Every year, thousands in the kingdom of Talin will flock to its capital twin cities, San-Er, where the palace hosts a set of games. For those confident enough in their ability to jump between bodies, competitors across San-Er fight to the death to win unimaginable riches.

Princess Calla Tuoleimi lurks in hiding. Five years ago, a massacre killed her parents and left the palace of Er empty…and she was the one who did it. Before King Kasa’s forces in San can catch her, she plans to finish the job and bring down the monarchy. Her reclusive uncle always greets the victor of the games, so if she wins, she gets her opportunity at last to kill him.

Enter Anton Makusa, an exiled aristocrat. His childhood love has lain in a coma since they were both ousted from the palace, and he’s deep in debt trying to keep her alive. Thankfully, he’s one of the best jumpers in the kingdom, flitting from body to body at will. His last chance at saving her is entering the games and winning.

Calla finds both an unexpected alliance with Anton and help from King Kasa’s adopted son, August, who wants to mend Talin’s ills. But the three of them have very different goals, even as Calla and Anton’s partnership spirals into something all-consuming. Before the games close, Calla must decide what she’s playing for—her lover or her kingdom.

Well…I guess my first negative review had to happen sometime. Immortal Longings sounded so promising, and while it delivered on the simple promise of action, it didn’t make up for the complete lack of depth and the myriad of plot holes throughout the book.

Immortal Longings doesn’t know if it wants to be a sci fi dystopian or a fantasy. The idea of blending these genres isn’t necessarily bad, and I’m sure it’s been done before and could probably be great, but in this case it just felt confusing. We don’t know enough about this society to really understand what’s going on other than the King is Bad. We don’t get to hear our main characters motives other than the King is Bad. And when we get brief scenes with the King, he is indeed pretty Bad, but seemingly just for the sake of being Bad and Stupid.

Then there was the “jumping,” the ability everyone in the book has to “jump” into another body. The rules of it made no sense. Allegedly it was forbidden or outlawed but people were doing it all the time for small reasons, then in moments of conflict it didn’t seem to even cross a characters mind. People seemed to still be recognizable as themselves even in another body?

I’m not normally one to write reviews this negative , but this really left a bad taste in my mouth the longer I sat with it. I would say the only positive in this book is that the prose was fine, or at least didn’t stick out to me as bad, and the ending was a nice cliffhanger, but that’s the only good things I can really say about this book, unfortunately. I honestly feel like I could’ve just not finished it, but by the time I realized how none of this action was going to be backed up with anything meaningful I was so far into the audiobook that I just decided to push through. If the premise sounds intriguing to you and you’re a reader who craves more action than character development, than maybe it’s worth picking up…but if I were you, I’d check it out from the library rather than buying it.