NetGalley Review: Empire of Shadows by Jacquelyn Benson
Hey all, Sam here.
Working at a job that doesn’t ever close, not even for holidays, it always throws me off when other places actually are closed for the holiday. Take today for instance. It’s Easter Sunday, and I had planned to spend a few hours at Panera working on my novel…but because I’m scheduled to work today, even though I knew it was Easter, my mind wasn’t thinking about the fact that other places are closed for Easter.
Sure, I now live eight hours away from my family (obviously aside from my husband and our furbabies), so obviously we didn’t have plans, but it would be nice to actually have holidays off. Oh well.
Anyway, the end of March had a couple really great reads for me, and I’m talking about one of them today. Even better, you all don’t have long to wait for this book, because it is releasing this week (April 2nd is the US release date).
Let’s dive right in.
My Thoughts
Nice Victorian ladies don’t run off to find legendary lost cities.
One trifling little arrest shouldn’t have cost Ellie Mallory her job, but it’s only the latest in a line of injustices facing any educated woman with archaeological ambitions.
When Ellie stumbles across the map to a mysterious ancient city, she knows she’s holding her chance to revolutionize Pre-Colombian history. There’s just one teensy complication. A ruthless villain wants it, and Ellie is all that stands in his way.
To race him to the ruins—and avoid being violently disposed of—she needs the help of maverick surveyor Adam Bates, a snake-wrangling rogue who can’t seem to keep his dratted shirt on.
But there’s more than Ellie’s scholarly reputation (and life) on the line. Her enemies aren’t just looters. They’re after an arcane secret rumored to lie in the heart of the ruins, a mythical artifact with a power that could shake the world.
Between stealing trousers, plummeting over waterfalls, and trying not to fall in love with her machete-wielding partner, will Ellie be able to stop the oracle of a lost empire from falling into the wrong hands?
Empire of Shadows is the first book in Jacquelyn Benson’s smart, swashbuckling Raiders of the Arcana series. Read it now and dive into a rip-roaring historical fantasy adventure perfect for fans of Romancing the Stone and The Mummy.
Rating: 5 stars
I was hooked on this book from the very beginning! When this book uses The Mummy as a comp, it is completely accurate. If you enjoyed “The Mummy” movies or the movie “The Jungle Cruise,” or you like the TV movie/series “The Librarian” and “The Librarians,” then this book is absolutely for you.
Both Ellie and Adam are knowledgeable in different areas of expertise and that knowledge comes through on the page with their thoughts and descriptions, and even in conversation with each other.
Ellie is a fierce and intelligent woman, who fights for what she believes in, even if it gets her dragged into some less-than-savory positions. I couldn’t help but fly through the pages at the beginning of her journey. And then when she disembarks the ship on the other side of the world, that’s when we are introduced to Adam…and oh boy, how these two meet was entertaining as all get out.
I just want to gush about the specifics in this story, but I also don’t want to spoil it. There’s action. There’s adventure. There’s history and magic and culture. There were a couple chapters that made me really hungry for tamales.
According to Goodreads, this book is 585 pages long, but Barnes & Noble has it listed at 476 pages. Either way, this is a nicely sized book that reads as if it is about half the length it actually is. If it hadn’t been for work, I would have probably had this all read in a day. Instead, it took me two days because I was regularly being interrupted to do work. Yes, if work is slow then I am allowed to read a bit on the clock.
Jacquelyn Benson’s writing is lovely, and you can tell that a lot of care and research went into this book. The depth of information about historical lore and culture and events just burst from the page, and I was devouring every bit of it as quickly as I could. I kept telling my husband and my co-workers about this book, and especially telling my reading co-workers that they needed to add this book to their TBRs because it is fantastic.
It was a wild ride of highs and lows for Ellie and Adam. Things would be going well and then something would happen and they would have to recalculate and adjust their plans, and the longer they spent time together, the more you could tell that they were totally into each other, but they were both still trying to respect the bounds of propriety for the time….but really, I could tell that they were two peas in a pod, basically made for each other. The tension and anticipation between them only made me want to read faster, but I also didn’t want the story to end.
If you want the same action and adventure, with a fierce and intelligent FMC and a rough and tumble MMC who is also a big softie, as well as some hints at the magic of myth being real, then this is definitely a book to keep your eye on. I am definitely adding the rest of the series to my TBR, and hopefully the wait for book two won’t feel too long.
All right, well that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
