You know those books you want to fall in love with, but don’t? That was me and The Scorpion Queen. But for me, the main problem was the pacing. I was a bit wary after the reviews, but the pacing just did not work for me sadly! Keep reading this book review of The Scorpion Queen for my full thoughts.
Summary
Deep within the imperial palace at Timbuktu, Amie has suffered a devastating loss. Once the daughter of a prosperous salt merchant Amie’s life was cruelly overturned in a matter of months. At sixteen, Amie now finds herself disinherited, framed for a scandalous crime, and forced to serve Princess Mariama of Mali . Her father, Emperor Sulyeman, has created a series of impossible trials for his daughter’s suitors. When they fail, he publicly boils them alive, littering Mariama’s path to marriage with ninety-nine corpses.
At first, Amie’s life at court is drudgery—the chores are difficult, the servants despise her, and Princess Mariama is prone to mood swings—but the more she learns about the princess’s circumstances, the closer the two girls become. Amie and her intended, Kader, plan to escape Timbuktu and make a new life far away from the shadow of death that has fallen upon the emperor’s court, but she finds herself increasingly drawn to the princess in ways she doesn’t understand.
When a mysterious discovery forces her hand, she must choose between fleeing with the boy she loves or helping the princess to end the trials forever. Amie will need to draw on all of her strength and courage to make the perilous journey through the desert to seek the aid of an exiled god in a final, desperate attempt to take charge of her own destiny.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
Let me just get what didn’t work for me out of the way. The pacing in The Scorpion Queen is incredibly slow. While the elements I was intrigued in were announced before this, I kept wondering when the hook, the premise of the plot, would roll into action. We see the cruelty, we see the ways in which the trials make the Princess feel like a monster. Yet at the same time, there isn’t a lot of outlet for these feelings until around 30%. And after that I still had a bit of trouble with the pacing. The action, the hook, occurred, but then I still had some issues.
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But I did enjoy the themes of power. While Amie does get to know the Princess, is she truly that different from the other royalty? I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. In The Scorpion Queen I wasn’t sure who to trust and Fears really keeps us on our toes. If the pacing was a bit more consistent, I think I would have enjoyed The Scorpion Queen. I enjoyed the mythology, unfortunately it wasn’t enough to sustain the drops. Find The Scorpion Queen on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.