Happy Monday everyone! Today, I'm sharing three ARC mini reviews - The Quarter Storm (Mambo Reina #1) by Veronica Henry (released March1st, 2022), Scorpica (The Five Queendoms #1) by G.R. Macallister (released February 22nd, 2021), and You Sexy Thing by Cat Rambo (released November 16th, 2021). I received these ARCs in exchange for an honest honest review from Wunderkind PR. Read on to see my thoughts:
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The Quarter Storm (Mambo Reina #1) by Veronica Henry is a decent urban fantasy mystery series opener. It didn't quite hit all the right notes for me but for the most part it was an engaging read. My favorite aspect was easily the world-building of the New Orleans itself. I felt really absorbed in the location. It almost felt like a character on its own. I didn't find myself nearly as invested in any of the cast members though. The murder mystery didn't quite stick as well either. Overall, this wasn't quite as good as I was hoping it was going to be based on the description. That said though, I may like to try more from Veronica Henry in the future.
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Scorpica (The Five Queendoms #1) by G.R. Macallister is a very ambitious epic fantasy. I liked reading it well enough, but it's a tough one to review by the end. I enjoyed the author's writing style for the most part, but the ambitious scale doesn't quite do it favors. There are times when the writing and the ambition are engaging and hooked me, but there are others where it becomes almost too broad and flat, or even thinly drawn at times especially when it came to the world-building. The cast of characters was certainly intriguing, though, so I'm very glad for that. The novel is nearly 450 pages and maybe it could benefit from being pared back a little bit. All that said, I'm definitely interested in going further with this series in the future.
❋ ❋ ❋You Sexy Thing by Cat Rambo is described as being a space opera combination of Farscape meets The Great British Bake Off. Well, I've never seen Farscape, but what I've seen of The Great British Bake Off has been delightful and I've enjoyed the space operas of Becky Chambers and others before. I'm thrilled that I had the opportunity to give this a try and now that I've finished it I can officially say it was a good romp. While it didn't stand out from the crowd as much as I would have hoped, it was still awfully delightful. Those cooking and baking scenes really took the cake! I'm going to have to read more from this author in the future.
My review is also on Goodreads.
Are you planning on reading any of these books? As always, thanks for visiting my blog and perhaps even commenting down below!
I really loved You Sexy Thing, and I believe there is a sequel coming next year😁
ReplyDeleteThat could be a lot of fun. :)
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