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sleepyboi2988 's review for:
Empire of Jackals
by Morgan Cole
I received a free review copy of Empire of Jackals from Book Sirens in exchange for a fair and honest review - my sincerest thanks to both the author and the publisher. :)
Upon receiving this ARC I obtained the first so I could give this one a fair shake. I rated the first at 3 stars and was cautiously optimistic about this title hoping that with the rags to glory plot line out of the way this title would open up more in exploring the world itself, the various mythological creatures mentioned, and so on.
Sadly this is a step backwards for me. Cole had some serious strengths in the first book. The character development, the mixing of Greek and Eastern mythologies, the talent for writing heart pounding battle scenes, and presenting military strategy in an accurate way.
This book was much more on the political intrigue side, the kingdom is at peace but the dear Emperor shuffles off the mortal coil leaving his succession in disarray and a convenient setting for this book for our heroine to occupy her time with. So already we've lost on the major strengths in the first book.
The main character's development was still good it was nice to see things from Annuweth's point of view. To my chagrin the newer characters introduced all felt a bit hand wringing in their mannerisms.
Speaking of mannerisms an old loathing has yet again made it back into this book. In the first book I searched and counted 40 counts of someone biting or chewing their own lip. Right off the bat a few pages into this book someone does it again. I thought "Oh no here we go again." So I searched lips yet again and while less thankfully biting/chewing one's own lips comes up no less than 22 times. This is not counting all the pursing, curling etc. Cole relies just WAY too much on this mannerism in the writing. It's annoying and having just exited a book where I was already done with it and finding it at the beginning of this book just soured my tastes immediately.
I do not see myself continuing this series. It's a shame Cole has some real strengths and some major weaknesses in the writing. I wish Cole would have stuck to more of the strengths this outing and had an editor that would have realized the lazy pattern of lip biting and tell the author "Stop it."
Upon receiving this ARC I obtained the first so I could give this one a fair shake. I rated the first at 3 stars and was cautiously optimistic about this title hoping that with the rags to glory plot line out of the way this title would open up more in exploring the world itself, the various mythological creatures mentioned, and so on.
Sadly this is a step backwards for me. Cole had some serious strengths in the first book. The character development, the mixing of Greek and Eastern mythologies, the talent for writing heart pounding battle scenes, and presenting military strategy in an accurate way.
This book was much more on the political intrigue side, the kingdom is at peace but the dear Emperor shuffles off the mortal coil leaving his succession in disarray and a convenient setting for this book for our heroine to occupy her time with. So already we've lost on the major strengths in the first book.
The main character's development was still good it was nice to see things from Annuweth's point of view. To my chagrin the newer characters introduced all felt a bit hand wringing in their mannerisms.
Speaking of mannerisms an old loathing has yet again made it back into this book. In the first book I searched and counted 40 counts of someone biting or chewing their own lip. Right off the bat a few pages into this book someone does it again. I thought "Oh no here we go again." So I searched lips yet again and while less thankfully biting/chewing one's own lips comes up no less than 22 times. This is not counting all the pursing, curling etc. Cole relies just WAY too much on this mannerism in the writing. It's annoying and having just exited a book where I was already done with it and finding it at the beginning of this book just soured my tastes immediately.
I do not see myself continuing this series. It's a shame Cole has some real strengths and some major weaknesses in the writing. I wish Cole would have stuck to more of the strengths this outing and had an editor that would have realized the lazy pattern of lip biting and tell the author "Stop it."