I received this free eARC novel from NetGalley. This is my honest review.

This has been on my TBR pile for so long, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. I really enjoyed the storyline and seeing the characters change throughout the story was a great character development. The plot was great and kept my attention. I'm glad I got the chance to read this and will be on the lookout for more in the future!

I started this book with high hopes and expected to like it. But, I found that it was not for me personally. Instead of possibly giving a bad review just based on my preferences, I choose to not review this book. I am giving it 3 stars because a rating is necessary and I don't want to mark it as a bad book per se.

To put it best... This title wasnt quite my cup of tea. Others may like the title but I found it slow to pick up, hard to follow, and just uninteresting.

Well, okay, I thought this was a pretty good find.

Some technical things I was not expecting was that the entire book was shorter than any other fantasy I'd read (not including novellas, of course) and because of this we don't really see a lot of world-building or character development – I guess what it lacked in those areas, it made up for in being very fast-paced and action-packed with plenty of plot twists. It kept me engaged, though I think it would have still benefitted from maybe a bit more character development? Or more detailed flashbacks, so that we could more easily compare and contrast the difference in the same characters.

We start our story on Earth, with our main character, Emery Fae, who has grown up an orphan and haunted by nightmares of 2 men (Brokk and Memphis), who later appear at her home and spirit her away back to their own world, Keiro (incidentally, her home as well – though it's not as explored as I would have liked, but that's mostly due to the lack of world-building I guess. I think it would have been good to explore the theme of "home" a bit more too, as I think it was mentioned a few times about what was "Home" and there were opportunities to delve a bit deeper.) Essentially, Emery now must relearn her heritage after finding out she's this long-lost princess and rightful heir to the throne, though the actual political formation of this world isn't explained in too much detail and I'm still not really sure – monarchy, but currently has a tyrant on the throne I think is how I've thought of it (I could be a bit off, but again, very little world-building here.)

Said tyrant is Adair, someone who Emery has grown up with, in this safe-place for ordinary people with extraordinary abilities called the Academy. And I don't know about you, but I felt like I needed more of him. We got a few bits and bobs about him, but I felt there was always something missing whenever I was reading his sections. (Come to think of it, this might have been attributed to the lack of character development – this entire book would have benefited from being longer if those opportunities had been taken to explain a lot more.)

I did love the pace of it all though – there was always something happening and the plot twists kind of hit you in the face a lot (those are the best kind though). The storyline itself was pretty good, but mostly because of the plot twists I think, and it wasn't really complimentary of the pace of events that were happening around it – and I liked a lot of the flashback scenes and probably would have liked a few more (I dunno, I keep swinging back to world-building needed, a bit more back-story; main reason I'm not giving this a 4 stars).

But, I didn't not enjoy this story and I would definitely read the next one just because of all those plot twists that have left me questioning everything! So if you enjoy fast-paced and action-packed, with plenty of surprises that keep you questioning then definitely give this a go!

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3.5/5 stars

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I received this via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I'd have appreciated more world building and explanation. The reader is kind of dumped right into the action and left to sink or swim. The multiple perspectives from which the story is told add a lot of multidimensional depth to the story, but can be a tad confusing at times.

I liked this novel and it was filled with lots of action that I loved but everything felt a bit vague to me. I think this series has a lot of potential and plan on reading the author's future works. I also plan on re-reading this one to get a better feel for it when I get a chance. When I re-read it I will put up a blog post and such on this title. Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

A Great debut novel. This book is a fun, fast read. It has lots of action and suspense. The characters and plot are great. There are a few questions to be answered later on in the series. I can't wait to read the rest of the series. I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book from Netgalley.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Black Dawn is a cliff hanger, which isn't a bad thing however, some people like to know that since they don't like them. Emory Fae has two lives. One she knows and one she will know again. Growing up without parents was hard enough but then you add in the nightmares. Emory made a life for herself regardless. Then Memphis and Brokk show up and rock her world. She not only learns that she is from another world, but she also learns that she willingly abandoned that world when chaos erupted and her family was killed. Memphis gave bits of her memory back so she could come to terms with what was happening and get up to speed a little faster than expected due to threat from the man who started the whole problem at the start. Each character plays their role as Emory, Brokk, Memphis, and Adair (the person that started the war) try to find their places and figure out who to trust and who not to. I really like this book. I get frustrated with cliff hanger type endings but in a good way. I can't wait to read the next book in the series and continue the story. Definitely a good book for anyone that enjoys mystery, paranormal, different realms type stories.

I loved the characters in this book and the cover is beautiful but I really wish there was more world building. I was so lost through most of the book and it got really confusing at some point. The main character herself didn't remember the world around her so it was virtually impossible for the reader to keep track of the world.

Ms McCartney appears to have used friends as beta readers, not hard-hearted and serious reviewers. The book is very thin on plot and characterization and is illogical and unintuitive. People would not behave the way the characters do so what set of circumstances allows them to behave irrationally. They aren't human, I get it, but if they are not going to act like humans, we need to know why.

The editing is minimal, and the breathless pace of the action does not provide time for baths, or sleep.

I received a review copy of "Black Dawn: Black Dawn #1" by Mallory McCartney (Clean Reads) through NetGalley.com.

This book is a lot of fun !, I’m surprised, I’ve found a great story with an amazing amount of diverse characters and alot of magic.

In general, you never know what you’ll find when you read a short book, much less if it’s fantasy. Of course the lack of development of the world can be a problem, in this case I would have liked to know a little bit more, but even so, I don’t think that this has affected at all my enjoyment when reading it. So leaving that aside, I think you shouldn’t be fooled by the book size, I think it has enough content and is really good, we have friendship, betrayal, magic, revenge, love and my favorite thing PLOT TWIST!

The writing style is fantastic and this along with the characters were executed in a successfully way

At first I felt that I was bombarded with a lot of information about the paranormal and fantastic aspects of the plot, from the powers to the creatures, and this was certainly a bit confusing, but once you know more about the characters’ stories, from their points of view, how their lives work and how they connect with each other, everything is taking more sense and is really an addictive reading. All the time I felt that I was inside a chapter of a TV series which I didn’t want to end.

I think this short book would be a great start for young readers who are just starting with the genre and don’t want to read a very dense or full of descriptions fantasy book. This is short and it’s simple but it works perfectly and that’s what it’s about

The ending is quite open, which doesn’t surprise me since this type of short books always tend to have a sequel, so I can’t wait for the second part !. If it has everything that this first part had, it will be Incredible

Black Dawn by Mallory McCartney is a young adult fantasy read with a touch of romance added into the story. A young woman has been living her life not knowing that she is from a distant land that is plagued in war until she is pulled right into the middle of it all. The story is told by alternating the point of view between several of the characters with each chapter in the book.

I can easily sum up my feelings with this one in one simple complaint, the book is relatively short so I don’t think it was what was there that brought my rating down but what wasn’t. The story drops readers right into the action and ongoing conflict and I quietly waited for things to be explained more but there wasn’t much in the way of world/character building. The lack of information made the story sort of hard to follow and become connected to.

There were also a lot of good elements in this one for a fantasy but again I would still have liked it all to be explored more than it was. The characters could kind of blend when switching the point of view until getting to know what was going on but it’s one that once feeling a bit more comfortable it’s over. Not necessarily a bad read overall but one that just felt OK in the end.

I received a copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Black Dawn is a poorly constructed novel about a seemingly normal young woman pulled from her life into the middle of a rebellion.

The biggest issue with this novel is that everything is left vague or not explained. The world building is nonexistent, the magic system/abilities is poorly explained nor will it ever be explained since the characters themselves admit they don’t know where the magic comes from, and the history of the world itself is barely explained. The reader is then left with a story about a rebellion and a missing queen that has no backstory or basis for the reader to begin to understand the complex political movements of the world or the complicated relationships between the characters. About half way through the novel, I realized nothing is earned. Not the relationships, the magic system, the emotions between characters, or the big reveals and twists because of the lack of information.

The main character, Emory, is given her memories back after having them wiped and sent to earth through time travel to protect her. Again, this was never fully explained. She’s given back her memories, but the process of regaining them is slow. While she is still confused about her kidnapping and the new world she’s been thrust into, she decides to help the rebellion. A romance plot this then shoehorned into the story causing jealousy and motive for the plot to move forward. Emory and all the other characters are not developed and read like cardboard cutouts of characters. The lack of development stems from the lack of information about the world, magic system, and history. Each of the characters’ developments and motives relate directly to their pasts and since, as mentioned previously, it’s not explained, so it all falls flat.

Overall, Black Dawn is a poorly written novel with little to no character development or world building. I will definitely not be continuing this series.

This book was a huge miss for me. At 180 pages I guess I expected a shorter more concise story and instead I got novel that was on speed with the passage of time rarely if ever given making everything appear to be happening at an extremely fast rate that nothing worked for me.

If you do an amnesia storyline you have to have room for it to progress and work itself out and everything else from the villain and the romance arc is so rushed I just didn’t care about any of it and the reasoning behind the main conflict is weak at best because there was so little room to fully develop all of the ideas that were thrown into this book.

I don't know why it was so short, but overall I think it could have benefitted from a few extra chapters to really flesh out the entire piece and make it a more compelling and complete story.

**thank you to netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**