Release date: November 6 2018
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 366
Find it: Goodreads Waterstones
Source: I received an E-ARC via Netgalley
Rating: 2.25/5 stars

Synopsis

In a palace of illusions, nothing is what it seems.

Each generation, a competition is held to find the next empress of Honoku. The rules are simple. Survive the palace’s enchanted seasonal rooms. Conquer Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. Marry the prince. All are eligible to compete—all except yōkai, supernatural monsters and spirits whom the human emperor is determined to enslave and destroy.

Mari has spent a lifetime training to become empress. Winning should be easy. And it would be, if she weren’t hiding a dangerous secret. Mari is a yōkai with the ability to transform into a terrifying monster. If discovered, her life will be forfeit. As she struggles to keep her true identity hidden, Mari’s fate collides with that of Taro, the prince who has no desire to inherit the imperial throne, and Akira, a half-human, half-yōkai outcast.

Torn between duty and love, loyalty and betrayal, vengeance and forgiveness, the choices of Mari, Taro, and Akira will decide the fate of Honoku in this beautifully written, edge-of-your-seat YA fantasy.

Review

Empress of All Seasons is a fast paced YA fantasy tale that follows Mari, a young yōkai who has been trained all her life to take part in a deadly competition to choose the next Empress of Honoku. To succeed she must survive all the rooms, however, yōkai are forbidden from entering and so she must hide who she truly is. If she succeeds she can steal the Emperor’s fortune and return to her village a hero. Meanwhile Prince Taro wants nothing to do with the competition that will choose who his wife will be, instead preferring to spend time with his mechanical creations. When he has a chance encounter with Mari things begin to change and Taro begins to fight for what he believes in.

Empress of All Seasons is a book that I thought had a really intriguing concept but it didn’t quite hit the mark for me in terms of execution. The story is very very fast paced. I wanted more time to explore the season rooms and understand the different yōkai creatures. The romance also develops very quickly so it didn’t feel like there was much time to really get to know and root for the characters. I am also not a big fan of love triangles and that features in this book. As a standalone the story works quite well, but I would have liked it to be maybe a hundred pages longer in order to fully flesh things out.

I found the Japanese mythology really fascinating in the book and it was this aspect that interested me most. The characters were fine but I didn’t really connect with them. Akira was probably the character that interested me most and I enjoyed his POV as he becomes a warrior. I really enjoy competitions in stories and so the first half of the book that featured the competition gripped me a lot more than the latter half. If you enjoy fast paced YA fantasy this could be just the book for you but sadly didn’t quite hit the mark for me.