★☆☆☆☆ - Needs more work

- Fantasy
- First in series
- DNF at chapter 2 (5%)

Thank you to Mona Tebyanian and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Sadly I decided to stop reading at the end of chapter 2 (5%). I found this difficult to read and did not enjoy it.

In summary, I feel this needs a lot more editing and work. It comes across as a very early draft.

The majority of the first 2 chapter are massive info dumps with not much else. The dialogue that is included doesn't feel natural, it's very formal and a bit clunky.

There were some punctuation errors, and randomly at 3% a paragraph switch to first person for a sentence.

There are some formatting issues and some pages are huge blocks of text with no breaks. I was reading on kindle but I'm sure this will be corrected.

There was no flow and it didn't feel like I was reading a story, more like someone's notes about an event.

The first 2 chapters seem really fast paced, but there was no real description of the events happening. I felt a lot happened but I hadn't learned a lot about the world or characters, and I wouldn't be able to explain to someone if asked.

This was the fastest DNF of my life. The writing was choppy and hard to read. It changed from third perspective to first in the same paragraph. The dialogue was too formal and structured while she was talking to her mom. The whole first three chapters were complete info dump. This book needs to be rewritten completely.

Definitely needs more editing, it was very information heavy, i understand the scene needs to be set, which is the trouble with fantasy books and pacing therefore it was a struggle to get immersed in the world.

DNF 2 chapters in.

It was all info dump, telling not showing. Esther has no friends, but we are told she is sweet and quiet and charming. There is no evidence of this as she literally only has one conversation in the first 20 pages and it's telling her mother that her life is utterly boring and she wants to leave. My life is too short to continue reading this book.

This was such an enjoyable fantasy! I really liked the desert atmosphere and followingEsther’s journey in discovering the truth that an ancient curse set’s her on. She is such a strong character as she faces prophesies and secrets. This book has dual-timelines, which really helps add to the story, along with vivid world building.