Black Dawn – Mallory McCartney

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Publisher: Clean Reads Publishing

The end of an Empire, The rise of a Queen

Emory Fae enjoys leading a quiet, normal life. That is until two mysterious, and handsome soldiers show up at her apartment, and the life she knew is instantlywhisked away. Memphis Carter and Brokk Foster come from the magical and war ridden world of Kiero, and upon Emory’s arrival she will discover she is the long lost heir to the Royal Line and is thrown into the Black Dawn Rebellion with a dynamic role to ignite the rebels and reclaim her throne.

With both men being darkly woven in her past Emory uncovers hidden secrets, a power held long dormant, and will soon realize there are worse things than supernatural humans, love, loss, betrayal, and a Mad King.

Some things are better left in the shadows.

Black Dawn is a poorly constructed novel about a seemingly normal young woman pulled from her life into the middle of a rebellion.

The biggest issue with this novel is that everything is left vague or not explained. The world building is nonexistent, the magic system/abilities is poorly explained nor will it ever be explained since the characters themselves admit they don’t know where the magic comes from, and the history of the world itself is barely explained. The reader is then left with a story about a rebellion and a missing queen that has no backstory or basis for the reader to begin to understand the complex political movements of the world or the complicated relationships between the characters. About half way through the novel, I realized nothing is earned. Not the relationships, the magic system, the emotions between characters, or the big reveals and twists because of the lack of information.

The main character, Emory, is given her memories back after having them wiped and sent to earth through time travel to protect her. Again, this was never fully explained. She’s given back her memories, but the process of regaining them is slow. While she is still confused about her kidnapping and the new world she’s been thrust into, she decides to help the rebellion. A romance plot this then shoehorned into the story causing jealousy and motive for the plot to move forward. Emory and all the other characters are not developed and read like cardboard cutouts of characters. The lack of development stems from the lack of information about the world, magic system, and history. Each of the characters’ developments and motives relate directly to their pasts and since, as mentioned previously, it’s not explained, so it all falls flat.

Overall, Black Dawn is a poorly written novel with little to no character development or world building. I will definitely not be continuing this series.

 

***I received an epub from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.