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viviancol28's review
5.0
This is a really wholesome and action- packed fantasy story featuring an lgbt romance! I loved the suspense the author built up in the storyline as well as adding in the growth of a powerful relationship. Rasha and Adriana are total opposites, Rasha coming from servitude and Adriana being royalty. But the unlikely pair form such a close and captivating bond that really adds a lovely element to the story. The journey they endure together with friends they make along the way, in order to save their families, was very intense and suspenseful. The magical powers and strengths of the characters caused many pivotal moments throughout the book as well. I would definitely recommend giving this a read!
thewoollygeek's review
4.0
Slow start to this but once you get into it a great read with strong female MC that you can empathise with and really relate to. I loved Rasha so much, this is a lovely book, I admit the cover drew me in a lot and the world building is wonderful you really get a sense of the culture she describes. Fantastic
Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion
Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion
raoionna's review
4.0
Bewitching ~ Sweet ~ Enchanting
tl;dr: Revolutions often start small
An orphan finds herself unexpectedly at the midst of a quest. This fantasy novel has the common theme of many recent releases: love and friendship can come from unlikely places. This book was not quite as epic as other recent fantasy novels, and I say that as a good thing. In some ways, this is an intimate story. The main character Rasha is a strong woman, though her character could have been better drawn. A sweet romance is at the center of this story, and the strongest part of the book. This book does feel familiar, not exactly like any other book, but similar enough to quest stories and fantasy novels.
3.5
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Seema Rao Write : Instagram| Blog| Twitter|
tl;dr: Revolutions often start small
An orphan finds herself unexpectedly at the midst of a quest. This fantasy novel has the common theme of many recent releases: love and friendship can come from unlikely places. This book was not quite as epic as other recent fantasy novels, and I say that as a good thing. In some ways, this is an intimate story. The main character Rasha is a strong woman, though her character could have been better drawn. A sweet romance is at the center of this story, and the strongest part of the book. This book does feel familiar, not exactly like any other book, but similar enough to quest stories and fantasy novels.
3.5
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Seema Rao Write : Instagram| Blog| Twitter|
epilieaspiechick's review against another edition
4.0
My full review can be found on the Epilie Aspie Chick blog!
Thank you to NineStar Press for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This book is a real breath of fresh air to the fantasy genre. It took that typical fantasy world building, added adventure tale, and really found a way to spice it up with a feisty group of heroes who don't immediately see eye to eye. These people all come from totally different walks of life and have to learn to overcome their built in discriminations to work as a team. Underneath this surprisingly smile worthy story is a highly current story about the importance of seeing people for who they truly are.
Thank you to NineStar Press for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This book is a real breath of fresh air to the fantasy genre. It took that typical fantasy world building, added adventure tale, and really found a way to spice it up with a feisty group of heroes who don't immediately see eye to eye. These people all come from totally different walks of life and have to learn to overcome their built in discriminations to work as a team. Underneath this surprisingly smile worthy story is a highly current story about the importance of seeing people for who they truly are.
phifalling's review against another edition
2.0
This book was June's Sapphic Book Club read by @sapphicliterature.
So, firstly, I liked the writing style of this. It had a good balance of "easy to read quickly and comprehend" while not feeling too juvenile and pulling me out of the book much. The characters are mostly compelling, the main plot and its various threads and mysteries are interesting, and I really loved the theme of redemption and forgiveness and moving past our sins, no matter how atrocious. Overall, I really enjoyed this book... which raises the question of why I only gave it 2 stars.
The more mundane issue the book has is lore- specifically, it has a lot of it that goes completely unexplained, and while this story already has lots of lore explanations to serve the main plot, the actual setting and society and how it influences the characters feels sort of unfinished. Like you can tell reading it that the author probably has a deep intricate idea of all the races and their history and relationship to each other, but it's not really on the page. You know the trope where the characters explain commonplace knowledge in their world because the audience doesn't actually know it? This book is what happens when you write like people who actually just take those things for granted and as realistic as it is it's also frustrating.
This is specifically an issue with the real big problem I have with the book, which is the Fantasy Racism. Now, fantasy racism is iffy to begin with, but I will point out this isn't just elves and humans with some parallels to irl racism done poorly. Oh no, this is human races (in a world where non sentient humans are also a thing), one of which is light skinned and the other of which is dark skinned... and the dark skinned race is discriminated against by the pale race (the main character is a literal slave like this could not be more blatent). And I genuinely believe the author meant to make this a proper portrayal with how racism is bad and even when it's normalized the supposed reasons aren't actually right, but they sort of... don't do that. There's one conversation where a character mentions that the pale people stole the land from the darker people and the white blonde princess disputes that, saying they "won it fairly in a war"?! But the conversation is interrupted after this and they never mention this again. Also it's another pale person bringing this up, and none of the characters of color ever complain about or hold the white people accountable for the racism (the romance is between the previously mentioned slave, and the white princess who once had her whipped when they were both children, and this is only brought up in terms of the former slave worrying the princess will hate her, and the princess feeling sad when she finally remembers the horrible thing she did). For most of the book the races are referred to as being enemies, and the obvious oppressor/oppressed dynamic is never labeled or examined in any meaningful way. We get the sense we're missing either a piece of lore or history that "explains" the racism through some past misdeed on part of the oppressed group (this is problematic enough when done to justify racism against green skin, but in this context would be horrifying) or a lot of character development for the princess actually coming to terms with how wrong and harmful the society she was raised in is. At the end her and her lover plan to go together to rebuild the kingdom in which her lover was formerly a slave, and they both seem happy with this so you assume they must have talked about what changes they'll make to it, but we as the reader... never see any of this. Honestly I was originally going to give this book 3 stars because of how much I enjoyed the plot but actually thinking through the entirety of the race issues to write this review has made me drop it to 2.
shereadstales's review against another edition
3.0
Shoutout to Netgalley and Ninestar Press for the early review copy. I am getting this review up just in time for its publication on Monday, so keep your eyes peeled for this release.
First off, can we take a moment to appreciate that beautiful cover? Those colors are stunning!
Rasha knows she is sometimes possessed by the moon goodess, but she doesn’t know why. All she wants to do is to save her brother, who is possessed by the sun god. She’ll have to team up with a princess with whom she has a past, two young thieves, and a man she wronged in the past, also a lizard like creature whose people fight for the other side to beat the deities and rescue her brother.
It took me a bit to get into the story, but once I got the lay of the land, I feel in love with this band of misfits. It’s a classic quest tale with some good queer representation. The romance is sweet and age-appropriate. I also appreciated that it wasn’t the main focus of the story, but rather develops pretty naturally over the course of their journey, an enemies to love interests thing. There’s magic, which is always a good thing, and there’s some pretty cool lore/mythology along the way.
First off, can we take a moment to appreciate that beautiful cover? Those colors are stunning!
Rasha knows she is sometimes possessed by the moon goodess, but she doesn’t know why. All she wants to do is to save her brother, who is possessed by the sun god. She’ll have to team up with a princess with whom she has a past, two young thieves, and a man she wronged in the past, also a lizard like creature whose people fight for the other side to beat the deities and rescue her brother.
It took me a bit to get into the story, but once I got the lay of the land, I feel in love with this band of misfits. It’s a classic quest tale with some good queer representation. The romance is sweet and age-appropriate. I also appreciated that it wasn’t the main focus of the story, but rather develops pretty naturally over the course of their journey, an enemies to love interests thing. There’s magic, which is always a good thing, and there’s some pretty cool lore/mythology along the way.
iceprime5's review
5.0
I really enjoyed this book, but think a few things could have been improved. The world is amazing and I loved the mythology. I cared about most of the characters and wanted them to succeed, even if it seemed impossible.
Rasha has the most defined arc and she was my favorite from the beginning. She tries to end her life then discovers her twin brother is alive when she believed her entire family had died in an accident as they fled their home. Princess Adriana is woken in the middle of the night and told to flee because the castle is being attacked. When they run into each other, it turns out they have the same goal: get to Solaris and free their family members.
There are a few issues I believe could have been addressed better (or cut). I think the worldbuilding could have been improved by including an overview of the world. You meet a reptilian species early on, but there's no mention of other types of races so it seems like there are just humans and these reptiles. Later on you meet different species. It is a lot to include in one book and I would have loved if this was a duology to allow more information about the world and characters.
There are very minor spoilers ahead, most are revealed in the first 25 pages of the book.
First, there are several characters (pale skinned people) who hate the Numenarkan (dark skinned people) and this hate isn't really ever explained. There was a war but I'm not sure that fully explains the hate. The King especially hates them and I feel like this should have been excluded or explained. There are several mentions of this since Rasha is Numenarkan and Adriana, the king’s daughter, is not. Adriana didn't seem to inherit this hate (she's wary of Rasha at first but quickly trusts her). I feel like this hate between the two races could have been cut or explained in more detail instead of just popping up.
Second, it's stated the King and Queen both have magic. You learn about the Queen's magic but there is no explanation about the King's magic (what it was, how he had it, etc.) All magic was supposed to have disappeared so it's unclear how these two lines still had magic (until the end when you find out about the Queen's magic). I guess one could assume the magic existed in the bloodlines even if people couldn’t use/detect it, but I would have liked more information on what his magic was and how that affected Adriana, since she was told she has powerful magic on both sides of the family. Another character in Rasha and Adriana's party has magic, but again, how he got the magic isn't explained. I would have loved for this to be expanded upon (he uses a spell to activate his magic, which is different from the kind Adriana inherited).
Overall, I enjoyed reading this book and would love to read a sequel to see where life takes Rasha and Adriana after all they’ve learned and experienced.
Rasha has the most defined arc and she was my favorite from the beginning. She tries to end her life then discovers her twin brother is alive when she believed her entire family had died in an accident as they fled their home. Princess Adriana is woken in the middle of the night and told to flee because the castle is being attacked. When they run into each other, it turns out they have the same goal: get to Solaris and free their family members.
There are a few issues I believe could have been addressed better (or cut). I think the worldbuilding could have been improved by including an overview of the world. You meet a reptilian species early on, but there's no mention of other types of races so it seems like there are just humans and these reptiles. Later on you meet different species. It is a lot to include in one book and I would have loved if this was a duology to allow more information about the world and characters.
There are very minor spoilers ahead, most are revealed in the first 25 pages of the book.
First, there are several characters (pale skinned people) who hate the Numenarkan (dark skinned people) and this hate isn't really ever explained. There was a war but I'm not sure that fully explains the hate. The King especially hates them and I feel like this should have been excluded or explained. There are several mentions of this since Rasha is Numenarkan and Adriana, the king’s daughter, is not. Adriana didn't seem to inherit this hate (she's wary of Rasha at first but quickly trusts her). I feel like this hate between the two races could have been cut or explained in more detail instead of just popping up.
Second, it's stated the King and Queen both have magic. You learn about the Queen's magic but there is no explanation about the King's magic (what it was, how he had it, etc.) All magic was supposed to have disappeared so it's unclear how these two lines still had magic (until the end when you find out about the Queen's magic). I guess one could assume the magic existed in the bloodlines even if people couldn’t use/detect it, but I would have liked more information on what his magic was and how that affected Adriana, since she was told she has powerful magic on both sides of the family. Another character in Rasha and Adriana's party has magic, but again, how he got the magic isn't explained. I would have loved for this to be expanded upon (he uses a spell to activate his magic, which is different from the kind Adriana inherited).
Overall, I enjoyed reading this book and would love to read a sequel to see where life takes Rasha and Adriana after all they’ve learned and experienced.
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