The Orphans and the Passage Through Time...

That's it, done.

I hope everyone gets captured and eaten by the Garunga (or whoever the hell they are).

Or caught and squashed in a massive backlash from the wormhole (or whatever it is).

Or maybe all the suns in the area will go supernova at the same time and put them all out of my misery.

If it was tightened up a bit it might make a nice middle grade science fiction space adventure, but even then I think it might just be way too simplistic.

The program is still devolved/restricted to just Amazon published titles apparently.  But, a review of one of last month's selections by Obisidan Blue reminded me I hadn't looked at May's offerings.

(Kindle Firsts is for Prime members and let's them get one of the selections free one month ahead of their release date.  Current month's selections will be at https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/kindlefirst )

Because it's labeled "Fantasy," I chose to get this first in series:

   The Hundredth Queen by Emily R. King 

This "sleuth in the early 20th century with a lot of gay sex" story line was highly entertaining.

I chuckled a lot about Mitchell's antics and his irrepressible sense of - ahem - justice...

An enjoyable if a bit pornesque read.

I remember reading The Passage years ago and really enjoying it. So when I read The Twelve, admittedly only last year, I was not feeling it and was disappointed. It took me hundreds of pages to get back into the story and even then it did not really succeeded. With this information, I was a bit afraid to start with The City of Mirrors, but I wanted to finish the series, and also prevent another huge gap between books.

It was okay. There were parts that I enjoyed, and others that just seemed to be so much filler without actually adding something. Strangely enough though, the part I liked best was Zero's back story. He really fleshed out the characters, and I think this is why I've heard so much great things about his non-fantasy novels. I would certainly pick up one of those books.

However, the survivalist story I liked less. They all feel very safe with the Twelve defeated, but of course, now that there is a new novel, you already know it can't last. It didn't feel very surprising at all, and also to me it was not the last stand that so epic a series (in number of pages at least) should be deserving.

Like I said, I was slightly disappointed with The City of Mirrors, but as Justin Cronin really knows how to portray his characters, I will certainly read more from him in the future!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

@YAInsiders, #Paranormal, #Young_Adult, 4 out of 5 (very good)