I mostly enjoyed the concept of this world, not necessarily its storytelling. Here we find parallel worlds, with a different amount of magic in it, and all they have in common is London and its river. We have Grey London, which is ours, but felt a bit Dickensian, with almost no magic left. We have Red London, with an abundance of it, White London where cruelty and magic as absolute power reign, and finally there used to be Black London, destroyed by magic.

A race called Antari can move between worlds with blood magic, and our protagonist Kell is one of two known Antari. He is from Red London and works for the royals, delivering messages between the rulers of each London. But on a trip to White London he receives an artifact from fallen Black London that changes everything. He finds that he needs help from a young woman from Grey London, a wanna-be pirate called Lila.

I thought Lila was a cool character, but I am not fully sure that I ever found Kell to have a real personality, other than deeply caring about Prince Rhy. But I am willing to find out more about who these Antari actually are, so I shall be picking up the next book as well. Good entertainment, but nothing stellar, so 3.5 stars for me.