Summary:
In a world where writing disappears when the author dies, 22-year-old Cael Oberlan watches the last gasping breaths of his best friend. He pulls a scrap of paper out of his pocket as his friend’s signature fades. Cael only wants vengeance for his friend and to create a reality where he no longer has to bow before any man. However, the nagging suspicion that his father, who started this war, hasn’t given him the whole story about his role in this conflict threatens to unravel everything he ever thought he knew about himself and the people he is fighting to free.
As nephew of the King, 24-year-old Emil Trestinsen should be a hero. He should already hear his name echoing in celebration in the streets of the capital. In a young life already full of disappointment, the lack of recognition for ridding the kingdom of “Ruinous” Lorcen Oberlan may prove to be the final push he needs to seize his destiny. He will prove his worth to his family and his nation. He will end this rebellion and take his rightful place as the next governor of the rebels. When 18-year-old Merily Oberlan receives letters from the frontlines, and the top one is blank, she is devastated to realize one of her loved ones has died in battle. She is determined to help bring an end to this bloody war and be strong for her people, a cultural and religious minority in the kingdom of Harfal. What started as a simple rebellion transforms into a complicated web of lies, betrayal, and difficult decisions no one should have to make. It is a race against time and death as handwriting continues to disappear, erasing the contracts and historical records necessary for peaceful negotiations.
Review:
*Review note, I read/reviewed Michael’s book months before I joined the Silverstones Blog team, this is nearly word for word what I wrote then and still believe today. Some minor adjustments made to wording/phrasing/flow for clarity.*
The Traitors We Are, yeah, the title should give much away to what it’s about. There’s traitors, a plethora of them, and they commit lots of treachery by the end of this book and leaves our “heroes” in a bad spot (I put heroes in “” because they are not exactly what we might think of heroes, more on that below). Honestly, I’m curious to how Mr. Roberti was able to keep all his treacherous threads organized, because there were a lot of plates spinning all at once. The most enjoyable aspect of this story was trying to figure out where the inevitable betrayals were going to hit and to whom. While I figured out the main traitor fairly early on, I didn’t see one death coming, so that was an excellent twist. Also, there was a lot of blood in this book. Never going to complain about plots and backstabbing and murder of characters who are set up to be big roles in the story. Love that type of story!
No heroes here (ok, well maybe Emil is in his own mind). Cael, Merily, and Emil are the three main POV characters and each of them are fairly complex in their own way. Cael, yeah, he’s a right bastard, but I liked him all the same. Emil, won’t lie, took me a hot minute to warm up to him, but that’s because he’s fairly self-assured, self-confident, basically anything with “self” in it because he’s kinda all about him. Merily was fun, humorous, and had a spark about her that I truly enjoyed. Ordan, the main traitor, was not a nice man, so let’s just leave it at that.
One bit that I found super intriguing is the disappearing writing after death of the writer. Now that’s a cool bit of world-building! I mean, you could literally wipe out everything a person has every done by just slitting his/her/their throat (although I suppose that’s why there is a scribes guild…). The concept wasn’t used a ton, which was good because when the final traitorous twist occurs, major things were undone because of some character deaths. Definitely sets book 2 up nicely for the fallout.
One thing that was done well was that the first 30% of the book is basically all-out warfare, battles galore, but after the marriage agreement, the story becomes this slow burn political thriller. This transition could go way off course if not handled correctly, but I think it worked well. I enjoyed the web of lies that built off of the ending of the war, and each needed time to bloom. The ending twist was exceptional. Again, part of it was pretty plain to see coming from miles away, but there was yet another back to stab. Definitely didn’t disappoint!
Aside from some minor grammatical or formatting errors, there wasn’t a whole lot in this story that didn’t work, but there are two small things I would have liked to see. One, while Ordan was indeed a clever jerk, I wanted to see it played out more than being told about it. Sure, there were some interlude-like POV scenes that show Ordan’s plans unfolding, but when in his POV, I would have liked him engaging in his other plans more, more of him setting things in motion as opposed to just going along with him. Also, if Ordan is supposed to be this clever dude, I feel like some of his actions were a little too plot armor-y, kinda makes him seem not as clever (or maybe that was intentional by Mr. Roberti and I completely missed it!). I guess what I’m trying to say is that the character of Ordan had a lot more potential that wasn’t tapped, but there is a prequel novella, so perhaps we get more of his dastardly machinations in that story. Two, while the political intrigue was handled nicely, I do think a little more aggression between the characters would have made more sense. I get it, these two families are enemies one minute, then become allies through Merily/Emil’s marriage, but there was a slight lack of distaste for each other really soon after the announcement (aka treaty). A little more tension, especially from Merrily’s POV (let’s face it, Emil is kinda a punching bag, but in a good way!) would have gone a long way to making this story even better.
The Traitors We Are was one hell of an opening salvo in a bloody world. I found the journey of our main protagonists to be utterly compelling and quite unsafe at the same time. A prequel novella was released late last year and is best read after the first book as it has plenty of the characters before the events leading up to this story. The sequel, well, is out in ebook format because Mr. Roberti has patience issues. I’m very biased as I got to work on the editing of said sequel, but it shows extreme leveling up from a storytelling point of view. I suggest all three books because I know the conclusion is going to be insane!