John's peaceful life in the woods is upended when an injured woman stumbles into his cabin. When she wakes up she names him heir before suddenly dying. John quickly finds out he is the new gatekeeper without anymore information or prep and is thrown into a world he is unprepared for.

I enjoyed the witty and sarcastic banter between all of the characters and the dry humor that was woven into the story and dialogue. The easiness of the story felt like a cozy fantasy yet it had a lot of politics and scheming amongst the houses.

I do wish there was a little more world building that didn't rely completely on the dialogue, especially in the beginning of the book. It felt like the dialogue was just used as a quick avenue to info dump rather than world build and establish rapport between the characters; it felt surface level at times.