Never Keep by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti is the first book in the Sins of the Zodiac series, an enemies-to-lovers romantasy set in the Zodiac Academy universe. For those familiar with the universe, this book will feel quite different. These nations are very different from the ones readers have encountered before, and the tone and pacing are quite different.
Never Keep is the place where twenty-one-year-old Fae from all four elemental nations in this realm go to have their powers Awakened and to train for battle. The four nations are locked in an Endless War, raging for generations, and fighting is a fact of life.
For Everest, a Raincarver from the water nation, the fight is personal. After a brutal attack on her homeland and the rejection of her father, she is determined to both prove herself and get revenge.
For Vesper, the infamous Sky Witch from the air nation, her time at Never Keep is her chance to prove herself to the Prince that she has sworn fealty to and to overcome the stain of her tainted blood from being born to water parents under the wrong sign.
Both women have their assignments, their purposes for being at Never Keep, but as they train, their enemies are everywhere, secrets are uncovered, and even the revered Reapers, the neutral party that are responsible for the Never Keep, are not as they seem. They have been conditioned by society and circumstance to hate those from other nations and to compete fiercely even with those from their own groups, but fate has plans of its own.
It’s hard to place when this book is taking place in relation to the other books in the universe. It feels significantly less modern than, for example, the Ruthless Boys of The Zodiac series, but it also doesn’t seem to be a prequel. It’s essentially a whole new story but with the same magical system.
The story starts with immediate action, intended to hook the reader, but it proves difficult to get into. There are several chapters of fight scenes and battles, interspersed with exposition before readers have had a chance to get to know the characters. As a result, I found myself completely uninvested in the outcome of these fights that take up the first hundred or so pages.
It takes a while to get to know the characters through all the action in the early chapters. Once the reader gets a handle on who these people are, it becomes clear that all these characters are motivated by some kind of fury. Everyone seems brainwashed in different ways, by the leaders of their various nations and this cult of the stars — helmed by the Reapers — that they all follow.
Vesper is by far the most interesting character here. I find myself more drawn to her chapters in the book. Everest just doesn’t stand out quite as much, and all the supporting characters on both sides come off as utterly flat.
Since this is the first book in a series, the spice is late coming. The authors are laying the groundwork for these relationships for most of the book.
I had no idea who the love interests were going to be in this series for much of the book. There are a lot of red herrings thrown at the reader here, and it only becomes clear at the very end of the book what relationships Everest and Vesper are going to explore in this series.
Attraction is all over the place, and even at the end of the book there are still outstanding questions and possibilities. I actually liked this uncertainty about the relationship dynamics. It would have worked really well if the characters were more interesting and the pacing was better in the first half.
By the end of this book, I was invested, but it took me nearly 400 pages to get there, and life is just too short for that. There were a couple of truly shocking twists and a brutal cliffhanger at the end, leaving me in turmoil about whether to continue with this series or not. The next book, Echo Fort, comes out in June, and I will probably read it simply to sate my curiosity, but based on the first book this series is probably not worth starting in the first place.
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