[Complete] [97k] [Dark Fantasy] Wings Born In Ruin

Hey!

I've finished Book One of an adult dark fantasy trilogy and I'm looking for beta readers before I go further. This is my first finished novel.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe8Amda4dYFFxuRnJiG1A9oFqpDH4LcWBwkrE1IszYtJPSz_Q/viewform?usp=dialog

Genre: Adult dark fantasy, single POV, first person

Length: ~97,000 words, complete

Comps: Serpent and the Wings of Night (Broadbent), The Jasad Heir (Hashem), Six of Crows (Bardugo), The Poppy War (Kuang)

Content warnings: suicidal ideation and attempt, self-injury, graphic violence and gore, torture, captivity, child abuse, terminal illness, sexual menace, one explicit consensual sex scene, alcohol abuse, religious trauma. Full list before you commit, and you can say no to any of it.

Premise:

Sazarah Balhaye is a dragon-descended blacksmith who teaches children by day and hunts the people who gave them reason to be afraid by night. Then she loses the reason to raise her hammer, and takes a road she has no intention of coming back from.

It leads her to Darmanesh, a hidden city that runs trials on people and calls it an integration process. Beside her: a healer with terrible jokes and a body count he doesn't hide, and a scarred hunter whose restraint is the one thing her mind control can't break.

The Senate wanted to make weapons out of them.
They should have been more careful what they forged.

What I'm looking for:

- Does the opening hold you? Where did your attention slip?

- Is there a stretch in the middle where you stopped caring what she wanted?

- Do Saza, Navid and Zayesh read as distinct people?

- General reader reaction.

English is my third language. Some strangeness in the prose is deliberate and some is just wrong.
I can't tell from the inside, so flag it and let me decide.