Reviews with content warning for War - The Tainted Cup

In an opulent mansion, a high Imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree spontaneously erupts from his body. Even in this canton at the borders of the Empire, where contagions abound and the blood of giant, ancient sea monsters give way to strange magical changes, it’s a death at once terrifying and impossible.

I mean… the Empire spends endless amounts of blood and treasure defending a whole continent from sea beasts the size of small mountains. But it can’t save a canton from one damned plant?

This book has:

✔ Sherlock and Watson-style detective team (with a Female lead)

✔ High fantasy with references to Greek Mythology

✔ Orphan Black vibes (highly altered people with unique powers and abilities)

✔ A satisfying conclusion (no frustrating cliffhangers here!)

✔ A diverse and inclusive cast of characters

Overall, I loved The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. As with all fantasy series, you’ll spend the first few chapters trying to acclimate yourself and learn the language, but once you’ve met the cast of characters this novel will have you hooked. I was certain I had everything figured out, only to find I was totally off-base, this mystery kept me guessing without becoming too convoluted to follow the plot. I came to love the crude but undeniable genius investigator Ana, and her earnest assistant Din, and I’m eagerly awaiting their next adventure.

Thank you to Netgalley and Del Ray for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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dogearedbooks's review

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adventurous dark funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I loved this so much. Going to be so hard for another book to beat this as my fave of the year. It is queer! Has all my fave things and I loved everyone.

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nadiajohnsonbooks's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This book was a departure from my usual reading habits. When I read fantasy, it tends to be sweeping, swashbuckling, and romance-forward. This treasure of a novel was none of those things, but it was a delight from start to finish. The culture and politics of the world Bennett created are so rich and intriguing, and I'm dying to know more about the bizarre system of nature-magic that keeps their world turning.

Dinios Kol is an Assistant Investigator in the Iudex, the branch of the Imperial government that investigates and prosecutes crime. His brain has been altered through the application of magical suffusions to give him complete, perfect recall of everything he sees and hears, making him a useful tool for his boss, the eccentric, foul-mouthed recluse, Ana Dolabra.

Din is called upon to investigate a peculiar death scene on Ana's behalf: an Imperial officer has been found in a house belonging to the influential Haza nobles with a tree growing out of his chest.

Their investigation takes Ana and Din to the outer limits of the Empire, where heavily guarded sea walls are the only thing protecting the people from incursions of gigantic monsters who come from the deep. There, ten more officers in the Engineering division have died under similarly botanical circumstances.

This book manages to balance complex worldbuilding, dark and violent intrigues, and humor tremendously well, with Din playing the straight man to the other characters' eccentricities. He proves to be a competent investigator, but he's like the Watson to Ana's Sherlock, who keeps most of her intellectual machinations to herself until they can be revealed to the best possible dramatic effect. I loved to see the representations of neurodivergence, particularly with Ana (who has sensory issues, among other complex needs) and Din, who has dyslexia.

The conclusion of the mystery was so satisfying, and I quite enjoyed the dynamic between Din, Ana, and the other principal characters. And, as a dedicated romantasy reader, I appreciated that there was one teeny tiny little kernel of a romantic spark, which I have put in my pocket and will treasure forever.

I sincerely hope that Bennett will be giving us more of this world, and soon.

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mbomersheim's review

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mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

ARC Review: What an interesting start to the year!

The Tainted Cup is the first book in the new series by Robert Jackson Bennett, Shadow of the Leviathan. The story follows Kol, an assistant investigator with a perfect memory, and Ana, an investigator for the government, as the two of them are tasked to solve a murder via the spontaneous growth of a plant from the body of another government official, and things turn out to be much more complex than they initially seemed.

I don’t want to say much more about the plot because of fear of spoilers, but what I will say is that this book gives Sherlock Holmes vibes. The writing is very methodical and there are some jumps in logic that I didn’t quite see coming but make sense in retrospect. Some of the descriptions toward the end of the book get a bit gruesome, which I thought contrasted the rest of the writing a bit, but it was nothing crazy. I will say, this book took me a hot minute to get into; there is so much world-building toward the beginning that I spent the first third of the book always slightly confused, but once I began getting it, the story flowed better and captured my attention more. Ultimately, I don’t think this book was really for me, but that doesn’t mean it’s not for someone else, rather there were things I tend to look for more in my reading (like more character relationships) that weren’t there. I think the plot left off in a good place for the rest of the series to continue.

This ARC was received courtesy of NetGalley and will be published on February 6, 2024.

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