After a slow start, this book slyly drew me in and finally spit me out on my arse.
The story is so richly detailed I am feeling very greedy for more.
I did find a few errors amongst the pages, but nothing of consequence.

This is the exact depth of a story I have been looking for, this is a true fantasy, no smut, no romance, just pure action, adventure, mystery and beautiful characters that come to life with each progressive arc.

Filled to the brim with magic and manipulation, I am pleased to say, I have not read anything like this for a long time. While other books cling to the merest trickle of these topics, never fully unleashing the potential. Just skimming the surface of a plotline then deviating off course. This book defied that easy path and forged an utterly enthralling adventure.

Now I wouldn't say, I don't love that barely there plot alot of books have, because I very much do. The Moon Tear, however, gave me Hobbit/Lord of the Rings vibes with the sheer intensity of the plot. I was rooting for the characters, each in their own way a mixture of all things that make me crave more.

The book while it's written in 3rd person, didn't give me the usual info dumping that tends to arise in others. Instead, the magic of the words, the highly detailed journey that all have taken. Felt guided by the hand of fate.

I honestly don't know what is to come in this beautiful story, but I actually can't wait to read more.

I have lots of questions, but I shall save them for the next works Royce brings forth, perhaps they shall be answered then. Perhaps not.

If you love heavy, war oriented, elvish stories, with demons and darkness, then I thoroughly recommend giving this book a read.
Plenty of magic, portal jumping, villains and special dragons. It's truly a breath of fresh air. For me, atleast.

There is a lot of death, and destruction in these pages, so if you're not keen on that, move on I guess.

4 shiny stars for this beaut.

I look forward to finding out what happens to our MCs. I am still miffed at the cliffhanger ending, but atleast it wasn't a pivotal moment as compared to others in the book that the author could have cut us off at.
I am thankful for that.
If it'd ended at any other moment, I'd have flung my kindle at the wall.

So bring it on Royce, I'm deep in it and I feel like I'm slipping into the cracks of Midriel while I wonder what you will bring us next. You've gained my trust so far, now drive it home.

Thank you netgalley and the publisher for giving me an arc of this book! Although I found the world building initially very intriguing and was very excited to see where this story would go, the pacing was very slow and it made the story drag

As a long-time lover of young adult fantasy, The Moon Tear absolutely hit the mark for me. From the very first chapter, M.E. Royce pulls you into a beautifully woven world where danger lurks in every shadow and magic is both feared and forbidden. Eyolin, our protagonist, is the kind of character I instantly connected with—fiercely independent, wounded by loss, and brimming with untapped power.

The writing is lush and lyrical without ever slowing the pace. Royce has a talent for building an immersive world; the elvish city of Mainwood felt alive, from its towering trees to its underbelly of secrets and silent dangers. What I especially appreciated was the balance between the larger fantasy elements and Eyolin’s personal journey—her struggle with identity, memory, and magic felt intimate and real.

The plot kept me engaged, the character dynamics were layered and evolving, and there’s a quiet intensity in every scene that makes it hard to put down. The Moon Tear is one of those rare debut novels that feels fully formed and confidently written. I am already impatient for the sequel.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I was so intrigued by the premise, but I struggled and was confused a lot of the time. Could be really great with some polishing.

I want to start by mentioning that I absolutely enjoyed the world-building, but somehow, I still was confused about most of the ongoing events in the book. The protagonist was, well, generic in a way all fantasy FMCS are, but that is not to say she wasn't enjoyable. Quite the opposite really. Anyhow, it was a solid 3.7/5 read for me.

The premise of this book was really good, and the world and magic system is very complex. However, the world building felt incomplete, and I was very confused about what was going on way too often.

As described, the book is very lore heavy, like LOTR, and I don't find this type of books often enough, but the fact that it was written in such a way that it was hard to follow made me lose interest after a few pages, so I needed to take many breaks in order to finish it.

In conclusion, the idea of this book is great, but it feels unpolished

Currently catching up on reviewing my arcs so I will give a more detailed review in the future!

This book was very lore heavy, which isn't a bad thing! The magic system was really interesting and the world really felt worth learning about

One of my few favorite arcs read of the year.
Was not too wordy for the length of the book. Perfect amount of fantasy for my reading type.

I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

Firstly as always thank you for the eARC.

I really wanted to love this book. I was intrigued by the idea and the magic system but unfortunately the book feel flat for me and I didn’t end up enjoying it as much as I anticipated. I didn’t hate it but didn’t love it, felt very middle ground for me.

The Moon Tear has interesting premise and blurb, insanely beautiful cover, and an intriguing title, but it feels like I missed an entire prequel book while reading this. Oftentimes things confused me, and I spent time guessing whether this particular word is a name, a term, or another magical race. And figuring out what is what or which is which unfortunately hinders me from understanding and enjoying the real story. I came across beautiful sentences, and I knew where the stakes go higher, so it's a bummer that I couldn't feel what the characters feel here, couldn't follow their footsteps and language.

Maybe I can enter the fantastic realm of Alagana in some other time, when I'm in the much better headspace to take all the conlang and worldbuilding in or if there's a practical guide to Alagana realm.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this book.

The Moon Tear is an enjoyable YA fantasy filled with magic, elves and gods.

The world building feels very familiar, if a little basic at times. I really liked the magic system and the main character, Eyolin. I did struggle to connect to any of the characters beyond the main FMC, as the wider cast of characters had limited time and development, even with the inclusion of Kipp’s POV. It made them all feel quite one-dimensional and limited the impact of the emotionally charged scenes.

The pacing was also slightly off and I wish the action/fighting sequence at the end could have been longer; having it end so abruptly felt like a strange choice.

Overall, I still found this book entertaining but didn’t quite reach its full potential. I am still interested enough to continue with the series and would recommend it to lovers of YA fantasy.

The potential of this book and its premise is immense but the storytelling left me confused.
I had to read the book from the beginning 3 times everytime I got around 3-5 chapter to understand what was happening and it still didn't help.
The world and magic very unique and despite drawing from LOTR has its own distinct tinge. I enjoyed reading about the characters and their internal struggles but I needed more world-building in more detail.
The pace it took up mid-way through the book had me thinking that this is a standalone, and I do enjoy fast-paced standalones.
The violence and segregation against the races, mostly human but elves too, was jarring and sufficiently gory.
I really wanted to like the book but it just left me dazed.

I really enjoyed this. The magic system was interesting, the world building was great, I loved the characters especially the main characters and I'm looking forward to the other books!

i had hope for this, i mean it has promise, but unfortunately this fell flat overall.
the character was intriguing and a cool character to follow.
the worldbuilding was never ending, the descriptions of the world and magic were really cool but sadly the never ending descriptions didn't properly explain the story to me. so many times we'd been in a scene in one location with a new character then quickly shot into a completely different scene with another new character but i didn't know anyone and was lost with the in between, having little time to process. i couldn't picture anything and found myself confused pretty early on. this might've been a case of the author knowing their world incredibly well but explaining it to a fresh audience has proven more difficult.
i was intrigued for this story from the prologue but ended up slogging my way through this. also, might be a my netgalley app issue but sometimes the formatting was near unreadable that it made the experience itself annoying and off putting but i don't blame the author for this, but it has impacted my experience.

First off, thank you very much for this eARC.
I must unfortunately admit that I DNFed, as it was hard to get into, and the worldbuilding was meh, and all in all, it did not manage to keep me interested enough, or make me care.

Firstly thank you so much to Netgalley for providing me with this eARC!

I just want to start off this review by saying I really really wanted to enjoy this book. The synopsis is absolutely fantastic and ticked all the requirements that I want for a fantasy book. That being said, I found myself confused, frustrated, lost and unmotivated with reading this one.

The main character Eyolin is your standard main character in a fantasy novel. She’s cool, inspiring, powerful and likeable. But she just wasn’t enough of a positive for me to enjoy this book.

The main issue for me was the lore dump. The world and politics and magic system are awesome but there’s an abundance of info dumping during this book that leaves you confused. A lot. I found myself lost quite early on in the book and I had to reread certain bits which, even afterwards, I was still confused.

I found this really disappointing because the author has put so much time into creating this world but the way the story was written left me feeling like I was just not getting it.

I pushed through in the hope that I would understand it but I really didn’t. Which left me feeling frustrated at myself because I really wanted to get it

I may try to reread it in the future to see if it’s just my brain not getting it at the time of reading it. It’s a shame because as I said, the book overall is very much high fantasy and has everything you would want in this genre of book. It’s just the execution

I had a bit of trouble getting into the book at the beginning because it started rather ‘sluggishly’ and because of the worldbuilding. As a result, it took me a while to get used to the characters.

But once I really got into the book, I really enjoyed it. I think it still has more potential, but as it's only the first volume of a trilogy, I'll definitely get the second volume as soon as it's available.

eARC copy provded by NetGalley

I wanted to like to this, I really wanted to like this book. The description of the book, the characters, even the world seemed like it was going to be a fun read. However, the way information is presented in the book made the whole thing hard to follow. There were multiple times where I wasn't sure what was happening plotwise and had to reread various sections just to follow everything.

While I wanted this to be an easy read, it certainly was not.

I tried to like this but it was honestly so convoluted and just a bit too much. The characters were different shades of meh and the constant flashbacks and references to the past got annoying quick. Honestly, I skimmed my way to the end.