
Winter’s Orbit
by Everina Maxwell
A quarter into it the book it felt like this: potential m/m romance in an SF setting, marriage of convenience, potentially a murder mystery and court intrigue, hints of space opera.
As the mystery unfolded at a snail’s pace, the author didn‘t offer many details. Elaborate explanations were given to other characters in the off, without engaging the reader very much. Which made that part of the narrative pretty superficial.
The romance was mostly nonexistent in the first half of the book. Kiem and Jainan didn‘t have any meaningful conversations. I know this is pretty typical in many romances — bad communication, misunderstandings, etc. But there wasn’t a lot of internal dialogue either and little to no character development. Not very satisfying.
I can understand why people abandon this book in the first half of it. It felt a bit as if the author wasn‘t sure where she was going with it. Is it a mystery? Is it a court intrigue? A romance? Definitely not space opera in the typical sense. I decided to just go with the flow and wait out the glacial pace of it all. The writing was good, the story just took its sweet time.
Then something happened in the middle and the story became interesting. Suspense, romance, scenery, space station, the lot. I was enjoying myself. There was even something truly inventive towards the end. Good stuff. I was much happier with the character development in the second part of the book as well.
Besides Kiem and Jainan I liked Bel and Rakal the most. The humour was good throughout the book. I liked the rest so much, that I would even pick up a sequel.
So, if you don‘t expect elaborate SF, but like your brain candy with some suspense, this might be for you. Just be patient with the beginning.
I received this free e-copy from the publisher/author via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review, thank you!
All of those things in one single book sounds like a tall order. But I’ve been seeing great reviews for this one, glad you liked it. Now if only I can get myself out of this terrible reading slump…
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Reviews are mixed. Some of my buddies really liked it, others disliked it quite a bit. So you have to make up your own mind… 😊
Reading slump… try a different book than the one you are reading right now? Read a short story? Listen to an audiobook?
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Yeah, tried all the ways. I think just need to give it up for a bit 😦
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Fanfiction? I still read that when everything else had failed…
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Hmm, very interesting idea. Might try that out, thanks! Any specific websites? I only know the Harry Potter ones
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Archive of our Own is massive and has everything. That‘s my go-to-website…
https://archiveofourown.org
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And https://www.fanfiction.net has a lot, too. I haven‘t used that one in a while though. Archive of our <own has the advantage that you can download stories in various formats, including mobi, epub, etc.
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Sounds like an interesting concept, though with a much slower burn than we as readers of modern books are used to. I’m glad you enjoyed it after sticking with it!
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I just wish the first half would have been as good as the second….
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Yeah, I can see that. It would be hard to get through the first half to get to the good second half.
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