Mina Fears

The Scorpion Queen is a historical fantasy rooted in Malian mythology.

Our FMC is a teen age girl named Amie who is forbidden to marry the man that she loves and is disowned by her family, all based on lies from her very own sister. After being disowned and disgraced she is forced to work as a maid for the princess. The Princess is involved in trials forced upon her by her father.

The trials are for the suitors of the princess, they must face the trials in order to marry her. The catch is if they fail they die. The Princess is not happy with this arrangement. The princess confides in Amie about how she feels guilty that these men die and how she does not like this arrangement that is set up by her father. Amie decides to help the princess and find a way to stop the trials once and for all.

As someone who is an avid fantasy reader this checked most of the boxes but not all of the boxes for me. The characters felt slightly disjointed and harder to connect to, it was almost there for me but not quite all the way. I feel like the FMC got treated badly in times that it was not necessary, almost made her suffer to suffer without a bigger reason for it. However i do know this is based off of Malian mythology and as I’m not familiar with the original lore or story there may have been a bigger meaning behind this I was just unaware of. The pacing was also slightly off, I needed more information in some places and less in others, If the book was a few chapters longer I think the characters and story could have come together a bit more.

As for the ending, I’m all for a good plot twist, but this just didn’t feel right to me. However once again ill restate that I don’t know the lore of the original story this was inspired by so I could be missing something. I am not sure if this is a stand alone or if there will be a second book to go with this one.

As far as debut novels go, this was a good debut novel for this author. I can see the potential and Id be excited to see what comes from this author in her novels in the future.

Thank you NetGalley and Flatiron Books for the Digital Arc.
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