Dylan MadeleyThe most recent Goodreads review. Excerpt:
"Derek gets put in an impossible position where he's forced to be her bodyguard. To reach her kingdom, he has to travel through the scars, political and ecological, left by her ancestor. It was harrowing in the best way. Their stories dovetail much later in the book than I expected, and that tension between expectation and delivery was everywhere present in this book, from the worldbuilding to the characters. At every level, the author takes common settings and tropes and reworks them in subtle ways that made the story feel particularly rich.
I would just add that, if you're tired of slang or modern-sounding dialogue in your fiction and want a high fantasy that really reads like it, this book is for you."