The Rogue (Sons of Ferassi #1) book review

The Rogue’s prose and characters are solid, and the pacing for the first half is good, but as the narrative progresses and starts to build toward the climax it began to feel like it needed more time to mature. That might sound weird, but neither of our two main characters have any real connection to the core plot of the narrative, they’re just collateral inclusions, and so much appears in the second half of the book, so many plot points and loose threads that needed more time or foreshadowing to become properly synergistic. From Elias’s brother appearing abruptly, to the dryad randomly being captured, to Elias’s magic, theres too much happening and none of it really reaches a satisfying conclusion.
That being said, the individual pieces and scenes/events are entertaining, the pacing is quick so you progress quickly through the story, and many of the character interactions are fun.
Lionard is probably the most interesting/complex of our primary characters, and Penna has the strongest personal motivation (although the burden of her debt isn’t probably made manifest in the book) but Elias suffers from being too one-dimensional. He’s a nice guy, but that’s all he is and its unrelenting over the course of the narrative, resulting in a character that is both saccarine and boring. It doesn’t help that all his personal motivations are minor and immediately shucked aside so that his only real narrative is his romance with Penna (which I found too immediate and rushed.) Penna is better, both due to her debts being a far stronger motivator and the narrative of her becoming a pariah and being forced into crime to pay for them, alongside other elements to her narrative. She probably could have been served by reading a bit more hardened or mistrustful (having her beloved husband die only to realize he’d left her with a mountain of debt, then being basically exiled by her entire town, into turning to a life a crime might have adjusted her personality.)
As before stated, Lionard is the most complex character, but the reasons for it are best left unstated for spoiler purposes. He’s also the only one properly involved with the main plot (Penna is immediately connected, but it’s more happenstance than anything) resulting in him feeling like the one character the trully belongs. Unfortunately, he’s also given the least pov time, and his personal narrative is only brushed against despite it having the most potential substance of any of them.