I was granted complimentary review access to this book through two avenues, so I owe a few thanks before we get going. I'll be featuring this book and my review on my blog on February 4th as part of the blog tour with Storytellers on Tour and was sent a copy through them, but I was also approved for this title on NetGalley by Xpresso Book Tours, who I also frequently work with on blog tours. Thank you to all involved in granting me access to this book! This has not swayed my opinion; my thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

My tour stop with this review and more tour-related goodies can be found after 7:30am EST February 4th 2021 https://www.westveilpublishing.com/?p...

First of all, I was not aware when I signed up for this book that there are already five other books in the series, and although this is written to precede the other five, I do get the feeling I would have enjoyed it more if I had at least tried out book 1 first if not the whole previously published selection. Alas, by the time I realized this I no longer had room in my reading schedule to backtrack and do that other reading, so muscle through I did.

This book has so much awesome packed into 420 pages! At that length, it's certainly not short, but I didn't mind because I was entertained from the first page to the last. Actually, it had me from the synopsis to the last page. Time-travelling bats? I'm sold!

My favourite character was Aurie, probably because of my STEM background that really made me connect with her constant desire to tinker and fix things. She also loves cheeseburgers. Like, a lot! I can relate.

The concept here, a plague delivered by time-travelling bats, is quite interesting. I was worried that perhaps the present world climate wouldn't exactly permit me to enjoy a plague story at this time, but I did. It's done well with a lot of humour, and I loved it. It's full of action, absolutely not a dull moment, and pretty much every character is capable of world-class witty banter.

On that note, however, I feel compelled to comment that on many occasions so much attention was paid to the fantastic dialogue that everything else fell away. The dialogue wasn't boring at all, but it did drift into the realm of talking heads often. Conversation picks up and we stop getting enough description of everything else.

I also want to gently address the cover. Normally I don't comment on a book cover unless I'm absolutely smitten with it, because I know covers tend to change as new editions come out, and in the traditional publishing realm at least the author doesn't necessarily have any input on the cover design. The Vaal’bara Historical Society crest is so crisp and beautiful on the author/publisher website, and I imagine the covers look great printed in high resolution on physical copies of these books, but I have yet to see any of these books listed anywhere online where the covers look good. The designs don't scale, and if I'm being absolutely honest, I would not have been enticed to click through to this title (or the others in the series) on any sort of online list based on the scaled-down digital cover image. When this one becomes any less than 300 pixels tall it starts to become difficult to read the title, the crest becomes a grey blob, and the design behind it all becomes an MS Paint sketch of an amoeba. The unreadable tiny version of this cover gives me MG graphic novel science fiction vibes. Given how important digital marketing is these days, I would want something that is easily read and gives the right impression on product listing thumbnails, not just full-size print book covers.

Overall this is a great book, it definitely makes me want to put the other five on my TBR, and I would recommend it to pretty much any SFF reader out there. Fantastic concept, fun character, great introduction to this world and series. Just watch out for those time-travelling bats!