This was a really great read! I loved this world, it was so interesting to watch it start to collapse under the fact that there are no more females being born. It was such an entertaining read, and I have to know what's going to happen next!

We start off right before everything goes wrong when female babies stop being born, which lets us get a glimpse of what the world looks like when everything is mostly running smoothly. If this series is 5 books long, then each book will be about a queendom, in this case, Scorpica.

Scorpica is the country most hit by the drought, because they throw away any males that are born, they're the ones that are the most strictly female. That their leadership looks for strength and proof of having the ability to have female heirs puts everything into chaos.

There are some morally gray or questionable characters in this book. And some that honestly are some minor antagonists, because what they were doing was just that bad. And that last chapter really showcased that! Some of the choices that were made were very much ones that I disliked!

Really enjoyed this book, and I can't wait to see where it goes!

Scorpica by G.R. Macallister and while I enjoyed the author's writing style, for the most part, there is so much going on at the same time and so much info-dumping as well. The cast of characters was certainly intriguing, and I enjoyed reading a women-centred fantasy that focused on having daughters and a matriarchal society which was a refreshing point of view.

I tried really hard to get into Scorpica as I loved the premise, and the strong female led world that GR Macallister created but I just couldn’t get hooked / into the story. The writing dragged and felt a little flat for my tastes and I read about 15% of the book and decided not to finish.

I liked the lore and worldbuilding elements of this book. Each queen-led nation has it’s own speciality (scribing, farming, fighting, magic, and trading) and once a year they gather for the Sun Rites to determine if the All-Mother will bless them for the year ahead. One day without warning however, newborn girls stop being birthed into the world.

Although I thought the story premise was interesting, unfortunately I couldn’t get into this book. I had expected to be following the lives of each of the lastborn daughters, but rather was following their mothers and respective peers, in time jumps occurring before, during, and after the epidemic. I didn’t get to know the characters very well with so many POV’s. And I think there was a missed opportunity to explore what a world without newborn girls would look like, and the panic that would ensue. Here it seemed that the only threat was one queen stealing young girls to join her army (for battle purposes, not mothering purposes), in hopes that her nation wouldn’t be the first to die out.

Although my expectations clouded my enjoyment of this book, the writing was really beautiful and if this world peaks your interest, I would still recommend you check it out. Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Shuster Canada for sending me a free e-book in exchange for an honest review.

Who run's the world? Girls! At least in Scorpica; until a mysterious occurrence makes it so all the babies born are boys! Scorpica is a cool, epic fantasy that is like a more female centric Game of Thrones!

Scorpica is the first book I've read by G.R. Macallister, so I went into it not knowing what to expect.
The story is set in a world of five Queendoms, that each hold a role in keeping the peace and balance.
The story mostly follows women from the magic based queendom and the warrior based queendom as they tackle issues with political power and the much bigger issues of a lack of female births.

In a matriarchal society, when girls stop being born, the delicate balance is interrupted and it leads to desperate acts and uprising. The reason behind the lack of births is unknown to the characters in the book, but shown to the reader early on and we get that story angle as well. All in all, you follow quite a few characters in the book and Macallister excelled at getting you invested and in their stories and relationships. I really loved a few of the characters, especially the band of bandits.
Macallister is can be brutal and graphic in her writing, not afraid to kill characters to move the plot along. I wouldn't call this a YA fantasy, even though there are teenaged and child characters, due to graphic violence, sex and child slavery.

I did find the book lacked in world-building. The multiple queendoms don't get deep explanations and their unique differences are only lightly explored. There could have been more info on the magic systems and how the 5 worlds developed. I understand that this book is not as long as a traditional high fantasy novel, so that maybe why. The author was focusing on the characters and moving the plot along. Perhaps we will get more world explanation in the next book.
The heavy importance on gender doesn't really make space for a trans or nonbinary voice. There is also a sex scene involving teens and adults. These issues can be problematic, although they are common in other high fantasy series.
Overall, I enjoyed the book and am looking forward to seeing where these characters end up in the next novel in the series.

Right away, I can tell this will be a Marmite book. But those that do love it? Oh they will love every minute of it!

In a really interesting style that is both brutal and unforgiving, Macallister develops a world of five Queendoms, each with their own unique cultures, religions, and economies. I love to see an author who is unafraid to kill, harm, or injure their characters and Macallister is that kind of author. We follow an incredible cast of characters from Queens to slaves, an ancient god, and even ragtag group of bandits.

There is so much that happens in these 450 pages - it almost feels as if this could have been an epic series on its own if each of the stories were more fleshed out. As it stands, the plot moves very quickly, but not so fast that you don’t connect with the characters and become involved in the plot. Still, I would have loved to have gotten even closer and to have had the chance to get very emotionally involved with each fascinating character in this cast.

I definitely recommend readers giving this a chance, but if the first few chapters don’t entrap you, I would advise against continuing - this won’t be the book for you and that is plenty okay.

Actual rating 4.5 rounded up - 0.5 stars knocked off because of the suddenness of the resolution and how this seems to read as a complete standalone - so I’m not sure where a series can develop from this? Ooh but if we get a series of standalones, with a focus on each of the five Queendoms? I would adore that!

CW: Human sacrifice, descriptions of birth, child abandonment, slavery, selling children, graphic violence, sexual content

*I received an eARC from Simon & Schuster Canada, Gallery / Saga Press & NetGalley in exchange for my honest review*

After 500 years of peace in a matriarchal society with five queendoms, what happens when girls suddenly stop being born? I love the premise of Scorpica and suspect that it will ultimately be a good series. But unfortunately, this book felt like a prequel rather than the start of the story. It was all world building and what amounted to characters’ backstories leading up to a confrontation that felt like it should have been near the start of the book. There were too many characters that we met who disappeared. And there was a lot of description rather than narrative and dialogue. Hopefully the next book will have faster pacing to help draw in and hook the reader.

This story centres a world where women hold all the power, they are the leaders of their kingdoms. However, the peace between them is tested when girls are no longer being born.
I liked the premise of this story and the matriarchal societies and how they operated. The characters were interesting and rarely one dimensional, with some standout personalities. However, I felt like the pacing of the story was off, as it lagged in areas, and the buildup to the major conflict was slow, yet it culminated so quickly, which left me feeling a little disappointed.

This was an interesting book. I requested it because I absolutely loved Greer's other book, The Arctic Fury. This was very different. Thankfully I'm a fan of fantasy so it was a good kind of different. The idea that women rule the kingdom and men are considered less then equal was an interesting concept, one I'm not sure I'm against, but not really on board with either. It really created some unique dynamic and situations though. I felt like I had to learn early on not to get attached to characters because this is a savage and brutal world. There was a lot of flip flopping back and forth between several perspectives and initially that was confusing, but once I connected to the characters it was easier to keep them all straight. The world building was beautiful and I can't wait to get my hands on a physical copy. I definitely want to continue and see where this series goes.

I received this ebook from Simon and Schuster Canada in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Content Warning:
Human sacrifices, many brutal and descriptive killings, sexually suggestive scenes, kidnapping, drinking, murder, war scenarios, sex/pleasuring scene, descriptions of child birth, manipulation, sexism, death by magic

Scorpica by G. R. McAllister

2 stars

Content Warnings (may contain spoilers): Death/Death of a Parent/Death of Children, Violence, Gore, Body Horror, Sexual Content/Sexual Violence towards a Minor

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

While there were some parts of this book that I had a fun time reading, I think all of its elements were unfortunately at best just okay.

The book takes place in five matriarchal queendoms, and follows the lives of a primarily female cast, as well as the reactions of the rulers of these realms, when AFAB children stop being born.

While there was a large cast of characters, including many different POV characters, I really never found myself growing attached to any of them, connecting to them, or even rooting for them to succeed in their chapters. All of the characters felt very flat, and underdeveloped to me, and all of the POVs had the same voice, which resulted in all the different characters feeling inauthentic and indistinct. As well, after finishing the book, it felt to me like a lot of the POV characters did not have satisfying conclusions to their arcs, and that the purpose of their chapters was mostly just to introduce other elements of the book, which in my opinion is indicative of poor narrative planning.

I think a lot of my issues with the characters come down to the author primarily telling the readers things in the prose, and not showing them. While I didn’t have any issues with the prose style of the book, we as readers were told a lot of things about the personalities and motivations of various characters in the novel, but it was less common for these characteristics to be displayed through their actions.

The pacing choices for this book were interesting, and the end result of the plot made me feel like this was almost more of a prequel to the series than the first book. (Which is completely okay! Just something to expect before you start reading so you don’t feel dissatisfied with the ending.) To that end, while the book was, in my opinion, fairly fast paced, it was very episodic, in that we would follow a particular character for a chapter and then not jump back to them for several years in the world’s timeline. There were a lot of time skips, and, as I mentioned before, a lot of POV characters introduced who were only included in a few chapters, which contributed to the prequel-esque and episodic feeling I got while reading. Again, not a bad thing! Just something to be aware of before starting to read.

Another big critique of the book was the limited world-building. While there are multiple queendoms, they all seem to operate in essentially the same way and we don’t learn a lot about the culture, magic system, and history of the entire realm beyond what is required for the plot, or the distinct natures of each of the queendoms, besides their focus on different industries. This is always one of my favourite aspects of fantasy books, so I was really disappointed that it wasn’t included very much here. I was also really hoping the book’s focus on women would result in it displaying different sorts of matriarchal societies in the different queendoms, which wasn’t really the case. As well, I was hoping there would be a more nuanced examination of gender and gender roles in the book. The difference between a person’s sex and gender is never really brought up, and children are determined to be male or female at birth. There is one non-binary character in this book - albeit a priest who exists mainly outside of the queendoms’ society - so I hope that in future books the author will critique the gender binary which seems to dictate a lot of the society’s operations. However, I should add that I am cisgender, so I would suggest referring to a non-cis reader for a more nuanced examination of these themes within the novel, as I don’t want to speak for or over the trans and non-binary community with regards to this topic!

There was a huge focus on sex and sexual content, which is fine, but I did find it strange that in a novel where this was such a key focus that there was only one minor f/f relationship, and other non-heteronormative sexualities were basically ignored.

The following section contains minor spoilers for the book, but I found it very concerning, so I felt the need to include it in my review.

During one passage in the book, a character, who is at this point a minor, is mourning the loss of one of her very close friends. To “help” her “cope” with this lose, another (adult) character who is in a position of authority over her by demonstrating the use of a sex toy on the minor’s body, which is described in fairly heavy detail and, most concerningly of all, was described in a positive light and the problematic nature of this encounter was never addressed. While I wasn’t in love with this book before this scene, it to me was a moderately fun and fast-paced read that I wasn’t expecting to think too much about after the ending. However, this section completely soured the reading experience for me and made me very uncomfortable. I was probably going to give this book a solid 2.5-3 stars before reading this scene, but I really couldn’t do that in good conscience after this part of the book.

I love a good fantasy, especially a female driven one. In Scorpica, we find ourselves in a queendom, each "state" ruled by it's own queen. Then there's a sorcerer who wants to rule them all. There's magic, warriors, family drama, treachery. and power struggles. What more could you want, right?

The one started out strong for me. I was hooked right away by the first two story lines. It lost a little lustre for me when the others were added in. I felt like it was almost too many but not enough; not all of the queens were featured and yet the parts of the story that were didn't seem to always connect to the over arching story. The characters did all connect. That part worked very well. I wonder if, as the promised first book of a series, some of what felt out of place to me will fit into later books. Only time will tell.

Overall, I'm glad I read it and give it 3.5 stars (rounded up to 4 for good reads). Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for my ARC ecopy in exchange for my honest review. Happy reading, everyone.

I requested this one because it might be an upcoming title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one.

Let me start by saying that I love Greer Macallister’s writing. I am a big fan of her history books. That being said it hurts me to admit that I didn’t enjoy this one. Now, I don’t believe the problem was the writing I think I just didn’t connect with the type of fantasy story that it is. There are Wonder Woman/Amazonian vibes and Game Of Thrones vibes. While I love Wonder Woman I was never a fan of GOT.

There is a lot of exposition and not very much dialogue which, for me, made it a tough read. I love the way conversation between characters can break up big blocks of description but I felt that there was far too much of the latter and not enough of the former. The story was really interesting. Even though I found this a difficult read I still wanted to know what was coming so I pushed on.

I think my verdict is that this book was mainly a set up for the next book in the series and as much as I liked the premise I just don’t see myself trying to read the next one. If you are a GOT fan I think you may enjoy this book more than I did.