A Dawn of Onyx by Kate Golden

TW: Attempted Rape is mentioned in this review; please skip the ____ text if you’d still like to read this review but don’t feel as though it would be good for you to read this content.

A Dawn of Onyx was the definition of an average book, and I have more complaints about this book than I have any other book so far this year; that being said, it was far from bad, and I did enjoy it, to an extent.

My first complaint starts with the summary: it heavily misleads the reader on what the book is about in my opinion. The official summary implies that the book’s main conflict is going to be Arwen’s figuring out who the mysterious prisoner is, but that gets answered by 25% through. Here’s what I think is a more accurate summary:

Arwen has a magical healing ability that she’s kept secret her whole life, only using it in secrecy and subtly to help those around her. When soldiers from the Onyx Kingdom find out about this, they take her as a prisoner of war with the intention of using her healing abilities to their advantage.

After a meeting with the Onyx King, Arwen agrees to work willingly as a healer so long as he finds her family and provides them with a good life. Meanwhile, the king is keeping secrets and making moves in this war that’s raged through Arwen’s home country for years: a war Arwen thinks she knows about, but soon realizes that everything she thought she knew was a lie.

Arwen can’t fall in love with the enemy, and yet, here she is.

Review

Characters

Arwen is probably one of the most boring protagonists I’ve read; while it was an interesting concept to have a main character who’s afraid of the world instead of one who wants to face it, I don’t think Golden did it well with this book.

First of all, Arwen doesn’t really behave as though she’s afraid for most of the series. Sure, she spends one night crying in a dungeon, but that doesn’t last long before she starts plotting her escape.

Then, when she finally does manage her almost-escape, Arwen is quick to make a deal with the king that benefits her family, which is the whole reason she’s in this position in the first place.

Normally, these things wouldn’t bother me at all; I love a girl who takes care of her people and makes sacrifices, but one of the first things Arwen tells us about herself is that she isn’t super smart, and she’s a coward. Tell me why I see neither of these traits in her this entire book, unless they’re convenient to the plot?

Moving on to Kane, I honestly don’t think that he had a real single moment of actually being cruel to anyone? I can understand why Arwen would think that he was a cruel person - propaganda from her country and all - but what about the people in the Keep they’re in? 

Every person in that Keep - at least, from what we get from Mari, who becomes Arwen’s best friend shockingly quickly considering Arwen has “never known how to make friends” - is also terrified of Kane, and I think the scariest thing he did was jump out a window - which what the fuck even happened there? That’s never explained. I have theories, but these theories don’t make any sense.

Seeing as this was also supposed to be a romantasy, there was no real chemistry between these two characters. I didn’t hate their relationship, but I certainly wasn’t rooting for it. Honestly, in every single moment where I was supposed to feel hurt, or angry, or concerned regarding them, I was really just bored.

Plot

Talking about the plot, and this is technically a small spoiler, but I can’t really discuss anything plot-wise without this context.

I figured out who the stranger in the cell was on his very first appearance, despite the summary making me think we’d actually have a mystery as to who this person was. I was really hoping Kate would pull a “haha you thought” with how obvious it was - especially when he was running around the Keep - but no, the fellow prisoner was, in fact, Kane Ravenwood.

Talk about boring.

So anyway, Kane is keeping secrets for no reason - shocker - despite literally needing Arwen’s help to win the war he’s fighting. And don’t get me wrong; I would understand him not wanting Arwen’s help - given full context - when he starts falling for her, but he claims that he didn’t intend on making her help at almost any point after they actually met?

Lame. Where are the stakes? Not here, and they weren’t even replaced by a good romance where I’d want the stakes to vanish.

The plot itself, aside from these things, was pretty interesting, I guess. I didn’t hate it, and I wasn’t bored with the actual story when it actually started happening, which wasn’t until about halfway through or so? 

(Do not read this section if attempted rape is a trigger of yours.) 

One of my biggest pet peeves about this book - and this could have also gone in the character section, but this was used more to advance the plot - is that Arwen almost gets raped by a character, and she realizes who Kane is when he saves her. 

Tell me why saving her makes him suddenly more trustworthy and like you’d make a deal with this King who you’ve literally been told your whole life is cruel and ruthless. That isn’t a “good person” thing to do. It’s a bare fucking minimum thing, and I’m so sick of these shadow daddy type characters being worshipped for doing the bare minimum. 

(The Trigger Warning from above is no longer in effect.) 

Aside from all this - and incessant time skips that I couldn’t keep up with at all - I wouldn’t say the book was necessarily badly written. If we had focused more on Arwen and her reactions to being away from her family than “falling in love” with Kane, I think I really would have enjoyed it a lot more.

My favorite parts of this book were the moments when she was looking for things to make some medicine for her mother’s illness; I think the story would have been so much better if more time had been spent focusing on that instead.

Worldbuilding

One thing I love about High Fantasy is worldbuilding, and I’m sorry to say that this book did, in fact disappoint in that regard. While there were a lot of cool things mentioned, I wanted more of that stuff.

For example, these people worship stones? Why are the stones sacred? Were they tools used in creation myths for the world, or were they representative of actual gods? I think it would’ve been so cool to get literally any information on this.

Does everyone follow the same religion? Do the fae follow the same religion? There are so many questions I have about this world, and not a single one was answered. I almost would have preferred there be nothing than what I did get, which amounted to nothing but also had a side effect of dissatisfaction.

Rating

Honestly, my original rating of this was going to be a three star, but this book was just too average for me to feel okay leaving it there, and I don’t think I had enough positive things to say about this book to justify maintaining a three star.

I think the author should have utilized a dual POV, and I know that I’m biased and always want a dual POV, but I really think it would have enhanced more than just the romance half of the plot. 

Seeing what Kane was doing throughout the book, especially since it wasn’t really a big secret who he was, would have given the story a lot less down time, and considering Arwen never really does anything throughout the story - she’s just always in the Keep - there would have been so much more intrigue happening.

I do still plan on finishing the trilogy eventually, but I’m not particularly excited about picking up the next book, so we’ll see if and when that eventually happens. I do think the second book will be better, now that we’ve gotten more into the actual plot of the story, but who knows. Maybe it’ll be equally mediocre.