Alloy of law review/thoughts
I really enjoyed the pacing of this book, it felt very fast and "punchy"? there wasn't any wasted time with exposition, the new concepts like twinborn were explained very neatly.
I was glad they didn't spend too much time on wax's struggle with trying to put his investigative life behind him and just be an aristocrat, the dinner scene was very fun and easily laid out how fun the dynamic between Wax, Wayne, and Marasi would be throughout the book. Their dialogue is very fun to read and at times even more interesting than the action scenes. I like that Wax and Wayne very quickly realized how much of an asset Marasi would be and didn't try and put her off to the sidelines.
Wayne's ability to disguise himself and how much he enjoys creating the characters he makes is very cool, I think it adds a lot more depth to things rather than just "putting on a disguise to move the story forward" if that makes sense.
I don't know what it is about it, but the silly humour gets me somehow, especially when Wayne realized the tea was poisoned and immediately fell to the floor.
This "review" is very disjointed because I'm just going through the notes I took as I was reading and I'm picking out bits and pieces and writing my thoughts, I've come to like little "detective" stories like this, it's very fun working things out and watching the characters work things out as well, like at the warehouse finding the cigar case, pointing everything further towards miles, Wayne finding out his uncle is Mr suit, etc.
The almost flirty dynamic between Wax and Marasi was very sweet and enjoyable to read, I hope it gets expanded upon in the next books. They make such an excellent duo with their intelligence combined.
Ranettes gunsmithing is very cool and I'm interested to see where they take it, especially with the new hazekiller rounds which are undoubtedly going to get spread around somehow.The way the Vanishers stole the train cars was super neat, the little crane thing was a cool idea and I enjoyed finding out how they were actually stealing them without anyone knowing, entire replica train cars is just so extra lol.
I loved the conversation between Wax and Harmony, the reveal of his trunk with his guns and mistcloak was great and had me smiling the entire time.
The speed bubble to buy time for the police to arrive was a good way to implement Marasi's powers, but I still struggle to think of any other way that it could be used effectively.
Overall I really enjoyed the book and I'm planning on starting the second right after I finish this, I really enjoy the new characters and loved getting the little bits of old characters like Harmony and Marsh, I can't wait to see where the story goes from here and how it all gets further developed. I'm hoping Marsh and Harmony do end up having bigger roles, though.