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A review by lostinagoodbook
The Phoenix Empress by K. Arsenault Rivera
3.0
Disclaimer: I received this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
“The Phoenix Empress, the sequel to K Arsenault Rivera’s wildly buzzed about The Tiger’s Daughter, an epic historical fantasy in the vein of Patrick Rothfuss and Naomi Novik.” – Goodreads blurb
Well, I mean… of course if you tell me that I HAVE to read it right? Unfortunately, I did not get in on the ground floor with this one, so I had to read the first book before I started number 2. The Tiger’s Daughter was excellent. Highly imaginative, beautifully written and an unapologetic queer love story for the ages. It’s so good seeing a story where a romance between two women is treated in grand fashion. Barsalai and O-Shizuka love one another their entire lives. They are fated to love one another. They are in fact gods not just love-struck girls. That doesn’t mean life is easy for them. They are dealing with a world that is quickly falling part around them. Corruption is spreading in their kingdom, turning people into horrible creatures and ravaging the land.
The first book was a slow build. The kind of book where for chapters nothing happens and then everything happens all at once. I love a book where I am counting the hours until I can go to bed and read the next chapter. Tiger was that kind of book for me. Unfortunately, I feel like Phoenix Empress suffers from a little bit of middle book syndrome. There is a great deal of setup and waiting for promises made by the author in the beginning of the book to pay off by the end. Expectations are high and not completely met. I did like seeing a more in depth treatment of the character Shizuka so as to understand more of her motivations. I’m hoping that the third book will tie everything together and make this more of an arc. I have the feeling that the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts when it comes to this series. Looking forward to the next installment.
Song for this book: 12 Kingdoms Opening
“The Phoenix Empress, the sequel to K Arsenault Rivera’s wildly buzzed about The Tiger’s Daughter, an epic historical fantasy in the vein of Patrick Rothfuss and Naomi Novik.” – Goodreads blurb
Well, I mean… of course if you tell me that I HAVE to read it right? Unfortunately, I did not get in on the ground floor with this one, so I had to read the first book before I started number 2. The Tiger’s Daughter was excellent. Highly imaginative, beautifully written and an unapologetic queer love story for the ages. It’s so good seeing a story where a romance between two women is treated in grand fashion. Barsalai and O-Shizuka love one another their entire lives. They are fated to love one another. They are in fact gods not just love-struck girls. That doesn’t mean life is easy for them. They are dealing with a world that is quickly falling part around them. Corruption is spreading in their kingdom, turning people into horrible creatures and ravaging the land.
The first book was a slow build. The kind of book where for chapters nothing happens and then everything happens all at once. I love a book where I am counting the hours until I can go to bed and read the next chapter. Tiger was that kind of book for me. Unfortunately, I feel like Phoenix Empress suffers from a little bit of middle book syndrome. There is a great deal of setup and waiting for promises made by the author in the beginning of the book to pay off by the end. Expectations are high and not completely met. I did like seeing a more in depth treatment of the character Shizuka so as to understand more of her motivations. I’m hoping that the third book will tie everything together and make this more of an arc. I have the feeling that the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts when it comes to this series. Looking forward to the next installment.
Song for this book: 12 Kingdoms Opening