"Farro" by Arreana

From Goodreads: "Khensa, a girl from the slums, is one of the last of a dying breed. Farro blood courses through her veins and for it she has suffered countless atrocities. Orphaned, kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured, she endures without knowing if it shall ever end. For eleven months she endures…

Enter Bomani, her unintentional savior. Sent by his father to assassinate the high priest, he finds her, bloody, starved, and naked upon the floor. She is feral and half-crazed and yet still he takes her away. He introduces her to a whole new world – his own.

Together they navigate their way around a fragile society of kings, vendettas, and magic. Their story crosses deserts and mountains. It begins with fire and ends with water." 

Less than a page into this book I knew that I was in for a treat. How did I know so early on? Right off the bat it was clear that author Arreana had a way with words quite unlike that I have ever read before. What this obvious talent lead to was an impeccably created world that was so easy for the reader to fall into. I find that with books of this nature (historical fiction/ paranormal) that the writing can be very heavy or unnecessarily convoluted but I didn't find that at all with this book.

A lot of the times I find that the female lead doesn't make all that much of an impact upon me because I find her to be much less developed than her male counterpart (males who are almost, in a sense, hyper-developed, seriously, we can recount the way that their hair falls over their eyes, or the coloured flecks in their eyes) in order to allow the female reader to easily occupy her place in the story, but Khensa wasn't underdeveloped in the slightest. She is by far one of the strongest female characters I have ever read of before- seriously what she endured in her life, it was unfathomable (physically, mentally, and emotionally). While at the time Khensa may not have always made the wisest decisions she always did so with the best intentions at heart. Though at first I loathed Bomani (thinking that he was an asshat- literally kicking a girl when she is down- not cool!), he really did start to grow on me over time and in my opinion he did show many redeeming qualities (and dare I say it? I am quite excited to see if a romance between him and Khensa comes into existence).

This was not the type of book where only the male and female lead shines, while all of the other characters take a back seat to them. Each and every character was so dynamic and multi-faceted. Everyone was given the opportunity to shine and whether they stepped up to the plate of whether they took the cowardly route, well that just shows the essence of their being.

All in all this is one of the best books I have ever read of this genre- Fans of authors such as Tamora Pierce and Christopher Paolini will gobble this book up in no time and desperately crave the next book in the series! Arreana is an extremely talented author and one to keep our eyes on and I truly cannot wait to see what she has in store for us next!

Rating: 5/5

I received this book from the author to read and honestly review. I was not compensated in any way for said review.