Queens of Moirai

"{3.5/5}<br/><br/>CW: Death (obviously), gore, violence, some spice, some others<br/><br/>Read as an ARC via BookSirens. Book publishes September 5, 2023.<br/><br/>The three Fates are well known in mythology. Their descendants, on the other hand, are not usually discussed. So what is one to do with a descendant of Atropos, the Fate of death, who doesn’t want to kill? Morena’s life has been one of misery and pain, cursed with powers she neither wants nor can wield, isolated from the world as her mother destroys it. <br/><br/>“Queens of Moirai” is book 1 of a proposed 4-book series. At first, I wasn’t sure how much I was going to enjoy it. A slow start, combined with a disjointed, murky timeline added to the confusion, and things weren’t looking good for a story that had held a lot of potential. After all, how often do you find a modern story about the Fates, much less their lineages?<br/><br/>Fortunately for both me and the book, things picked up around the 40% mark, and, after finishing the story, the timeline jumps made a lot more sense. Without giving too much away, they appear to be intentional. As a personal preference, though, I’d have preferred them to be a bit more clearly defined. Also, the entire book was in italics (at least on the Kindle version that I was reading), which made it less than friendly on the eyes. Since this was an ARC, however, this might just have been a formatting issue that is resolved prior to final publication/printing.<br/><br/>The characters were interesting enough, and the meat of the story was good. I did find our FMC, Morena, to be irritating at times in her lack of resolve (sometimes the bad guys just need killing, dammit). To be fair, I think a lot of that stems from her absolutely abhorrent childhood and her mother’s thoroughly disturbing manipulations and abuse, it’s just a personal preference. <br/><br/>Overall, I ended up enjoying this book a lot more than I expected to based on the start. I’d definitely like to read the next in the series, and I think I’d re-read this one in its final, published form. It’s an interesting spin on a subject I haven’t seen often, so if you’re okay with being a little fluid in the flow of things, you may want to check it out, too!<br/>"