Thank you to NetGalley for the advance reader copy,

There are so many points of view and characters introduced in this book, and it gets to a point where you don’t know why you’re reading about this person as they don’t seem to have a connection to the story,

But then, I can’t honestly say that if someone asked me what the book was about I could say.

I nearly DNF’d this around 5 times and even found that when I was finished I didn’t know what was happening in the story.

This needs a lot of editing and a plan as I have so many questions and none of them were even part way answered,

My overall opinion is that this is a good story but badly told. It is about a world where there is no night but various stages of daylight. People can use magic by reaching into the light (e.g. Lax) or into the darkness if they live underground (e.g. Aiana). There are multiple POVs and it seemed like a new character was introduced every other chapter (I stopped counting at 8 characters). The book went back and forth between the various POVs and continued each character's story at the beginning of a new chapter so it was very difficult to keep track of what was going on - so much so that I had to make my own notes to remember who the various characters were! I persevered with the book but towards the end, I found that I was only interested in the POVs of Aiana and Lax and skipped forward to the chapters that continued their stories. It's a shame really as the concept is interesting - I think if the author had concentrated on Aiana and Lax, the book would have worked better. The author is really imaginative but seems to have crammed all of their ideas into a single book. This meant that there were too many threads to follow which made reading the book quite annoying.

In the city of Luminocity, which stands on the ruins of an ancient civilisation, the lives of five people intertwine: Brothers Laxerion and Val-Gustas Tama, one a heist mastermind, the other an honoured general; young scientist Ilumi; a street urchin named Dawb; and Aiana, a huntress of the depths. Each trying to survive and thrive individually, but fate brings them together in unexpected ways.

This book is complicated. It starts off with a prologue outlining the collapse of a city, which then appears to have no real bearing on the rest of the book. Maybe this will crop up again later in the series, but it felt a bit out of place during the reading of book #1.

The second and biggest problem is that there are too many characters. The five mentioned in the blurb are enough to be getting on with, but then there are more. Chapters are told each following a specific character in their individual thread, which meant I often wasn’t sure who I was reading about at any one time and made the story feel a little disjointed. It’s always difficult trying to tell a story with so many different threads, but particularly one such as this which also contains magical lore, politics and fictional technology.

The concept of the ‘light’ was fairly well explained and worked well with the plot, though it did occasionally start to grate when characters were constantly ‘losing’ or finding’ different elements during fights and whatnot.

Overall, Grieving Gold is a solid attempt at a fantasy/adventure novel, but could certainly have used some improvements and simplification.

The concept was a fresh take on the genre but could do with a tidy up. The storyline has potential but it was quite slow.

I would have liked an explanation of the magic system. Either I missed something or it wasn't explained very well because I was left confused how it worked.

I wasn't a fan of the many different POVs. For me the storyline got really bogged down with how many POVs it switched between and made it somewhat hard to follow. As such I didn't connect with the characters

This one is going to be hard to review. I enjoyed reading this book so much, so I would definitely recommend it for fantasy and horror fans, but at the same time there was something missing.

Grieving Gold started very confusing with a lot of different characters and POVs that seemed completely disconnected. However, this was not a problem at all since the individual stories kept me glued to the pages and made me care for the characters, and their inspirations and struggles, individually. Most of the characters and their plot lines are very well developed, and we get introduced to new characters all through the book, all of them somehow relevant for the plot.

The different characters paths eventually intertwine in an amazing way, and somehow it all makes sense. Well, except some lose ends, but I assume that these will be relevant for rest of the series.

There are a lot of information dumps through the book, which makes sense since this is the first book of a series, but somehow, I felt like some important information was just not there. While the author paints a very vivid image of Luminosity, the magic system felt overly complex. There was no origin or explanation why there is such a wide variety of powers. It was hard to keep up and know what to expect as it is never properly explained.

Overall, I really enjoyed this reading experience, even though the magic system felt flat for me.

Thank you very much Endless Equinox and NetGallery for providing me this ARC.

Hold on to your hats- this was terrific! This is and feels like the beginning of an epic new fantasy and I am already so impatient for the rest. There really is an enormous cast and each character is fascinating- I spent most of the book wondering how they would all fit together. The world is complex and detailed- how the author managed to avoid information dumps- and he did- is incredible. The world has a South American flavour to it. There wasn’t a boring character among them. The magic system has elements of Sanderson but is unique and compelling. This was a real treat! Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

Writing was good! Story kept me wanting to read to see what happened next. Definitely recommend! I picked this one up based off the cover design and it did not disappoint.

I feel like there is SO much to unpack here! I absolutely loved how many POV's there are in the book as all of the characters go through the world of Luminocity, where the light of the three sun gods shines down upon the ancient civilization.
We follow these five characters, Laxerion, his brother, Val-Gustus, Illumi, Aiana and Dwab. Together they bring all of their strengths (& weakness') as they navigate the duplicitous world of Luminocity. The book adequately shows all of their POV's well as well as how their stories intertwine with one another. The author did a FLAWLESS job in how he crafted the city of Luminocity for the readers to imagine. I loved the magic in the book, although I definitely feel like the book didn't properly elaborate on some of the stuff magical or otherwise not as magical, as it could have. I am also not a huge horror fan, however I feel like this book had just the right mix thrown in with the fantasy aspect of it. I am however looking forward to the next one in the series already!

Thank you to Netgalley and the author too, of course for the ARC of this book!

I was hoping to enjoy this. Has a promising story and I’m sure there is a better audience than me. I unfortunately did not finish, the dialogue was a little bit too much for me. And I couldn’t finish. But it’s easy to read and I think if it finds the right people this will excel !

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an e-arc of this book.

I really wanted to like this book but ultimately gave it two stars.

The description compares the book to Brandon Sanderson which is a bold claim that sort of sets the book up for failure.

I think the comparison comes from the multiple viewpoints and unique magic system and potentially the double prologue.

However 5 viewpoints is just too many. It's hard to get invested in any one story and each story progressed so slowly.  When big things happened like character deaths I couldn't feel invested because there was such a wide range of viewpoints.
I only really found 2 of the 5 compelling which made the book into a slog.  I think it's because the characters were just too archetypal and surface level.

The magic system was unique but it was also poorly explained and kind of overpowered as the characters seemed to be able to do anything they wanted by sacrificing a little blood.

The last 100 pages were a bit better and the story finally seemed to be going somewhere but it was just too little to late

Love the light gods story and the world building!!

Reminded me of Game of thrones with the multipoint POVs.

Fast paced about SCI-FI feeling however it’s a dark fantasy. Really loved the story.

Grieving Gold by Daniel McDaniel. #Luminocity #NetGalley . This book felt very similar to Sarah J Maas books jumping from one Story to another in the made up world of Luminocity. Also felt influence of Game of Thrones in the stories. Hard to read and get into for me but worth the perseverance this is the start of something that will interweave and none of the stories had an end leaving you wanting more although for me it was a tough read I did enjoy and there are parts that excite and make you want to read on.

This was definitely a strong debut novel. The start of the book was so intriguing that I was excited to read more. Unfortunately, I was getting more confused by the characters than the storyline. There are 5+ POVs that doesn’t tie well together to for a coherent storyline. Also, the magic system was not really explained just mentioned. The book was lot similar to Mistborn from Anderson and I’m sure some people would love this. The concept has so much potential and the characters are all multi dimensional.

There were many grammatical and typo mistakes as well. I think improving the flow of writing and errors could make this one of the best books out there.
Rating: 2.5
Spice: none
Genre: Young Adult

I really enjoyed this story line! I found that it is very different from what I had typically been reading, and for that it made it stand out for me even more! I appreciate individualism in books when the market tends to be saturated with a lot of similar plots and story lines. The characters were very likable and had excellent world building. Very well done! Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this beautiful work!

Thank you NetGalley and the author for the copy of this book. Overall this book has a good set up. There’s a lot of good things about it. However I felt like I was missing parts of the story and the world. I would definitely give this a shot.

I have to say that this book wasn’t really for me, I am sure lots of other people will really enjoy it but sadly not me. I found it very difficult to get into and actually gave up at around 50% because I couldn’t go through any more.

This took quite a while to really get into because of all the different characters that are introduced in the opening chapters and it took some time before their stories started to emerge.

It was somewhat different to many other tales of this genre and once engaged with the stories it became a very enjoyable read and my only disappointment is there's too much left to find out so where is Book 2?

This is going to be a great read for some people, but sadly not for me. Unfortunately for me, the book was very hard to get into and to keep my interest. There were A LOT of POV that I just had a hard time keeping up with. I DNF at 30% hence my 3 star review. I really wanted to keep on reading but I just couldn't get myself to keep going, I ended up having to go back and reread parts and it just ended up being too much for me. I appreciate the opportunity given to read this book.

Thank you to Net Galley for the advanced reader copy of this book!
I truly enjoyed this read. It felt like nothing I've read before - the world building can be a bit intense for the casual reader! I could not put it down. Each perspective followed in the book had me at the edge of my seat and I really like how the story lines tied together. I think Ilumi was my favorite. Can't wait to see whats next!

Thank you to NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. I had a problem with the amount of POVS that I wasn't super attached to. It felt like I was reading several books at once that weren't connected. I expected them to all wrap up in a way that made me realize they had been attached the whole time and it just really didn't happen. It also took me a really long time to read and I wasn't really excited to pick it up unfortunately. For having so many elements, the book is incredibly slow paced. The POVs I liked best were Aiana and Lax (but Lax's POV was more because I liked his friends). I think there was simply too much going on. The way Dawb's POV went just didn't make sense to me. There were so many elements that I think had potential but the disjointedness was too distracting. I did really like the magic system, that was unique. I liked the multiple found family instances throughout the book. I would read more by this author and I would probably continue with the series. I'm hoping that the next book wraps everything up in a more understandable way. But unfortunately, this book wasn't my favorite. I will still recommend it to my audience though.

3/5 Stars