Things I liked:
➽ The portrayal of colonization and its effects at both the macro and micro level were absolutely gutting. This was a very difficult book to read and I mean that in the best way possible. The themes of colonization's effects on land, language, economy, etc. are explored, but so are said effects on interpersonal relationships. I don't think I've ever really read a book before that looked at the experiences under a foreign regime from that close a point of view, and I really appreciated it!
➽ I'm always a sucker for politics and governance in my fantasy, and this one freaking delivered.
➽ Literally all of the characters are so fleshed out, multi-dimensional, and just all around incredibly well-developed. We only get two narrators (the protagonists, Luca and Touraine) but both of them and even the side characters have distinct, separate personalities. I could open the book randomly at any chapter and after reading one or two sentences immediately know whether it was a Luca chapter or a Touraine chapter.
➽ If I ever got the opportunity to be held in Touraine's arms I would just die happy.

Things I disliked:
➽ The fact that Touraine is with Luca instead of me is clearly a travesty.
➽ All kidding aside, I didn't particularly care for the romance between the two leads. (Although I did appreciate how very fucking gay this book was.) I'm Keeping this book's rating at 5 stars though because how much I liked everything else overpowered the one thing I didn't really like and also I'm hopeful that I'll vibe with the romance more in the next book!

The Unbroken is an epic fantasy that follows two characters: Touraine, a soldier who was kidnapped as a child from her home country and raised to be loyal to the empire, and Luca, a princess who is trying to secure her throne by proving to be a competent ruler in the colony of her empire. The book seems to be based on France and a French-invaded North-African country, which is incredibly interesting! This book definitely shone to me for its exploration of colonization, not shying away from giving Touraine a difficult relationship with both countries, one which kidnapped but also raised her, and the other where she is from but is entirely foreign to her. I was not sure what to think of Luca most of the time, and her position of the princess of the empire puts her in an interesting position of being an anti-hero or villain, even as she has good intentions and always tries to do the right thing. I love it when authors write characters who could easily be a villain but make you see the story through their eyes, understand them, even if you can't agree with their actions.

I had a hard time getting into the writing style, though, and that made me consider giving this 3 stars. It's not particularly bad or anything, but it's simple and direct and I was constantly wishing it had had a beautiful, descriptive, lush writing instead. I felt disconnected from the characters also partly due to the writing. I had also issues with the pacing: some parts of the book were so incredibly slow, and I don't particularly mind slow-paced books, but this was not consistently done so the effect was that I got bored around half-way through, which is not idea with a book as long as this one.

Otherwise, I loved the way so many of the characters are queer and how queerness was entirely normal in that society. I love seeing fantasies doing that more often nowadays! No reason why fantasy worlds have to apply real world prejudices. It had also very interesting magic, which is based on faith and gods, and gives us hints that perhaps in the next books we might get more about how that works, and enter the forbidden city - there is so much in this world to explore, I'm curious to see what direction the next book will take.

I thought this was generally a very entertaining book with lots of interesting and relevant conversations, a very unique world building with lots of potential to be explored, and despite its flaws I was very impressed. I think this would be more of a 3.5 stars but I rounded it up to four!

I’m gonna start this review by saying how amazing is this cover? Honestly, knew I wanted to read this book from when I first saw the cover. The moment I saw it on NetGalley, I requested it without a second thought. I knew this was going to be a dark and queer adult fantasy, and that’s most definitely what I got.

In this book, we follow Touraine, a soldier pulled from her family at a young age to join a Colonial army. And Luca, a princess who is trying to overcome a rebellion in the hope of sitting on the throne. This is very much a military fantasy, so if you like your politics blended with war, then this could definitely be the book for you.

It just wasn’t for me, sadly.

I’m going to start with the good because there were definitely some great things. I loved that this was based on a North African setting. I don’t think we really had enough of that, but I’ll come back to that later. I did love that there were hints of a realistic empire, one that was definitely wrong. And that you got to see the impact on several different countries, even though the book was only set in one. You got a glimpse of all these gods and types of magic. That’s the sort of thing I love, so I was very excited about this!

I also love that it’s queer. Luca is either bi or pan, Touraine, a lesbian. And there are other queer characters, including someone on the non-binary spectrum later in the book. These characters weren’t treated any differently than their hetero and cis counterparts. This is a world where no matter your gender or your sexuality, that’s accepted. There’s no homophobia or anything of the like, and that was so refreshing to see. Even women weren’t treated as less than men, and even that on its own is something I usually appreciate in fantasy books. So all of it together? Perfect.

Other aspects of the worldbuilding…well, I was disappointed. I requested this book expecting a North African fantasy. I didn’t know what countries exactly it would be inspired by. Not all the countries within the North of Africa are the same, after all. But instead, all I got was a sandy city with gods that did feel African, being overwhelmed by French oppressors. Okay, yeah, that happened in North Africa. But this book honestly felt like it could be set anywhere. You got tiny hints of food and culture, but this book was so focused on characters changing their minds and making mistakes that you didn’t get to see much of the world around them. I like political fantasy, but I still like to be able to picture the world the politics are happening in. And I didn’t really get to see that.

I wanted so much more.

I was fascinated by the magic system and the gods. And maybe with the ending, there will be more of that in book 2. But I got through nearly 500 pages and still barely know anything about this magic system that’s supposed to be so important. It’s frustrating, and I’m just so disappointed.

This book was also slow for the first half, and that wasn’t great either, but it wasn’t so bad that I wanted to put the book down. I also found it difficult to sympathise with Luca, considering some of the things she was willing to be okay with just to get her throne.

I, unfortunately, have to give this book a low score. But I’m pretty damn certain that many of you will love this book, even if I didn’t.

Oh how much I wanted to love this book. The premise is so very intriguing, and quite frankly, the cover is STUNNING and so is Touraine. I did go into this with rather high expectations, I admit, simply because this promised to be such a new, unique and highly diverse fantasy epic. I ended up not being in love with "The Unbroken", but I liked it and had a great time with it.

There is a lot to love, after all. The writing and world building are great and the setting new and exciting, and there are a lot of dark aspects of the story and the world that resonate with anyone who takes a closer look at the world we live in. Colonialization is the major theme in "The Unbroken" and it hit hard, never shying away from showing the depth of depravity the colonizers are capable of. The portrayal of the colonizing force, the rebels and the simple folk just trying to live their lives is nuanced, clever and complex. This is supported by the two protagonists, Touraine and Luca. One is a soldier, stolen by the empire and groomed into becoming their perfect soldier, to fight against her own people if need be. The other is the rightful queen of said empire who wants to thwart the rebellion and bring peace to a country in turmoil. Both of them have to unlearn a huge amount of unhealthy behavior and convictions and their character development in this regard is really well done.

I never really got emotionally attached to either of them, though. In hindsight I feel like they are a little one-note. They have their aforementioned struggles, but beyond those there is not much else. I never managed to really picture either of them as fully fleshed out characters. While I did feel a certain connection to both protagonists though, I never really cared for the side characters. There are great ones, no doubt, and they are important to the overall plot too, butthey never clicked for me. Certain character deaths, thus, didn't bother me much. The pacing is rather slow too and at some points I actually found myself skipping a few sentences because I got a little bored.

One big plus is the diversity of this book. It's a queernorm world with lots of queer characters, and the two leading ladies are queer as well (Luca seems to be bisexual, Tourraine seems to be a lesbian). Sadly, the main queer romance between Luca and Touraine fell completely flat for me. There was no actual development, they just suddenly started noticing that the other one is pretty hot. Random characters assume they have a sexual relationship basically on day one, based on... I don't know, Luca's promiscuity? This genuinely left me baffled at times and it felt weird, like these random characters' role was to tell us that there is sexual chemistry because there is not much of it described in the actual scenes between the two. It felt a little tell, don't show. This is, though, the first book in a new series so maybe the next books elaborate more on this relationship and manage to show us the chemistry, especially the romantic one, between the two ladies.

All in all this is a good story and a good first book in a new series, but it doesn't quite live up to its potential. I will still, most likely, read the sequel when it comes out.

Many thanks to Little, Brown Book Club UK and Netgalley for the arc!

The unbroken was a fantastic and exciting read, with a super interesting premise, setting and cast of characters. It is a Fantasy centred in a colonialism north African-ish place, with a sapphic romance between enemies, kind of. The book ends in an interesting note, I want to see where it grows from there, but at the same time it is so well tied, that it almost stands on its own.
The world building was interesting, it seems to be inspired in north Africa, and colonialism and oppression were a main point of the book no doubt. I have to say that I would like for the mythology/religion to be more developed, as the rest of the world, but since there is going to be more than one book it will definitely play a role in the next ones, I hope so! I also expect to discover more of the Magic system in the next ones.
The relationship between Touraine and Luca is super interesting, and I always love a good “enemies to lovers”, in this case, not enemies, to lovers, to enemies to let’s see…. But I felt like Luca and Touraine relationship unravel to fast, especially since Touraine was still kind of with Pru, that could have been solved in a better way, especially because there was time to.
I also felt like sometimes it almost felt like the story was staling, it was taking to long for decisions to be made, or decisions were made just for the sake of everything taking more time, but that decisions also play a role in the personality, and growth, of the characters so I get it, and it wasn't troublesome or boring to read.
I thought that the secondary characters were well done, also excited to see where their story goes. Also, would have liked to see a bit more humour, especially to break some of the tension of the book, which is tense… but that depends on the type of writing of the author and wasn’t a major problem, the book was still great.
Again, that ending leaves me thinking of what is to come next, really want to see a part of the story in Balldaire, to also take a look at how the country is, maybe court intrigue, Luca fighting for her throne? And what is to come of the colonies and the Rebels? Maybe a little bit of the other countries, like the magic up north?
My real review would be 4,5, just because there were little bits that I was expecting more, or different, for me, and at the same time because I liked it so much and I see so much for this series to grow.
ARC copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really really really wanted to love this but this just is not 'clicking' with me. I'm sure more patient readers who love military fantasy or tales of political intrigue will be able to appreciate The Unbroken more than I was. The writing was okay but the characters, pacing, and world-building did very little for me. Not only could I not picture Touraine nor Luca but their personalities seemed very one-note. Most of the secondary characters seemed very stereotypical of the genre (Cantic with who is as hard and cold as her 'blue eyes', Rogan is the classic villainous bully, Touraine's lover, Pruett, and Tibeau, seemed to exist merely as fodder to Touraine's temperament). While I 100% agree with N.K. Jemisin when she said that creating fantasy worlds is challenging as you are inevitably influenced by "really (if bygone) cultures" I was hoping for a more unique setting. We have the colonialist evil empire Balladaire that is basically France while Briga and Qazal seem to be heavily inspired by Morocco and Algeria (both at one point were colonies of France). Maybe later in the novel the author expands on this world a bit more but so far the only 'innovative' thing about it is that there seems to be no gender inequality and that same-sex relationships are viewed in the same way as heterosexual ones. These two things are wins in my books given that I am a queer woman and I am tired of reading fantasy novels in which women and LGBTQ+ folx are oppressed. What did not sit well with me was the choice to address female characters in positions of power with male titles (Touraine and Cantic are addressed as 'Sir' while the governor of Qazal City, who is a woman, is addressed as 'Lord Governor'). This might have worked if there were no female titles but they are also used only not when describing those who have authoritative positions. This leads me to speculate that the female equivalents of 'Sir' and 'Lord' are not seen as conveying the same authority as the male ones. But why would that be the case in a world where there seems to be no gender inequality? Sure, in our world, 'Master' has connotations of power and control whereas 'Mistress' is used to describe teachers and women who engage in relationships with married individuals. But in the world of The Unbroken men and women are seen as the same (I am not including other genders because up to the point I have read there were no enby characters) why would women in positions of power have to be addressed with male titles? It would have been more interesting if the author could have created titles that could have been applied to all genders.
My third issue was the pacing which kind of dragged. There were a few scenes that seem very reminiscent of other fantasy books (such as Luca getting her rapier) or Touraine being recognized by an old man.
While the story might in the long run develop the characters more and or provide a more detailed world-building I don't feel compelled to continue. If you are thinking of reading this I recommend you check out some more positive reviews.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for providing for me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

“We try this my way first. If it doesn’t work, there will be plenty time to go murdering my innocent subjects at your leisure.”

The Unbroken is a brutal and intense epic fantasy. It explores the painful topics of colonialism, rebellion and racism.

Touraine is a conscript returning to her home, Qazāl, from where she was stolen as a child and trained as a soldier by her captors. She has to chose where her loyalties lie, whether she remains soldier or joins those rebelling against them.

Luca is a princess and the heir apparent to Balladaire, trying to quell the rebellion in Qazāl to prove her readiness for the throne. With Touraine in place as an assistant how will she fare.

This book is beautifully ugly, and written in such an evocative manner that I was immediately invested in the story and immersed in Touraine’s dangerous world. It’s fast paced and full of action. The book really comes alive for the last 100 pages or so and that ending was phenomenal.

I’m eagerly awaiting the second book, and will definitely be picking this one up on release, my shelves need that beautiful cover!

3.5 ish stars

The unbroken is brutal and painful and has some of the best character arcs I've ever read, I honestly wish I hadn't noticed some flaws because of how amazingly written this book is. At it's heart the book is about colonialism, how it tears apart people, how generational trauma affects people and the hollow feeling that your home has been stolen from you.

The premise:

Touraine was kidnapped from Qazāl as a child and trained as a soldier for their colonizer, Balladaire and now has to navigate suppressing the revolution that aims to overthrow the colonial powers, deal with growing feelings for the balladairian princess and the ties to the family she was stolen from.

some of my favourite things about this book:
● it's gorgeously written, the writing is lovely without any purple prose or pacing issues, so
much so that I read it in one session for 4 hours. It feels engaging and the dialogue is just
*chef's kiss*
● an actual complex mother-daughter relationship which goes right for the juggular

● the women in this book are allowed to be messy and loud and unlikable, never one dimensional

● touraine's muscles

● this line: “Have they seen you bleed? Have they seen you kill anyone? Does she know your voice when you’re scared? Could she pick your laugh out of a crowd?”

● the characters: touraine's arc is one of the best i've read in a long time, she has to unlearn so much internalized racism

● is there a feeling more wonderful than unexpectedly having a character who uses they/them pronouns in a fantasy? is there??

● sometimes a family is older married lesbians and their angry best friend who calls herself 'jackal'

● every time djasha and aranen call each other their wife, my life span increases like 10 times

● there are amazing lines. so many she did that moments, we love to see it
“We try this my way first. If it doesn’t work, there will be plenty of time to go murdering my innocent subjects at your leisure.”

the not so good parts:

● the main relationship: the book's main relationship is a white colonizer/black colonized subject, which almost made me dnf this multiple times. I genuinely would never have picked this up had I been aware of the constituents of the romance. The goodreads description made me think there was going to be a political struggle and maybe Touraine was going to be a spy for Luca, and it would suffice to say I didnt like it. It's not a huge part of the book so I thought maybe I could get past it, but I am personally not a fan.

● a minor complaint, but Touraine mistakenly kills [redacted] who's supposedly very important to her but she never has any feelings about it unless it's convenient for the plot.

rep: black lesbian mc, bi/pan disabled mc, black side characters, wlw side characters and relationships, non binary sc, side characters with chronic pain

content warnings: torture, implied past attempted rape, death by hanging, abelist slurs, discussions of colonialism, arson, plague, racism, internalized racism(a lot at the beginning), loss of limbs, relationship between a white colonizer and a black colonized subject

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion in any way.

All quotes are from an advanced copy and may differ in final publication

Dnf, 10% 3 chapters.

Purely based on personal taste. I feel many people will love this book for the reasons it wasn't working for me.

The writing it beautiful and truly gripping from the first moment, the world building is stunning and comes to life instantly.

Its very powerful and brutal within the first couple chapters, definitely grabs at your emotions.

Just a little too heavy for me and so i don't feel i want to continue, as predict more.

But will definitely recommend to others as a great piece of writing, even from the short amount i read.

The Unbroken is an undeniable beautiful tale that depicts colonization and its heartbreaking and horrifying impact on people in a real, authentic, and unapologetic way that gets under your skin and never leaves.

That is what I love the most about this book. How unapologetic it is. It speaks the truth and all its ugliness without mincing its words.

It is told in two perspectives, of Touraine and of Luca. It is a wonder how the author told the story using two characters from opposite sides: the colonized, and the colonizer. To be honest, I found Luca hard to like a lot of times. She sees the impact she and her country inflict on Qazāl, yet it's almost as if she lives in a utopic world, where once she ascends the throne, she'll be able to make things better by giving them more freedom. As if they didn't already live in their own land. But the beauty of storytelling comes in, and the author makes Luca not likeable but understandable. Don't we all think that we'll do this and that once we gain power? Don't we think that everything is going to be fine as soon as we get control? We do. However, power and control and Luca's morality don't negate the fact that they are in Qazāl illegally. Luca understands that, and that's what made me not dislike her. She knows that it's wrong. Yet, she is the heir for the Balladairan throne, and when loyalties are tested, ultimately, everyone chooses their country. Moral, not, but understandable *to a degree* yes.

Touraine has my soul. She is definitely one of my all-time favorite characters. There were times she made me, Now darling why would you do that?, but everyone makes mistakes. We all mess up, sometimes more royally than others. But Touraine gets up. Every single time. No matter how bad things are and how they get, Touraine gets up. She is the ultimate survivor, and my respect for her has no bounds. It's quite easy to tell her how she should be, how she should act, whose side she should be on. But that's what everyone has ever done. They stripped her off her will and her identity. They stole her life and her freedom, her country and her language. And once someone takes everything from you, and then they start giving back you snippets, you may feel anger but you also may feel gratitude. A spark of hope. And that can take you far. That can help you survive, and faulting someone for surviving, no no. Touraine feels torn between countries and sides, yet her loyalty for her soldiers never falters. Because they're like her. I loved her for this. Her loyalty made her mess things up *quite epically* but it's her people, it's her family, and at the end of the day, family comes first.

And as if the amazing characters, spectacular world-building, and excellent plot weren't enough, The Unbroken is also queernormative, with sapphic main romance. Not to give away any spoilers, but there was a scene where a character could choose a wife or a husband, and both options were portrayed as valid and possible, with no judgment or anything. You marry whom you want, no problem. That scene made me sniffle, because I haven't seen enough queernormative fantasy books that clearly indicate that bi- and pan-sexual people are valid.

This is adult fantasy at its very best.

The Unbroken is undeniable. Compelling. Enthralling. Captivating. It is a work of art, and I wish everyone could read it. The author's voice is unapologetic and grips your heart in a vice. The quality of storytelling is astounding, and I cannot believe this is a debut. It depicts the raw brutality of colonization and shows authentic, realistic characters whom you either hate, love, or respect.

The Unbroken is needed. And frankly, it's exceptional. One of the best books I've ever read.

A big thank you to Little Brown Book Group UK and Orbit Books for allowing me to read this in advance. It is as amazing as the bloggers of color said it was on Twitter. I already ordered the hardcover, and cannot wait to read the final version and be encompassed by this story once more.

This book is a bleak fantasy that follows a conscripted soldier and a princess who's throne is at risk. At points, the book is quite brutal - but thats one of the reasons that I just couldn't put it down.

The world building is quite confusing to begin with, and I found I really had to concentrate to understand a plot that was highly political. To that end, I'd recommend saving The Unbroken for an uninterrupted weekend when you can give it the undivided attention that it deserves. Because it is most definitely worth it.

I received a copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The Unbroken is a North African inspired military fantasy in which we follow the story of a princess and a soldier from opposing sides who have to work together to achieve their goals. Set against a backdrop of a colonised city rife with rebellion and mistreated citizens, with vivid and luscious writing, this book captures the heartbreak and complicated loyalties of a war torn country perfectly.

The two main characters we follow are Touraine, a military conscript who is from a faction of the military called the ‘Sands’ who are looked down upon and seen as lesser who is fighting for her freedom, and Luca a princess from Balladaire who is trying to prove herself as a good leader in order to claim her throne. Luca is also disabled and uses a walking stick, I’m not disabled so I don’t know good a representation this was, but I liked how it was handled and how it shaped but didn’t define Luca’s character.

This book is heavy on the politics, with the city of Qaza-l currently being run by the country of Balladaire, who are very much the colonisers and trying to ‘civilise’ the people of Qaza-l, and a rebellion is brewing amgost the Qaza-li so our two main characters are trying to negotiate peace between the Balladaireens and the Qaza-li, Luca with the intention of bringing a stop to the rebellion and prove to her uncle she is good enough to be queen and Touraine with the intention of protecting her fellow sands.

There is interesting discussion on colonisation in this book and how that affects the people whose country and culture are being stolen, as well as the Balladaire empire thinking they know best and being unwilling to leave in peace.

Touraine also has a lot of ties to the rebels, which she discovers when she is kidnapped by them at the beginning of the book. This was interesting to explore and added an extra element to Touraine’s character, she is very much someone whose loyalties are torn in many directions and it is clear that she struggles with this and it leads to some questionable decisions on her part on occasion. She also has a very interesting dynamic with the General, called Cantic, who at the start of the book seems on Touraine’s side but then throughout the book seemingly becomes more and more of a villain in Touraine’s mind, which I think reflects her changing loyalties. I really loved the other rebel leaders, who we see a lot of through Touraine’s eyes, especially Aranen and I’m really excited to see more of her in book 2.

The plot of the book is very strong in my opinion, it is fairly steady throughout and not too action packed so if you like lots of action it may not be for you, but adore politics and negotiation dynamics so I enjoyed this!! The ending is also quite explosive and at one point I thought the author had done something very shocking but it turned out not to be true but it still shocked me haha. The setting is also so immersive, especially if you like dessert based fantasy, and the writing is very evocative and captures the environment so well.

A couple of things I struggled with in the book were a) the writing at times, sometimes I feel like we skipped very minor things in a scene but it made the text a little hard to follow and sometimes took me out of the story. I think the best way to describe it is sometimes it felt a little patchy. This is the author’s debut book though so I feel like this will improve with time! B) I wasn’t totally sold on the relationship, obviously this is a very nitpicky thing as I’m always happy to have lgbtq relationships in fantasy, especially sapphic ones. At first I thought I was going to love it because of the first scene as well as the princess/body guard dynamic but I just didn’t feel like there was a lot of connection between them and then suddenly feelings seem to come out of nowhere? The power dynamics were obviously very complex so this might have contributed a bit to the strange relationship haha.

The fantasy elements are there, but not very explored, however I didn’t feel like this was really necessary, this book definitely felt like a political book, and I feel like the magic is something that is going to be explored in future books so I’m excited for that. The magic felt like this unknown, as just slowly starting to come back into the world, and Luca wanting to find out more about the magic was a major part of her motivations.

In conclusion this was a strong start to a new adult fantasy series, almost reminiscent of an adult an ember in the ashes, full of politics, sapphics and biceps!!