl, whose parents were killed by Automae. So when she finds an opportunity to get close to Crier, and therefore the sovereign, she takes it, and plots her revenge for the revolution.

There were so many great twists in this book, and the world was so immersive. It was beautifully written, and their blossoming relationship was really well done, too. I really enjoyed it, and would definitely recommend.

Thankfully, the world-building and relationships were a lot different to my own book, so I didn’t need to feel that nervous at all, and just enjoyed the story. I think I just feel nervous because someone might think I’ve stolen from another book, I don’t know. But maybe it just means I now have more comp titles!