Mini ARCs Reviews

Hello world! How are you? My cold is keeping me company, and I am not so happy about it! I’ve just got out of the last one and now here I am with a new one. Why???!! Anyway! I have some long overdue reviews to write, and since I am in with Wyrd and Wonder this month, I decided to write down some of the fantasy ones! Two birds with one stone, right?

Thanks to NetGalley and to the editor. I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Title: Halayda
Author: Sarah Delena White
Series: Star-Fae Trilogy #1
Publication Date: March 23, 2017
Page count:438
A mortal alchemist. A faerie king. A bond that transcends death.

Betrayed by a trusted mentor, Sylvie Imanthiya hides on the fringes of society, caring for half-fae orphans and trading her alchemical creations on the black market. She lives for the one night each season when she can see her dearest friend—a man whose destiny is far above hers.

King Taylan Ashkalabek knows better than to exchange halayda vows with a mortal. Even their friendship is a risk; love is an impossible dream. Then a brutal alchemical attack poisons his realm, unearthing a dark power within him—and leaving Sylvie with the ancient mark of Faerie’s savior.

Manifesting unpredictable abilities and aided by allies with their own secrets, Sylvie and Taylan journey into the wilds of Faerie to heal the damage and confront Casimir, an invincible star-fae determined to claim the realm as his own. But only their enemy knows Sylvie’s true capabilities—and Taylan’s weaknesses—and how to use them in his vicious schemes.

Her fate is life. His fate is death. With Faerie in the balance, Sylvie and Taylan must stand together before reality as they know it is destroyed.

I had waited a lot to write the review for this book, and for the next one, too, because I liked it and I enjoyed the reading, but I didn’t fall in love with them and I didn’t find something really peculiar to say about it. I’ve read it this summer and I was hoping for a good idea, but nothing came up and in the end and now I am here to write the few things that I have to say.

It wasn’t a bad reading, and it has a lot of good things in it: the world building is quite interesting and original, for example, and I loved the mix between the fae mythology and the alchemy. It’s original and I may be a sucker for alchemy, too. It’s a world full of wonder and of magic, and the author did a great job with it.
The story is fast-paced and it’s full of things, you don’t get bored, that’s for sure. But I wasn’t so enthralled by it. It wasn’t bad and it wasn’t boring, yes, but it was lacking in something. Or maybe the fault is with the characters. To me, the weak point of this book is about the characters. I didn’t empathize with them, sadly, and I found a lot more interesting the side characters than the main ones.
Sylvie is a nice girl, and she has a really big heart, and King Taylan was an interesting character with some depths, but… I found them plain. I liked more the “side-kick” but they weren’t so well developed, even if we learn some interesting things about all of them, that really helps us to see them as persons and not just as wallflowers.

All in all, I enjoyed the reading, but I was expecting something more and I won’t go on with the series.

Title: Magpie’s Song
Author: Allison Pang
Series: IronHeart Chronicles #1
Publication date: August 8th, 2017
Pages count:241

In the slums of BrightStone, Moon Children are worth less than the scrap they must collect to survive. It doesn’t matter that these abandoned half-breeds are part-Meridian with their ancestors hailing from the technologically advanced city that floats above the once-thriving, now plague-ridden BrightStone. Instead they are rejected by both their ancestral societies and forced to live on the outskirts of civilization, joining clans simply to survive. Not to mention their role as Tithe, leading the city’s infected citizens deep into the Pits where their disease can be controlled.

Nineteen-year-old Raggy Maggy is no different, despite the mysterious heart-shaped panel that covers her chest. Or at least she wasn’t… Not until her chance discovery of a Meridian-built clockwork dragon—and its murdered owner. When the Inquestors policing the city find Maggy at the scene of the crime, she quickly turns into their prime suspect. Now she’s all anyone can talk about. Even her clan leader turns his back on her, leading her to rely on an exiled doctor and a clanless Moon Child named Ghost to keep her hidden. In return, all she has to do is help them find a cure for the plague they believe was not exactly accidental. Yet doing so might mean risking more than just her life. It also might be the only key to uncovering the truth about the parents—and the past—she knows nothing about.

More or less my thoughts about this one are the same that I wrote for the previous one. I loved the world building, that is really well done and I loved the concept of this novel. I think the author could do really good with the next books.
And I am thinking about going on with this series, even if I am not a huge fan of this first book. The characters were not bad, and I think that they’re more developed than the characters of Halayda, even if in this one the secondary ones aren’t so intriguing.
Anyway, I had fewer problems to empathize with them and I found the story more captivating. So… I am not in love with this book, and I don’t think that I would fall in love with the sequels, but I think they may surprise me, so it’s possible that I’ll try the second one.

Sadly, it could have been better, but it’s not the worst book ever. I’m not so happy about it, but I am curious to see what the author could do.

and half!
And that’s all for today! Did you read these books? Or are you planning to read them? Let me know!
Happy reading!
S.