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A review by slc333
Heirs of Empire by Evan Currie
3.0
I received a copy of this from the publisher via Netgalley in return for an honest review. Unfortunately the copy I received was so riddled with formatting issues I was unable to complete it which is a crying shame because the little bit i was able to read seemed pretty darn good. I will definitely be looking out for a copy of this that doesn't suffer from editing and formatting issues.
**************UPDATED******************
As stated I started a review copy but was unable to read it due to a multitude of formatting issues so I was pleased to finally get my hands on a readable copy. And due to a recent spate of average, cliché books that I have struggled to finish this one stood out for its ability to grab and keep my attention. That is not to say it is without fault just that the story - while fairly standard with military coup, politics, lost heirs, reluctant ex-military hero and battles for the throne – was interesting and action packed. Now onto to our characters. There was no-one I hated, not even our villain Corian. Because he is a good villain – good in the sense that he is a bad guy without being caricature. He does some pretty bad stuff but he thinks he is in the right. I particularly like heir to the throne Lydia and felt she was the character I got the best understanding of. Mira was interesting and I liked what we saw of her. The problem is we don’t really get to know her that well. And that brings me to one of the problems I had – there was too much going on and too many character viewpoints. Yes these gave us a comprehensive view of the conflict from all different perspectives (including people who die in the same scene we meet them in) but it reduces the time spent with any one character to the point that I never really felt like I got on know any of them. I enjoy more than one POV but I prefer to at least have one main protagonist that I can follow through the majority of the story. In this case, from both the synopsis and the prologue I was expecting that person to be Mira and I would have been happy with that. However, it wasn’t really anyone. For those that got more than one scene from their POV we had Mira, William, Lydia, Bren, Corian and Kayle then we had a bunch of random individual POVs. The other issue I had was that I found myself quite confused by the world building and didn’t feel that it was explained very well. BUT that could have just been me as I was tired and unwell when reading it and I often struggle to get my head around this kind of stuff. I really liked the connection between the Cadre and the Armatis and I definitely would have liked more on that.
**************UPDATED******************
As stated I started a review copy but was unable to read it due to a multitude of formatting issues so I was pleased to finally get my hands on a readable copy. And due to a recent spate of average, cliché books that I have struggled to finish this one stood out for its ability to grab and keep my attention. That is not to say it is without fault just that the story - while fairly standard with military coup, politics, lost heirs, reluctant ex-military hero and battles for the throne – was interesting and action packed. Now onto to our characters. There was no-one I hated, not even our villain Corian. Because he is a good villain – good in the sense that he is a bad guy without being caricature. He does some pretty bad stuff but he thinks he is in the right. I particularly like heir to the throne Lydia and felt she was the character I got the best understanding of. Mira was interesting and I liked what we saw of her. The problem is we don’t really get to know her that well. And that brings me to one of the problems I had – there was too much going on and too many character viewpoints. Yes these gave us a comprehensive view of the conflict from all different perspectives (including people who die in the same scene we meet them in) but it reduces the time spent with any one character to the point that I never really felt like I got on know any of them. I enjoy more than one POV but I prefer to at least have one main protagonist that I can follow through the majority of the story. In this case, from both the synopsis and the prologue I was expecting that person to be Mira and I would have been happy with that. However, it wasn’t really anyone. For those that got more than one scene from their POV we had Mira, William, Lydia, Bren, Corian and Kayle then we had a bunch of random individual POVs. The other issue I had was that I found myself quite confused by the world building and didn’t feel that it was explained very well. BUT that could have just been me as I was tired and unwell when reading it and I often struggle to get my head around this kind of stuff. I really liked the connection between the Cadre and the Armatis and I definitely would have liked more on that.