Bumpy Oak Books

**I was provided an electronic ARC by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for honest review.**

Actual rating: 3.5

Luke Arnold, renowned actor, adds author to his repertoire with his debut fantasy novel, The Last Smile in Sunder City. Readers follow Fetch Phillips, man for hire, in a world where the magic is gone. Humans, elves, vampires, and all manner of other creatures are trying to make their way after the cataclysmic event of the Coda, which caused the magic to fade. For Fetch, that means finding a missing vampire for now.

Fetch is the man to blame, the man who always tries his best to do something right, the man who always comes up short. Fetch is inherently a morally grey character, and I’m a fan of angsty morally grey MCs. Readers get a lot of insight into Fetch via flashbacks and through his navigation of the obstacles in the story. Overall, I can say I like Fetch. He tries, poor dear.

Arnold is incredibly successful at world-building. The development of Sunder City and the various cultures associated with the creatures is definitely something special. The read was definitely atmospheric and I felt I had a strong understanding of Sunder and the sociopolitical climate in which it exists. Unfortunately, I was in the space of feeling Arnold’s biggest strength in world-building also wound up detrimental in the end.

Arnold spent so much effort in building the world, so much effort in establishing the history, so much effort in establishing Fetch’s past. It was well done, yes. However, if that was the story he wanted to tell, I wish he had simply started his novel with the events that brought about the Coda and we could have followed Fetch through that rather than having whole chapters of flashbacks. Instead, we got these information dumps and zero progress for the main introduced plotline of finding out what happened to the missing vampire. That plot was resolved within the last 15ish percent of the book, with little to no progress being made until then.

That being said, I’m excited about the potential for Sunder in the future. We’ve got our info dumping out of the way now; we know our world, our MC, and his past experiences. I’m eager to see how Arnold and Sunder move forward, particularly with the hints of development for installments in the series to come.

Overall, I feel Arnold had a strong debut novel, and I would not hesitate to read the next book in the series.