Empress

This was not as bad of a book as I thought it was going to be. Or, to put it simply, as I was told it was going to be. Perhaps that is because I read the reviews to see what was going to happen and, for what it was, it was not bad. Not to say that I am clamoring to read the sequels by any means.

The main problem with this novel, as everyone basically has stated, is Hekate. Although, I found mostly all characters repulsive to the point where I wanted Hekate to have them all stung by scorpions.

And that's my main issue with the book. Hekate is supposedly the villain in this series and, as this book went on you can see why, I felt that the characters around her were just as awful as she was if not more. There was generally no one to cheer for in this book and as it went on, the reading became a chore with, not just the characters, but also the dialogue and the religion.

The religion was talked about a few times in the beginning then as the book went on the author decided to hit us over the head with it. I feel like praying to a scorpion my own damn self!

Then there's the ending, which I admittedly didn't think would come, it's abrupt. Something happens then it just cuts off. Now you can argue that this is to merely get anticipation for the second book, but there are better ways to do that. You can complete a story without just cutting yourself off in the middle of a scene. If Brandon Sanderson can do it in his Stormlight Archive books then why couldn't Karen do it?

All in all this is an average book, nothing overly terrible as I thought as was going to get, but not exactly good. Which rates on the “meh” scale with me.

Since I was fortunate, read dumb, enough to get the omnibus version, I read on to the second book. I have heard it is an improvement over the first.