In a world where the children of the gods inherit their powers, a descendant of the Greek Fates must solve a series of impossible murders to save her sisters, her soulmate, and her city.
Descendants of the Fates are always born in threes: one to weave, one to draw, and one to cut the threads that connect people to the things they love and to life itself. The Ora sisters are no exception. Io, the youngest, uses her Fate-born abilities as a private investigator in the half-sunken city of Alante.
But her latest job leads her to a horrific discovery: somebody is abducting women, maiming their life-threads, and setting the resulting wraiths loose in the city to kill. To find the culprit, she must work alongside Edei Rhuna, the right hand of the infamous Mob Queen—and the boy with whom she shares a rare fate-thread linking them as soul mates before they’ve even met.
But the investigation turns personal when Io’s estranged oldest sister turns up on the arm of her best suspect. Amid unveiled secrets from her past and her growing feelings for Edei, Io must follow clues through the city’s darkest corners and unearth a conspiracy that involves some of the city’s most powerful players—before destruction comes to her own doorstep.
Overall Recommendation:
Threads That Bind ties together an intriguing take on Greek mythology and the powers ones descendants take on. In a dystopian world that’s fallen to natural disasters like regular flooding, Io’s world is still filled with fear against those who are different: the other-born with gifts from the gods. If you come into this book thinking it’s a super romantic story, I mean, yes, it has romance but it’s super slow burn. What is mostly highlighted and what I loved was the adventurous journey she and her fated soulmate takes to solve the mystery of dead women killing people in her neighborhood. Wholly imaginative in world building and the pieces of the mystery, this book will have you flipping those pages as it surely did for me.
**Threads That Bind comes out June 13, 2023**
Thank Penguin Random House Canada for this copy in exchange for an honest review
I always love a good Greek mythology story but sometimes it seems we focus on very specific gods and figures. One of the many things I loved about Threads That Bind is the different take on Greek gods and the powers their descendants may have. Io Ora, our protagonist, is a moira-born, one who is descended from the Fates and can specifically cut the threads that tie the people, places and things a person loves. Oh, and also their life-thread. This makes her considerably dangerous from an outside perspective, and Io knows well what it means to be other-born and a cutter. Faced with others’ stereotypes and fears, she holds to her own morals and helps those in the poorer district of the city where she lives as a private investigator.
Enter the mystery. While there is definitely romance in this book (I will get back to this later), this was my favourite part. Heavily plot-laden, we follow Io on what was initially a simple cheating case she was hired for that quickly escalates to mysterious deaths caused by a woman with a severed life-thread. In other words, this someone should be dead yet is functioning enough to kill someone else. Partnered with the man she is connected with by a fate-thread, Edei, the action is nonstop and the pieces of the puzzle keep on getting better as we unravel more about these women and their puppeteer.
While the mystery kept the plot exciting and moving quickly, another thing I loved was the world building. The lush descriptions of this dystopian world where neo-monsoons flood the streets often and three moons circle above entice you into this otherworldly experience. The residents are forced to traverse buildings by roof with bridges built in the air, and individual large cities have become their own city-nations as the lands outside are less inhabitable. The existence of so many different other-born showed the vast variety of people and Greek gods present, and how they can use their individual powers in society. I didn’t want to leave the city of Alante, not because it’s a nice place to live, but because it felt so real.
But for my romance lovers out there, the romance here is present but alas quite a slow burn. Fighting against their fate-thread that sometimes draw them closer together – especially in life-threatening situations – Io has been trying and failing at keeping her distance with Edei, emotionally and physically. This book explores the idea of fate versus choice. If they were to fall in love, is it considered real if this was always their destiny? Or is there something more potent about the idea of choosing whom you love? I can’t wait for more in the next book between them, but I definitely felt the pacing of their love story was appropriate given the craziness going on in their city. When one meets a fates soulmate, it wouldn’t do if they fell instantly in love. Now that would feel less real.
The last thing I’ll highlight that I loved was Io’s character arc. Hurt by her overbearing sister’s rules growing up, Io dealt a lot with shame and guilt when it came to her sister’s abandonment two years prior. Add onto the fact that she’s a cutter and normal people generally regard her suspiciously, it’s hard not to want to be everyone’s saviour. Helping out of guilt versus out of kindness are two different things, and Io had a lot of baggage to process in how she lived and what propelled her actions. I liked that she had flaws, realistic ones from her upbringing, but she also carried morals that could be molded when faced with new knowledge and experience. She’s the kind of flawed protagonist I like. Not morally gray but not self righteous in their inability to admit wrong. I look forward to seeing her journey continue in book 2. It honestly can’t come out fast enough!
Raisa was only a child when she was kidnapped and enslaved in Qilara. Forced to serve in the palace of the King, she’s endured hunger, abuse, and the harrowing fear of discovery. Everyone knows that Raisa is Arnath, but not that she is a Learned One, a part of an Arnath group educated in higher order symbols. In Qilara, this language is so fiercely protected that only the King, the Prince, and Tutors are allowed to know it. So when the current Tutor-in-training is executed for sharing the guarded language with slaves and Raisa is chosen to replace her, Raisa knows that, although she may have a privileged position among slaves, any slipup could mean death.
Down the Rabbit Hole 