booktribe's Reviews (603)

War and revenge come together in the conclusion to The Burnt Empire Saga. This novel melds the two previous books together with a buildup to an action packed finale!

     First let me just say that this is the only fantasy series I have ever finished! I’m very bad at reading series. I never complete them. But I read all three of these novels back to back. This world is so captivating to delve into and I really hope we get more books in this series. Maybe a second trilogy? Fingers crossed!

     This book took a very long time for any action to start though. It was literally 70% build up through drawn out scenes and unnecessary dialogue. But the end was very entertaining! It was worth the wait. The descriptions of the battle were so vivid! That’s one of the things I love about the author’s writing, it’s so very engrossing. Once you start reading it’s hard to stop! I also loved all of the queer rep in this book!
     
     One of my problems was that there were characters that were important in the  first book that I would’ve loved to have seen in the conclusion. It doesn’t sit right with me that I have no idea what ever happened to certain characters like Geldry, Vida, or Kern. Also, I didn’t get enough Adri in this book. It’s called The Blind King’s Wrath and yet The Blind King only got three pov chapters. One more thing, I thought that the book could’ve benefited from an epilogue. I’d like to know how things are going after the dust settled.

     Although I was left with some questions at the end, I enjoyed the conclusion to my favorite series! I hope to read more by Ashok K Banker! And my fingers will stay crossed for more books set in Arthaloka!

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for this arc. My opinions are all my own.

TW: murder, graphic animal death

     Secrets. Family drama. Murder? A trip back to her hometown couldn’t have gone worse in the newest thriller by Rachel Howzell Hall. 

     This is my second book by this author. I quite enjoyed They All Fall Down, so I was very excited for her newest release. Though this one wasn’t a favorite, I still enjoyed it.

     I was intrigued from the very beginning. I love unreliable narrators and this main character is very true to that trope! Not being able to trust the main character’s memory kept the book interesting for me. Another thing that added to the story was that it kept me guessing. I had lots of changing theories throughout reading and it was fun trying to figure out what’s going on. However, one of my complaints about the book was that it took way too long to get answers to any of the questions I had. We got mystery piled on top of mystery and didn’t get any answers until the end. I at least wanted some of my smaller questions answered before the 90% mark in the book.

     My only other problem was that I thought the end was a little too easy. We only get a few pages of “confrontation” and then it’s over. I wanted a little struggle.

     But overall, I enjoyed this book and will be reading more from Rachel Howzell Hall, since I’ve enjoyed two of her books now!

Thank you Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for this arc. All opinions are my own.

TW: mentions of racism, spiders 

I have some thoughts on this book, but sadly, most of them aren’t good. Let’s get into it.

Firstly I wanna say that I really enjoyed the character work. I felt like the characters all had distinct personalities and I liked most of them! I also enjoyed the first half of the book. I was so excited to see where the story was going. But the problem came when I got 50% into the book and the story hadn’t gone anywhere. 

This book was so slow and long winded. It took the latter 40% of the book to get through what felt like one really long scene. I spent the whole book waiting for adventure and it just wasn’t very adventurous. The descriptions during this adventure were way too long. I was incredibly bored and had to skim through a lot of the end. It also felt like there were no high stakes. The author set up these subplots with every pov character and then just discarded them when they could’ve added something to the second half of the story. It was just very stagnant. There was no plot progression. It was about exactly what it said it was about with no twists or turns within the plot. (There was one twist, but it didn’t happen till the very end and by that time I was too bored to care)

It seems like this whole book was a set up for the sequel and I honestly think it could’ve been 150 pages shorter.

I enjoyed the illustration, but this book was way too convoluted. There wasn’t a time in this book that I wasn’t confused. The writing wasn’t clear and even the illustrations jumped around too much. I did really enjoy the last few pages though about African Folklore though and I enjoyed the illustration! It was just too all over the place.