The twin cities of San-Er host an annual competition where the victor wins a king's ransom (literally — King Kasa shells out a boatload of money to the winner), but the other 87 contestants end up dead, killed by the victor on the way to the top. Calla, a princess who has been on the run since murdering her family five years earlier, has finally landed in the competition, and is determined to win so that she can kill Kasa when he shakes her hand. But she's facing fierce competition from Anton, a former noble who has been cast out and wants to win to pay off the medical bills of his childhood love, who has been laying in a coma for seven years. Complicating the whole competition and the world of San-Er is the ability of most people to jump from body to body, making it difficult to tell who is a competitor, who's an ally, and who is a mere bystander.
This is loosely based on the titular characters of Shakespeare's Antony & Cleopatra, with their toxic co-dependent relationship forming the basis of Calla and Anton's violent and sexually charged relationship. Jumping bodies is a bit hard to wrap one's mind around, and there were several things about this world that were more than a bit confusing. Still, it was a compelling read, and I'm curious to see where the rest of this trilogy goes.
(BTW, I **love** the cover of this book.)
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