Magic, murder, and family drama thrown all together results in an interesting tale of intrigue and drama. It was a truly enjoyable escape from reality.

When I first read the description of this book, I was excited. I like family dynamics mixed with magic (and a telepathic cat! and strong female leads!), and adult scenes are fine if they contribute to the story. Unfortunately, as fun as the synopsis sounded, this book didn't really live up to it at all. From the get go, we were thrown into the world without warning and while it's fine if it slowly starts making sense, the world didn't make sense for a long time, almost as if we accept some things as fact (and I'd be willing to that that too, but I did not even understand what the things mentioned were). The different types of beings, the 'ghost' and his language — all of it at some point started also sounding a bit childish to me, but I could still deal with it if I could understand what was happening.

For the longest time, nothing happened either, which was another let down.

The adult scenes were — questionable. While I don't look for them in books, I don't mind them if they add to the story, or to the characters (sometimes I even like that they do that). Here, I was more or less uncomfortable by the sheer number (and questionable reasons and times). At some point, I would say it was literally incest.

One thing that struck me the most was how it was virtually impossible to differentiate between characters. They all spoke and acted the same way. Our main female, Shine, was supposed to be a strong female lead, but somehow I didn't even like her as much, and since I didn't, seeing the world from her eyes neither made me sympathize with her nor root for her. The way she acts with Shadow is also . . . very questionable.

I couldn't finish the book, unfortunately. I don't like DNFing books (especially ones given to me for reviewing) but with this one, I genuinely couldn't continue and DNFed it at around the 30-35% point. The author had some really good ideas and if this book actually matched the synopsis expectations, it could've been a solid 4 star read, but the writing really didn't do it for me.

There were a lot of things I didn't know were coming at me — abuse, r*pe, incest and such and overall I just didn't feel like reading about it, or rooting for any of the characters or diving into the plotline, and all in all as excited as I was by the description, I felt let down.

Thank you to Rebellion and Netgalley for giving me this eARC in return for an honest review.

The story was just a generic mess of family drama, secrets, and tropes. Maybe someone will find some connection, see part of their story in this story, but I found this very basic and not at all the fantastical story I'd wanted.

Shine lives in a society that is run by strong female mages in an imperialistic society. There are men who are also mages, but they are not as strong and are generally viewed as breeders (quote: “Men! They seem to have nothing better to do than hang around making a nuisance of themselves”). If you do not have magic, you are considered lesser, and if you are born into a magical family with no magic, you are only a handful of steps above the peasantry and are still expected to help the magical people in your family.

Shine is one of those people, and she runs the “family farm,” as it were, for her family, which is a not-so-distant branch of the imperial family. Splendance is the matriarch, whose role is the bless the fields and keep the other female mages in line and producing other female mages for the line. The various branches of the family are all conspiring against one another, and Shine only has a handful of allies in this pit of vipers.

When her favorite cousin rescues a “ghost” from the mines on their borders (in Shine’s society, everyone is POC, and their neighboring kingdom is very pale), Shine is roped into protecting him from her family during their Fertility Festival long enough to get the ghost to his embassy in the capital city. This would be a lot easier if there weren’t people at the gathering who need the ghost dead…

What I Loved:

The Worldbuild. While I found Shadow in the Empire of Light lacking in a lot of ways (see below), I think that the “bones,” aka the worldbuild, is pretty stellar. The idea of a matriarchal society where inheritance is based on a magical matrilineal line is intriguing, and a direct mirror to the “common” British imperial style of oldest male child inheritance. Similarly, the “less useful” members of the family (here, nonmagical people) are given allowances by the family office to make sure no one is destitute, but everyone contributes. The outer villages like Shine’s feed (literally and figuratively) into the capital city and produce money for the family office that is metro based. The economy of the empire is largely based on the magic itself, as well as the crystal mines, since the crystals enhance mages’ powers. What is also wild is that the crystals will enhance natural magic in all living things, so you get giant glowing cats and floating mice in forests, which is, in a word, awesome.

The Ghost. In this crazy world of magic and imperialism, the Ghost provides a really interesting foil as an outsider looking in. He is a scholar and type of doctor back home, but was investigating wrongdoing when his party was slaughtered and he was the only survivor. The Ghost is more “prudish” than the other characters from Shine’s world (as in, he doesn’t want to be ogled, have sex with random people, and have his penis talked about…), but he still flirts a little. He was initially portrayed as a bit of a caricature of a foreigner, but as time goes on, the Ghost gains his own voice and shows that Shine’s world is crazy and people “across the desert” are probably more similar to what we consider the real world.

Katti the giant telepathic cat. Like what always seems to happen in books with shoddy human characters, the animal ones stand out all the more. Katti is Shine’s, for lack of a better term, adopted mama cat, since Katti considers Shine her original baby. They are telepathically bonded in a way that Empire of Light doesn’t go into detail, but seems extremely rare for the worldbuild. Katti is just a fun and playful cat that happens to be the size of a St. Bernard (who wouldn’t love that?) and who has very strong opinions about most people Shine encounters. She is, in short, my dream pet.

What I Disliked:

The Rest of the Characters. Shine’s massive family are all detestable (save maybe Bright and his mother). The women are all domineering and rude, the men are all either weak minded or generally shitty people, and none of them learn. The female mages are given carte blanche to be horrible to people and have sex with whomever they want (even though there is a law that is supposed to stop that), and the cousins are expected to interbreed (ew. I could read Tudor English literature if I was into incest). Most of them are drug addicts, and there basically isn’t a single redeeming character amongst the core group. Shine herself isn’t even particularly likeable – she is in many ways a normal teenager/young adult, longing to leave her small town, but in other ways, she is also a crude and unempathetic individual. For example, she continually objectifies the Ghost by looking at his body and discussing his penis, while he continually tells her it makes him uncomfortable. While I get that all of the characters are a product of their society, it makes for rough reading.

The Flawed Execution of a Sex Positive Matriarchal Society. Whoa, that was a mouthful. However, it gets to the heart of it: I grabbed this ARC because I was so excited about a matriarchal society where women are sex positive, there is no slut shaming, and women are not at risk. What I got instead was a complete flip side of what we have now, with the women rulers either being puppets or tyrants, and the men being objectified as much as (if not more) than women are in our society. The women spend a lot of time talking about the men’s pricks and lovers they’ve taken (way to fail the Bechtel test) and it doesn’t even come out as sex positive anymore. Instead, it comes out as women being assholes, which I don’t *think* was the intent, but it ends up hurting rather than helping the image of a strong female society. Furthermore, the “strong women” are not all that strong at all. There is only two strong female bonds in Empire of Light, and both of them are closer to codependent or apologetic than unconditionally loving.

While there are other things I disliked about the book, I think those two high-level items get to the core of why Empire of Light was not the book for me.

Conclusion:

To be honest, I had mixed feelings (more than indicated above) while reading Shadow in the Empire of Light. I was conflicted about the subject matter, because despite disliking almost all of the characters and the overarching plotline, I still devoured this book in a day and a half. I am conflicted in how to categorize this, because even though it is listed as YA, the amount of sex (consensual and non-consensual) and doing drugs that is involved without any sort of concept of consequences makes me wary to give this to a teenager (Although the naming convention is ridiculously YA, as I have to go and edit the name of the book in my review because I assumed it was “and Light”).

I would recommend to people who want to see more books featuring flawed female characters, and who want to see radically different societal structures. I would tell readers to appreciate the scene and background setup, like flying magical animals and interesting religious undertones. I am also aware that other readers may not dislike some of the elements listed above as much as I did.

So, I am giving Empire of Light three waves despite a gut instinct to give it 2, because I do think this has a readership, just not me.

I really wanted to like this book. The premise sounded amazing. Unfortunately, the writing fell flat. It was difficult to sink into and was a bit clunky.

I began this book with high hopes but I could never become fully involved and in truth, couldn't finish it.

The plot was loosely constructed and could use further editing. The characters were flat and not particularly relatable.

I am not a prude, but there are way too many sex scenes to label this a YA book.

I appreciate receiving this ARC from Netgalley. I am leaving my honest review.

A fun and fairly fast paced introduction to an empire on the cusp of cultural change. Complex and dangerous familial intrigues in an unusual matriarchal society. In the Empire of Light, fertility is low, women mages are stronger than men, and not everyone can be a mage, which results in a complicated hierarchy between mages (nobility), gentry (non-mages or "mundanes" related to nobility), non-mage merchant families and serfs at the bottom of the totem pole. However, everyone appears to have sex with everyone else (there are a few well written erotic scenes) in order to maximize the chances of babies, particularly female babies, who could grow to be powerful mages and raise the fortunes of their families. The empire borders another polity with very different sociopolitical structure and mores. Trade is limited and foreigners registered with restricted movements, a la Imperial China with Europe. The borders are becoming porous, and smuggling is an issue.

In Shadow in the Empire of Light, a young woman Shine, without magic but part of a junior branch of the Imperial Family, gets caught up in the coming changes because of the internal struggles and politics of her family. This book is primarily setting the scene for bigger things to come, but has plenty of twists and action in its own right, and the main character is sympathetic without being perfect. The secondary characters are fleshed out and have their own motivations and personalities. Be warned the cast of characters is large! Drawing a family tree helped me keep them all straight.

I was provided a copy of this book to review on NetGalley.

I had a lot of fun reading this book, the plot held me in its grip and the setting was refreshingly different to other fantasy books I've read. I'm not sure if the world building would've worked for a longer book or a series where it would be more thoroughly explored but it worked and felt believable in this book.

The characters were also all interesting, I especially really liked Shine and Shadow! I also adored the naming style of the characters, all the names and nicknames were really fun. I also really enjoyed all the messy family drama!

One element that I also liked was how although in the start of the book I was expecting them on embarking the journey to Elayison pretty soon, they actually ended up leaving only in the end, and most of the events took place in Willow.

My only problem with the book was the dismissive way of handling sexual assault and all the clearly not fully consensual sex, it made me a bit uncomfortable, which is why I can't really give this five stars.

Interesting fantasy novel - could be better balanced

Although some of my fellow reviewers have labelled this as YA, I would disagree given all the sexual content in this fantasy novel. It deals with the Imperial family coming together for a ceremony and concentrates on the machinations between the various factions. The action only really begins about two-thirds into the book (after all the diverse couplings!) which is why I feel it could be better balanced. The characters are interesting and quite well developed but the actual fantasy content is limited. An enjoyable read and possibly the beginning of a series as there’s plenty of room for development. I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Shadow in the Empire of Light is a huge amount of fun, I read it in an afternoon. I love a gossipy family saga and with bonus magic what’s not to like.
Routley creates a very distinctive world where not only is there significant cultural differences between countries but there’s also significant distinctions between classes and within classes depending on whether you have magic or not. Families are complicated in this world and I could have done with a family tree to keep cousins and aunts and which cousins belonged to which aunts clear. I think I got it before I finished the book though.
Shine is a charming protagonist, she’s cheeky and clever and put upon by her mostly hateful family. And Shadow is a delicious prude. I would have liked more of them together so hopefully this is not the last we see of them. Everyone is also totally randy, obsessed with breeding female mages they are all at it. There’s also family politics and backstabbing a plenty, scheming and plotting, dark pasts and parental mysteries.
This book is an absolute soap bubble I loved it!
Oh yeah and there’s a talking cat!

3.5/5 stars For the most part, I really enjoyed this book. I liked our main character a lot, even though I think she was way to loyal to the people who treat her like complete trash. She's easy to understand and root for. It's diverse and it takes a spin where the white people are weird and not normal. The world building is good, interesting, and it flows well with the story, but I wish there was a little more. What are the other countries' magic like? Do they have magic? How are they ruled? The side characters were also a mixed bag for me. While I liked a lot of them, none of them had a spine and they let the people with power walk all over them, even though they have power too. Every character saw everything as either black or white, and they refused to see grey, which got a little annoying. The plot is also pretty weak. It kind of felt jumbled and so unimportant. Nothing is really solved in the end, and I think the main character's decision was the right one, but I don't think she got to it naturally. She kept refusing to do something, even when her life was in danger, but then, all of a sudden, she decides to do it. I wish she came to the decision through out the book the more she learned that her family really sucks.

This is a lovely fantasy read. Bright
, Shadow. You want mages and ghost this is the book for you. It does start off quite slowly until you get into the story. I would recommend this book for young adult fantasy readers.

I gave this book a try as the plot sounded interesting. However, I was unable to invest in the novel as the characters and plot were not well developed or introduced. Additionally, there were grammatical errors that interrupted my desire to continue reading.

This was a fun one from start to finish. I don’t think there was any need for a sequel though. I felt like this one was one that could have just been kept to one novel, but that might just be my take.

A really fun and interesting read. I had an enjoyable time reading this and it held my attention the entire way through that I finished it within the day!

A very light and easy young adult read that I breezed through in a couple of days.

It's nominally a fantasy novel set in a world divided into those with magical abilities ('mages') and those without ('mundanes'), and where women, whose powers tend to be stronger, run the show. Those are both concepts that have been done before, but unlike books like The Power, and even to some degree Harry Potter, this one doesn't take itself too seriously and really isn't pushing to get any kind of serious message across.

The fantasy side of things very quickly takes a back seat to a soap opera-esque family drama full of back stabbing and politicking, and the heroine also spends a fair amount of time sidetracked by romantic entanglements with the hot men who seem to constantly be falling at her feet.

So probably a bit of a guilty pleasure for me (well outside the target demographic), but lots of fun.

It was me, not the book. It had to be because the premise is great, the characters are fun, and the world building is spot on. I just could not get into it. I will pick it back up soon and hopefully be able to change this!

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Rebellion and and Jane Routley for my ARC, given in exchange for an honest review.

Okay, this wasn't a bad read. But... it was a bit untidy, a bit all over the place. I loved some of the characters - Shadow, Katti, and the Mooncats - in both forms. I also liked Bright and Graceson, Klea, and Hagen. The rest, well, a bit flighty, a bit silly. Overdone, in some cases, for example Scinti.

There was a bit too much 'pleasuring' going on, being talked about especially, it really made the whole thing feel a little shallow and inconsequential, more depth would have leant a lot to this tale. Also, the constant use of 'prick' irked me. The term has a derogatory connotation and isn't meant to be bandied about in general conversation.

Overall, I think there is great potential, and I will be reading the next one with anticipation, but I do hope it is a bit tighter and has more depth than this one. The telepathic cat is a great concept, she needs a lot more page time, so do the Mooncats, and the magical, mysterious forest! Love that.

I was quite looking forward to this one. It sounded interesting and, amusingly, had a picture of a cat on the front just like my last read: Pawsitively Swindled.
However, I will be perfectly honest with you already here at the start: I was rather disappointed and could not find the motivation to finish it. I don’t want to tear this book to shreds so I will keep my observances down to a few points.
Firstly, there was so much talk about sex. I mean maybe I should have expected it a little as the description mentions a Fertility Festival, but I didn’t think that would mean people were simply allowed to have sex with whomever they pleased. Now, just so you know, this isn’t all explained in explicit details, but from the 30% that I read, sex is frequently mentioned or observed.
Secondly, the plot was rather weak. There seemed to be too many other things that happened or were spoked about that bogged down the driving force that the plot could have had.
Thirdly, this was an intriguing world. I am sad it was executed the way it was.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for granting my request of an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was... confusing. It has a very grandiose title and a very intriguing plot, but I found it quite misleading. It's a small book (and I don't mean by page count--by ideas). I think the author was trying to create a story of discrimination, sexual freedom, and women's empowerment, but it fell flat. The main character is supposed to be a feminist, but I found her to be the type that I don't like--she was the embodiment of "women are better." There was a scene in which she watched a man washing himself even after he said he didn't like that. That to me screams "no means yes" and it frustrated and upset me.

I believe the ideas behind this book were good, but the execution of them just weren't there. (Also, the telepathic cat isn't nearly as present as I was hoping; when we will get a good literary version of Salem??)