Hey there guys!
Today I'm once again extremely pleased to be part of the Blog Tour for another Kat Ross book, this time is for The Midnight Sea, a fantasy with some historical touches, hosted & organized by the lovely Giselle from Xpresso Book Tours!
Today I will be sharing my review with you all, as well as sharing a giveaway at the end of the post, so stay tuned for that! But first, let me give you a lil bit of info about the book and the author!
(Fourth Element #1)
Publication date: May 10th 2016
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
The steel against the necromancy of the Druj.
And they use demons to hunt demons….
Nazafareen lives for revenge. A girl of the isolated Four-Legs Clan, all she knows about the King’s elite Water Dogs is that they bind wicked creatures called daevas to protect the empire from the Undead. But when scouts arrive to recruit young people with the gift, she leaps at the chance to join their ranks. To hunt the monsters that killed her sister.
Scarred by grief, she’s willing to pay any price, even if it requires linking with a daeva named Darius. Human in body, he’s possessed of a terrifying power, one that Nazafareen controls. But the golden cuffs that join them have an unwanted side effect. Each experiences the other’s emotions, and human and daeva start to grow dangerously close.
As they pursue a deadly foe across the arid waste of the Great Salt Plain to the glittering capital of Persepolae, unearthing the secrets of Darius’s past along the way, Nazafareen is forced to question his slavery—and her own loyalty to the empire. But with an ancient evil stirring in the north, and a young conqueror sweeping in from the west, the fate of an entire civilization may be at stake…
Kat Ross worked as a journalist at the United Nations for ten years before happily falling back into what she likes best: making stuff up. She lives in Westchester with her kid and a few sleepy cats. Kat is also the author of the dystopian thriller Some Fine Day (Skyscape, 2014), about a world where the sea levels have risen sixty meters. She loves magic, monsters and doomsday scenarios. Preferably with mutants.
REVIEW
I was pretty sure I would enjoy The Midnight Sea because I had really
enjoyed Kat's take on the dystopia genre when I was already feeling a
lil burnt out of it. So seeing that she was tackling fantasy, being one
of my fave genres, and that was mixing it with historical fiction? I was
really excited to get my hands on it!
The Midnight Sea is set during the height of the Persian Empire but it's not exactly alternative history, it's more on the side of taking a few bits here and there for setting but mostly taking its own road to show us how lies can be built up on for control and how in that need for control an entire race of people or supernaturals can be demonized and made less to justify that control.
Nazafareen lives with her tribe in the mountains until everything changes when her sister dies and she decides to leave with those recruiting for the King's army against the Druj, the demons that took away her sister.
I had a few issues at the beginning of the book, because when Nazafareen joins the Water Dogs army, time passes in leaps and bounds and the progression felt a lil choppy, at least for the first quarter of the book. I understand that nothing much probably passed on that time other than some training, but seemed like some of the relationships weren't as well built up from the beginning as others. That is the reason I'm not giving this one 5 stars, because although it never bothered me enough to want to give up on the book, it did feel a lil choppy.
But, once Tijah was introduced as an ally and not as a rival, and once Darius entered the story, putting Nazafareen's training into perspective and bringing some real conflict when she has to confront her own daeva and see if what she thought applies to him now being a real being and not just a hypotetical entity. Wondering if the inherent evil of a "race" is real or not always starts with an individual, and that's very well depicted here.
We get more than a few surprises, characters that we thought were good guys end up being anything but an ally, those that we thought were bad guys or evil might not really be that, and truths accepted for many years end up crumbling to dust and leaving Nazafareen unsure of who to trust or what path to follow, until she decides to face the truths, both within and without!
I loved the little historical nuggets here and there, even with names changed, some geography was easy enough to figure out and I'm so very excited to see where the series will take us next! We're left with quite a few revelations to digest, two quests that will start in the next book and meeting an intriguing and very dangerous enemy! Simply cannot wait!
Very well deserved 4 stars for this one! Highly recommended if you like your fantasy with both magic and a lil bit of historical references!
The Midnight Sea is set during the height of the Persian Empire but it's not exactly alternative history, it's more on the side of taking a few bits here and there for setting but mostly taking its own road to show us how lies can be built up on for control and how in that need for control an entire race of people or supernaturals can be demonized and made less to justify that control.
Nazafareen lives with her tribe in the mountains until everything changes when her sister dies and she decides to leave with those recruiting for the King's army against the Druj, the demons that took away her sister.
I had a few issues at the beginning of the book, because when Nazafareen joins the Water Dogs army, time passes in leaps and bounds and the progression felt a lil choppy, at least for the first quarter of the book. I understand that nothing much probably passed on that time other than some training, but seemed like some of the relationships weren't as well built up from the beginning as others. That is the reason I'm not giving this one 5 stars, because although it never bothered me enough to want to give up on the book, it did feel a lil choppy.
But, once Tijah was introduced as an ally and not as a rival, and once Darius entered the story, putting Nazafareen's training into perspective and bringing some real conflict when she has to confront her own daeva and see if what she thought applies to him now being a real being and not just a hypotetical entity. Wondering if the inherent evil of a "race" is real or not always starts with an individual, and that's very well depicted here.
We get more than a few surprises, characters that we thought were good guys end up being anything but an ally, those that we thought were bad guys or evil might not really be that, and truths accepted for many years end up crumbling to dust and leaving Nazafareen unsure of who to trust or what path to follow, until she decides to face the truths, both within and without!
I loved the little historical nuggets here and there, even with names changed, some geography was easy enough to figure out and I'm so very excited to see where the series will take us next! We're left with quite a few revelations to digest, two quests that will start in the next book and meeting an intriguing and very dangerous enemy! Simply cannot wait!
Very well deserved 4 stars for this one! Highly recommended if you like your fantasy with both magic and a lil bit of historical references!
GIVEAWAY
You can follow the rest of the blog tour HERE!
Great review, Pili! This sounds like a fun read overall and I love it when there are well crafted, unexpected twists scattered in a story! Glad you liked it! :)
ReplyDeleteYep, I love when the twists do surprise you but are well built into the story and not just there for shock value!
Deletethanks so much, Pili! your reviews are always so thoughtful and smart (:
ReplyDeletewriting the end of book two now, woot!
Oh my goodness!! BOOK TWO IS DONE?? GIMME!! =D I'm so excited to continue this series, Kat!
DeleteOh yay! I love when a book that starts out a little tricky gets sorted out and finishes strong! You know YA fantasy is my go-to genre Pili, so I'm really looking forward to this one. Thanks for the recommendation!!!
ReplyDeleteOh, you should check this one Jenny, it's a great mix of historical bits with fantasy!
DeleteSounds like a great read, hope I'll have a chance to read it soon!
ReplyDeleteGah, I like that cover :D But probably not a book for me, lol. But yeah. That cover is awesome :) And you do make the book sound pretty exciting. <3 Hugs. So glad you liked it a lot Pili :) Gorgeous review. <3
ReplyDeleteThe cover is a stunner!
DeleteI loooooooooooooove this book's cover. Like, holy guacamole, it's so awesome. I'm so happy you enjoyed this book, Pili! It feels like an added bonus when you love a book AND the cover is really great. ;)
ReplyDeleteAlyssa @ The Eater of Books!
Yep, it was absolutely cover lust! But then the book ended up being pretty good too!
DeleteFab review, the story sounds exciting, and I do love that cover! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you! The cover is gorgeous indeed!
DeleteThe cover of this book is stunning! I want to read it for the cover alone, but the story seems awesome as well. Great review, Pili!
ReplyDeleteThank you Lis! Cover lust is real with this one!
Delete