BOOK REVIEW: Empress Unveiled by Jenna Morland
I received a e-galley of this novel from OfTomes Publishing in exchange for an honest review.
What I liked:
When I went into this book, I admittedly judged it by the cover. I thought it would be very fluffy, very cute and, while it did have moments of lightheartedness, this story was unexpectedly action packed! I was honestly surprised by the amount of bloody fight scenes and emotional moments that these characters experience.
The author, Jenna Morland has a way of stringing a sentence together makes this world and these characters both beautiful and relatable. I found myself relating to Swayzi and Penelope on multiple occasions throughout the novel, especially during the more light hearted moments when the story focused on their relationship and their relationships with others.
I always say this, but in many YA novels the friendships and parent/child relationships often take a backseat to the main character’s love interest. Yes, this novel had a heavy emphasis on Swayzi and her two love interests, but the relationship that really stole the show for me was Swayzi’s relationship with her mother. It was so genuine and heartfelt and fun it reminded me of my relationship with my mother.
What I wanted more of:
I really wanted to learn more about Empress and Medallion. I felt as though we were given all of this information about Medallion and his movement all at once and it felt as though we barely learned about him. And don’t get me wrong, I know that this is the first book and we’ll learn more about Empress in subsequent books, but the world the author described when she wrote about Empress was beautiful and magical and I felt that the story needed a bit more.
What I didn’t like:
Now, I understand that in most fae stories there is the idea of mates and therefore there is instalove. I really didn’t enjoy the insta-love in this story, especially in the beginning when Swayzi’s relationship with Daylan was more of a like…”he’s stalking you you shouldn’t like him” sort of relationship. Not only this, but there were many parts in the story where the men in this story “agreed” to give Swayzi a say, space, or not to hold her back and then in the next scene they end up fighting over her or telling her that she can’t play a bigger role. It was very annoying, but did not take away from the overall story for me.
I have no massive complaints about this book though, it really caught my attention early on and sucked me into the story pretty fast. Honestly, I didn’t even realize that I was so close to finishing the novel until I was basically on the last chapter. I cannot wait to see where Jenna takes this story and how she builds on this foundation she’s lain.
