A delightful adventure of a historical fantasy with a bit of (not spicy) romance awaits at the Empire of Shadows. Ellie Mallory is a headstrong feminist rebelling against the limits set on women of her time and looking to take her overwhelming amount of bookish knowledge into some real-world exploits. Adam Bates becomes her semi-reluctant guide through the jungles of Central America in her archeological quest after she literally drops into his lap. Its a bit of a rom-com/adventure in the spirit of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, or The Jewel of the Nile. This was an enjoyable read and I am looking forward to Ellie and Bates finding their next adventure.
I received advanced digital access to this book thru NetGalley (for which I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher, Crimson Fox Publishing) for an honest review. The opinion expressed here is my own.

The Mummy meets Uncharted in this fun, female-led mystical adventure with unexpected themes and oodles of heart.

~~

Yes. Yes. YES.

OK so this isn't the kind of book I'd usually pick up and I honestly don't know why because The Mummy and Uncharted are two of my favourite things ever. So you take those, yeah? And you scatter in a bit of female rage and anti-colonialism and you get a book that is going to be rattling around in my head for months to come.

Full disclosure: I wasn't sure about this out the door. The story takes a few chapters to find its feet, with a some clunkiness that makes sense when you understand that it is a rework of a previous story. But oh boy, when the story gets into its rhythm and the current picks up I was completely swept away by the tide.

Our heroine Ellie is so much more than the outline of a female Indiana Jones. She is a woman who just wants to do what she loves in a world and time where she struggles to get anyone to take her seriously. Benson really handles the topic of suffragette-era feminism in a way that makes it an integral part of the story without coming across as preachy. Even in Adam, the male lead, she writes a man who has these learned quirks from society and tries his best to overcome them, and never faults him when he wobbles.

And Ellie & Adam? Oh please. Yes. More of them. Their interactions are so delightful, each of them shining with a wonderful character of their own and then pulling together into a duo I genuinely want to see on the big screen. Their friendship is warm, their romance slow burn, and after a while it begins to feel for the reader like adventuring with friends.

I also want to give a shout-out to the villain who honestly managed to be chilling without really doing much to enforce that image. His mannerisms, his presence, his utter lack of genre-typical monologues and grandstanding just made him so intriguing. In fact, all of the peripheral characters had a charm of their own, with the story recognising the nuances of good vs evil vs just plain selfish.

This could have been just another entry in a super formulaic genre, and whilst it isn't going to break any moulds, it is hardly cast in a mould that requires breaking. We know what we are looking for when we dive into the genre, and Empire of Shadows delivers a fun, interesting story with characters you just can't help but love. What does make it stand out somewhat from its peers is not only the aforementioned feminist struggle, but also the light it shines on colonialism, cultural theft, academic thirst vs cultural preservation, and how power must be earned, not seized.

All in all, this story impressed more and more the deeper I fell into it, right up to a climax that had me on the edge of my seat. It absolutely delivers on all the major markers of the genre and gives us characters that I am super eager to follow into more adventures.

I always end ARC reviews by thanking NetGalley and the publisher for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review and there, I've done it. But I also want to thank them for putting this series on my radar. I will be eagerly awaiting the next.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crimson Fox Publishing for the ARC of Empire of Shadows by Jacquelyn Benson.

This feels like if The Mummy was set during the Victorian era. I loved it! I adored Ellie and the romance was just enough to not overpower the story. It was slowly paced but not so slow that it was boring.

This was so much fun and adventurous! I loved the kind of Indian Jones style and having a female be the adventure lead was awesome! The characters were super great and I felt like I could easily get attached to them! I loved the little romance but it was a great balance or romance and plot. Their was plenty of action and it never felt slow to me! I requested this on a whim never hearing of this book and so glad I did! Will be adding to our library!

Thank you to NetGalley and Crimson Fox Publishing for the ARC of Empire of Shadows by Jacquelyn Benson.

This was so fun! There is a particular lack of female adventurer stories so every new one on the market catches my eye. This one was an excellent romp and continuously kept me engaged from plot point to plot point.

Benson briefly mentions this is a remodel of a previous book, The Smoke Hunter, and while I have not read that, I do believe she must have taken the working parts and created something stronger and better from it. Ellie and Adam are both well thought out characters with structured personalities and skills. Ellie, a suffragist and college graduate limited by being a woman, and Adam, an American cowboy avoiding taking on the family business, unexpectedly meet in Belize. Ellie is hoping to find her way to discover a lost ancient city and racing against a disreputable group looking to take over another historic site without care of consideration for history, culture, and the people who truly own the find. While some parts of the start of the journey do require to suspend your disbelief, it is well worth it for the adventure that follows.

Ellie and Adam are a great team and are able to build off each other's talents to make their way through the jungle. Their chemistry does not feel rushed in any way. I don't want to say much more without disturbing the plot, but the book is long enough that it can cover a very in-depth action sequence in their search and in their finding of the place they seek.

The men following Ellie, a brute enforcer and a stuffy professor, have the funds and brute strength to make formidable opponents - they also expose Ellie and Adam to a larger society of men seeking to run the world through the power of historical objects. This makes for both an interesting paranormal twist, as well as a strong reason to dive into the next book in the series.

In regard to the slightly paranormal aspects to the book and its continuing series I found a nice kindred relationship with Skyla Dawn Cameron's Livi Talbot series; in terms of more historical lady adventurers it is aligned with Deanna Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell series.

Just wow! Suffragette Indiana Jones who doesn’t take no for an answer. I was very immersed in this book and could not put it down. I enjoyed the romance, but also like how it did not overshadow the story. Definitely excited for the next book to come out and see what happens to our two adventurers.

If you are anything like me, in 1999 you fell madly in love with Rick O'Connell and never outgrew it.
So after reading the synopsis for Empire of Shadows with its Spunky Victorian Ellie and Rougish Outdoorsy Adam on an archaeological adventure, I was in Mummy flashback heaven and wanted to give it a go.

It's like Jacquelyn Benson bottled the supernatural adventure of Indiana Jones with the witty banter and romantic tension of Rick and Evie, to create a fun fantasy adventure.

Together our duo is thrust from one perilous situation to another, all while engaging in delicious banter as they take on the evil forces looking to steal ancient artifacts that have the power to reshape the world.

It's action packed and doesn't dwindle, it just sweeps you off into an amazing journey of ancient artifacts, lost civilisations, maps, monsters and danger.

For me at times the historic explanations seemed clunky and took me out of the story at times in a minor way. I'd also have preferred a little more romance but as this is a series I'm excited to see how that develops on their next adventure.
I am looking forward to the next installment in the RaidersoftheArcana series.

Loved the Mummy, Indiana Jones amd Romancing the stone? Then this advert is for you.

We have a spunky young archaeologist team up with a rougish outdoorsy type and together they take on the evil forces looking to steal ancient artifacts that have the power to shape the world.

While I did enjoy this story nothing hits particular new, it's a story we are familiar with even if the names of the characters change. I also wasn't the most keen on the harmful scottish stereotype character ( or some of the other characters for that matter) including it felt dated especially as this book infuses modern ideals such as asking for consent etc.

Nothing was either particulars bad nor was it memorable. I probably won't continue the series.

Imagine combining the supernatural adventure of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (or any of the first three Indiana Jones movies) with the romantic tension and witty banter of Rick and Evie from The Mummy (1999 version, of course), and you have Empire of Shadows by Jacquelyn Benson. I had such a fun time with this book. The history was intriguing, the romance was swoon-worthy, and the supernatural elements scratched that fantasy itch that I tend to get when reading outside my normal genre.

The first in the Raiders of the Arcana series, Empire of Shadows is a reinvention of Benson's 2016 debut novel The Smoke Hunter, with new characters, extra scenes and history in bigger scope. We follow Ellie Mallory, a college-educated suffragette living in Victorian London dreaming of a time in which she she, as a woman, can lead her own archaeological expeditions. A series of fateful events following her arrest at a women's suffrage protest and dismissal from her job lead her to a mysterious amulet and a map where "X" marks the spot--a lost ancient city in Central America.

While Ellie seeks only preservation of ancient artifacts, villainous men also seek the city, but for reasons Ellie can only assume are nefarious. Ellie teams up with the charming and infuriatingly handsome surveyor Adam Bates to find the lost city before others can claim and pervert the knowledge and wonders that lie within.

Empire of Shadows in primarily set in late 19th Century British Honduras (what is now Belize). Although its two protagonists, Ellie and Adam, are British and American, respectively, the book doesn't shy away from confronting the devastation wrought by colonialism in Central America, specifically from Imperial Britain and Spain. Inhabiting British Honduras is a cacophony of peoples--indigenous, colonizers, and the descendants of the forcibly relocated and enslaved--ruled by a faraway empire looking to "civilize" a land while undertaking decidedly uncivilized acts. The reader questions not only what the villainous men want from the ancient city, but also what Ellie wants from whatever she finds at the end of that map. Does finding it and exposing it to the world destroy the very thing Ellie wants to preserve?

While tackling these heavy issues, Empire of Shadows is still a fast-paced, action-packed adventure, where not a word is wasted. Ellie is thrust from one perilously exciting situation to another, all while engaging in delicious banter with her playfully roguish guide, Adam. What does a nice Victorian lady do when trekking through a dangerous jungle with man who only has a passing acquaintance with his shirt? I now know, and I am very grateful for that.

Empire of Shadows is one of my favorite books I've ever read. It was an adventure from start to finish. As someone who grew up wishing she was Indiana Jones, this book scratched a lot of itches the I had for adventure fiction.

Ellie is an incredible main character. She's adventurous and outgoing but she has some very real issues that she deals with. She's funny and smart and just a delight to read, while also being super relatable.

Adam is the perfect mix of The Mummy's O'Connell, Indiana Jones and Han Solo. He's funny and protective and witty and strong. And we love a man who stands behind his girl, supporting, while she stands up for herself. I'm not gonna lie, I'm totally in love with him.

The dialogue between these two is peak witty banter and the chemistry is so real. I cannot wait to see more of their adventures together.

This particular adventure was set in Honduras and the shadow of the Mayan and Aztec empires. In the beginning of the book, they mention how this culture didn't get the praise and attention that Ancient Rome and Egypt get and it's true. I LOVE any book about ancient Egypt, but this setting and culture is JUST as riveting and interesting. I also really appreciate the fantasy aspect of it. It wasn't so much to take you out of what is a clearly historical setting, but it adds just a dash of magical realism that is really fun to explore and I can't wait to see where Benson takes us ( and what other Arcana we come across!) in later novels.

Overall, this book is like if you took The Mummy, set it in the Amazon, threw in the love story like Romancing the Stone and the humor of Jungle Cruise. It's an absolute delight and I'm going to tell everyone about it.

Eleanora “Ellie” Mallory is a suffragette in 1898, breaking the feminine traditions of her time and working towards a world of equality. When her protesting gets her fired from her hard earned job at the Public Record Office, her world turns upside down and plunges into a fast-paced journey full of lost cities, torn maps, danger, and just a sprinkle of romance.

Whilst I’m typically a slow reader, this novel had me hooked from the prologue. Each character had depth and purpose, creating a rich plotline that flowed and kept me wanting more. I can’t wait to see how Ellie and Adam take on their next adventure.