Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review

I really wanted to enjoy this one more than I did. I tried and tired and tried. The concept was amazing- a matriarchal society that suddenly stops giving birth to girls? Told from the points of views of several characters representing each of the five Queendoms? And the one woman responsibly for the Drought of Girls."
But even halfway through I just didn't care about what was happening to any of the characters. They all just felt flat to me.
Also, there was a lot of over explaining , telling the reader what was happening, rather than having the action unfold. This happened.. then this happened.. then that happened.. then some other things happened to another women.
Sadly, I will not be reading the next installment.

Scorpica is the perfect fantasy read. It has a complex world, interweaving timeline, and amazing characters. The matriarchal world was something I hadn’t seen done in a fantasy book before, at least not in any that I’ve read, so it was engrossing.

It did take me a bit more time to understand and catch on to the world and recognize the characters, but I did eventually.

Great Read! I’m going to be looking up the author and seeing what other worlds they have to offer!

I'm a big fan of G.R. Macallister's historical books, so when I saw she had a new fantasy series I jumped at the chance to read. I'm glad I did. I'll admit that it took me some time to get into the storylines, with lots of people and world building to get a handle on. But once the names began repeating themselves and the stories began picking up where they'd let off, I was captivated. It's very much a Game of Throne's situation where it's not wise to get attached to any of the characters and I certainly had my favorites and the ones I disliked. It could've been reader's error, but there were a few times the character's actions didn't quite add up for me. And there are a few characters who I was hoping for more resolution with -- but hurrah, there's a book two (and three) where I hope to see more of them! All in all, I was impressed with Macallister's organization, creativity, and originality in her first fantasy and I look forward to the next Five Queendom's book!

It's only January, and I already know that this is one of my top books for the year.

This was such an incredible read. The plot itself was intriguing, but I found myself so invested in the characters, that I still would have devoured this book even if they'd done nothing throughout the entire thing. They were all captivating, with unique voices, and I didn't want to leave them. The world building was amazing, and the magic system interesting and refreshing.

This felt kind of like a sapphic, feminist answer to A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones. I can't wait to get to return to this world again.

A nice story. I have to confess that I was struggling at first but I’m really glad I’ve kept reading because it was worth it. A really complex matriarchal world, five queendoms, where five queens fight for their people, their beliefs, while they try to carry on with centuries-old traditions in a changing world where no girl has been born in several years due to the Drought of Girls.

This is more than a woman's story or women's stories. This is a woman's <i>world</i>. <u>The Drought of Matriarchal Fantasy is over. And I am so here for it.</u>

When I say everyone, I mean <i>everyone</i> needs to read this book. I don't care if you don't like fantasy, I don't care if you hate women—actually, I do care; women are gorgeous, talented, unstoppable beings and they deserve everything—just read it.

That being said, if you love fantasy and you love women: this is for you. The world-building blew me away. Not even for a debut fantasy author (which is what G.R. Macallister unbelievably is!), this is an impressively and incredibly rich physical and political landscape that's been crafted that I want to live in—okay, maybe not actually live in, but at least explore from the safety of a reality which will never require me to physically wield a sword in self-defense—forever. Women are ruthless and kind and resilient and so thoroughly human and that's what's wonderful about reading about a society dominated by women. These women G.R. has created are real and compelling and far from perfect, and it is so refreshing to dwell in a world in which female is the default, where women are the protagonists and the side characters. The age-old struggle endured by Antigone of Sophocles's Theban plays and Dalila of <i>Samson Agonistes</i>, the conflict between duty and family felt by Khara and Jehenit is what really stuck out to me early in my read. The depictions of motherhood honestly have me rethinking my twelve-year-old-self's vow to ~never~ have children. The force and fierceness behind these women's devotion to their kinswomen was moving and heart-wrenching.

But oh my god, THE TWISTS AND TURNS. <spoiler>Twist (1) when Sessadon is revealed to be Kruvesis's sister?? I could not believe. Twist (2) when Sessadon is revealed to be the cause of the drought—I was so shook I wouldn't have noticed if an earthquake were happening. When Jehenit dies, a part of me died with her. When Ever stabs Mirriam, I gasped out loud. When Mirrda is revealed to be Mirriam inhabiting her daughter's body, I involuntarily uttered a crisp "fuck."</spoiler> I recommend not sitting down for this read, because, personally speaking, it is uncomfortable to constantly be on the edge of your seat. Part III: Crisis is <i>the</i> most aptly named section of anything ever. Maybe I'm just out of practice reading fantasy, but at least half my shock came from my underestimating these women's cruelty. And while my heart did not enjoy the over-exertion, I enjoyed every moment of it.

Favorite character? At the moment, it's a toss-up between Eminel (obvi), Vish <3, and Gretti (she really snuck up on me, I was very lukewarm initially but now I would die for her). I am <u>beyond</u> pumped to see where their journeys take them and all these wonderfully complex and complicated women.

Great world building in this new fantasy series. I can't wait for the 2nd in the series. I give it 5 stars.

A world where the five kingdoms are ruled by fierce and savvy women. A world where women seek pleasure from men and women without remorse or commitment, where boy babies are taken to the orphan tree and girl babies are celebrated and destined to wield magic and become strong warriors. The five kingdoms have existed for as long as anyone can remember following the same traditions but now they are in a decade long drought where no female babies have been born and politics are shifting. A mix of Amazon women in a GAME OF THRONES or WHEEL OF TIME setting, Macallister presents a rich mystical landscape filled with violence, court politics and magic. The first in a series and a huge departure from her past historical mysteries this is a fresh voice in the female-centric fantasy genre .
She excels at dark mysterious characters who always hold a bit of themselves back and this is evident in SCORPICA as well as great storytelling. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

I actually really enjoyed this book--I'm all in for matriarchies!--and while it's not groundbreaking for the genre, it was solidly readable and I'd definitely pick up the next book in the series.

4 stars

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book! The beginning was a rather slow start, but the story just keeps building and building in a way that slowly sucked me into the narrative, so that by the halfway mark I was hooked.

This is a sweeping epic fantasy, which will particularly excite those who enjoy long-term macro-plots weaving together across leagues of space. Those who enjoy political machinations in their fantasy will have a very good time with the five queendoms presented here, and the way their interactions change when a natural (magical) disaster occurs and girls, inexplicably, stop being born.

I also really enjoyed the characters, each of whom I felt was a fully realized person and not merely a cog in the enormous machine of this plot.

My only real gripe is that the climax felt strangely rushed after the slow but delicious buildup that was the meat of the novel. Perhaps this is intended to set up a twist at the start of the sequel, where new point-of-view chapters will reveal new information to us, because I was left feeling as though something was missing.

I definitely recommend this book to fans of epic fantasy, and I’m very curious to see where the series goes from here.

This sweeping fantasy story by G.R. Macallister is a stellar beginning installment to what I am thrilled will be a series of books about the Five Queendoms, a fantasy world ruled by women. Vivid world-building and strong characters make this story impossible to put down from the very first paragraphs. Can’t wait to see how the story continues for some of my favorite characters as this series progresses. They are still floating around in my brain.
I would like to thank NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ebook ARC of Scorpica by G.R. Macallister.

Loved the fantasy world-building Greer created here, a lot of thought and detail went into it and it paid off well! There are strong female characters here the reader can instantly admire or sympathize with, and the main plot of the book (a sudden shortage of girls being born) is written with a bold spin. However, the two things that hindered this book was the major lack of intriguing dialogue and the mild-hot start to the book. I can see the first two chapters of the book be enticing only to those who are fans of high fantasy, when this book has so much potential to appeal to much more. Therefore, there needs to be a more red-hot beginning, not something lukewarm, to draw in and hook a wider range of readers.

Sophisticated, complicated, elevated epic fantasy. Brutal magic, warrior queens, political drama, a matriarchal society suffering from the "Drought of Girls"... this story stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the major titles in the genre and as a "feminist Game of Thrones." Still, it succeeds in not being interpretive or derivative, a true triumph. The world-building is top-notch, the characters are fierce, vicious, and compelling, and the build to the explosive ending is incredibly satisfying. It’s going to be a fantastic TV show. It’s going to win all the awards. A total win from start to finish.

I can’t wait to experience the next book in the series.

Scorpica was an expansive fantasy with an interesting concept and a major plus for a women-led fantasy. The writing style was solid, the dialogue well done and the world-building was interesting! I feel like some parts were a bit exposition heavy for information. There are a lot of characters and you are bound to find at least one you enjoy, but it also makes the POV system a bit tedious if you are fond of one narrative over another, and I found some storylines definitely held my attention more strongly.

I feel like there was a lot of solid plot points but sometimes things happened and I had a hard time feeling the full character connection to them, investment failed me a bit on that note. I wish some of the characterizations, motivations, and relationships were better explored and built up to though.

But I think with the amount of characters, G.R. Macallister did a great job making them feel different and individuals, the plot and premise feel original, and I am interested to see where this series goes going forward!

G.R. Macallister has created a world that is vast, alluring, brutal, and bold. In SCORPICA, the first of her new Five Queendoms series, Macallister gifts readers with unforgettable characters who fight leap off the page as they fight for their lives. In Macallister’s world, women are allowed to play every role - they are the magical healers, the evil sorcerers, the duplicitous queens, and the bloodthirsty warriors. They are both the villains and the heroes of the story, which is part of why this novel is so incredibly satisfying. This isn’t a book about one female protagonist – it is a book in which women delight and disgust us. Macallister’s new fantasy realm is nothing short of a revolution. I cannot wait to read the rest.

Scorpica
by G.R Macallister

This book is a story, and by that I mean it's a narrative, there's very little dialogue! And even though there were wonderful descriptions, it was still a boring read.

This book is about a world where women rule because they are the ones with magic, and while there is a plot and a storyline, the problem is, it's split up between a lot of different MCs so all that is done in this book is world and character building along with a history lesson of each kingdom, or town. And worse yet, it expanded for years. Yes, YEARS!

For me, this book would've been better if the author took each character's story, the years, in this book, and made them into separate novels, then connected them for the climax. That way they could've given each character the love they deserve. So much more could've been done to get a reader to connect, identify, and most importantly care about the characters and this world.

Even though it's the first book of a series, I don't see myself volunteering to read the next.

2 stars, only because the storyline was good, (too bad the execution in presenting the story was poor.)

I really appreciate the realm building in this book. The time it took to construct and craft the plot and characters probably was a synch for Ms Macallister. I loved reading about the role reversal of women in this novel. The reality flip of the role women have over men in Scorpica's society was completely intriguing. There is one tiny suggestion I have to make, this book with its vast amount of characters really needs an index of characters at the beginning, for those of us with no reference. For someone like myself, who would like to read every night but sometimes can't, it was very difficult to follow all the characters without a reference when I really needed it. If I would have had that to begin with this book would have been a 5 star read for me. As it as, not as much.
Thank you to Netgalley and publishers for the complimentary arc in exchange for my honest review.

HIGHLIGHTS
~a magic-system that draws from sand
~Amazons are hard-core
~mind-control never ends well
~the wind can keep you hidden

I’m not sure how you could have gotten me more hyped for this book – matriarchies!!! Matriarchies get me so excited – any set-up where gender roles are explored or flipped around or completely rewritten has be bouncing in my seat, okay? I was even hopeful, because this is a book releasing in 2022, that this would be a matriarchy that acknowledged more than two genders.

The problem is, Scorpica just puts me to sleep.

I tried. I tried so much harder than I usually do with a book I’m struggling with – my normal cut-off point is 20%; with Scorpica, I made it all the way to 48% before I just had to give up.

Red flags went off for me in the prologue, when we learn that each of the five kingdoms has a Role – and by that I mean it sounds like a Divergent set-up, except that you’re born into your designation, with no opportunity to change it. This kingdom is made up of nothing but warriors, this one is a land of bureaucrats, this one is the land of magic-users – I mean. That’s awfully simplistic and reductive right away – not that different from dividing society up into dominant/valued personality traits like Courage or Intelligence ala Divergent, is it?

After the prologue, things are just…boring? All these Big Things happen, but the emotional impact isn’t there. Although I could intellectually sympathise with some of the characters, I didn’t find myself caring about a single one of them – if anything, they all frustrated me in their different ways. Despite what’s going on – despite the fact that several of the characters do take action! – all the characters felt very passive to me. It reads like Macallister came up with this amazing premise – what if matriarchal cultures stopped giving birth to girls??? – but could no more figure out how her fictional queendoms would react to that than the characters themselves can figure out what to do about it. Scorpica, the queendom of the title, is the only one that takes steps to try and stave off their destruction; as far as I could tell, no one else was doing anything at all.

I can’t emphasise enough that the worldbuilding here is pretty lackluster. There’s no meat on that bone. The Divergent-esque set-up was immensely disappointing, and then the gender politics were…well. There’s hints of trouble brewing, that as only boys are born some men start to question why they have no political or social power, but we’re just told this. (Gods, there’s so much telling-not-showing; I’m not someone who thinks you’re never allowed to tell, but Scorpica feels like one long lecture after another, and the prose isn’t rich or lush enough to make me enjoy that.) And although we get one brief aside in the first half of the book acknowledging that nonbinary people exist, there’s just that one mention (although of course, I don’t know if it comes up again later, or if we might even meet nonbinary characters in the second half of the book – I don’t think so, but it’s possible), with no – no follow-through.

If you design a matriarchal culture – or five! – then it should look different depending on how many genders it recognises. And Macallister’s worldbuilding only recognises two, even if there’s a careless hand-wave acknowledging nonbinary identities. If we weren’t told nonbinary people exist, we’d never know, because Macallister certainly doesn’t show us them, or even a culture that has room for them. We do get a few minor glimpses at sapphic relationships (which, given that Scorpica is a country of nothing but women, definitely need to be a thing) but the ones we get are either so background we don’t even meet the characters involved…or the fabulous one where one partner is forced to kill the other and is then, herself, destroyed, so – I’m not really willing to give Macallister points for great queer rep, here.

Again: I didn’t finish the whole book, and what I read mostly focussed on Scorpica and Arcan – two of the queendoms. Maybe the other three are better designed, with more complex values and gender systems. I can’t say.

I can’t say, and I’m not interested in finding out. The writing isn’t bad so much as bland; there’s no beautiful description, no manipulating sentence length to convey urgency, nothing lovely or enjoyable about the writing itself. And the story is just…meh. It feels so basic. The characters are all so very two-dimensional, defined by one or two traits with nothing to make them feel real. Scenes that should be tense, or intense, or horrifying, or tragic, ring incredibly hollow – I shrugged when we got to meet the demigod mentioned in the blurb, and my heart didn’t ache at all when one character dies in a way that’s clearly meant to be heartbreaking. One queen decides, apparently at random, to do something drastic and taboo that has Never Been Done Before, and… To make me grasp the full import of something like that, you have to do more than just tell me that it’s never been done before. Show me enough of the culture and the situation that you don’t need to tell me it’s not been done before; immerse me in this culture enough that I don’t need your cues to tell me when to gasp and clap my hands over my mouth because OMG.

This isn’t a script, and I’m not an actor: I don’t want cues on how to behave or react, I want to react on my own, spontaneously and with genuine emotion, because you’ve made me care enough that I have feelings of my own about it all. And with Scorpica, I just didn’t. Don’t. I have no strong feelings about this book whatsoever, except exhaustion. Scorpica just made me Tired, and pretty disappointed, because I was so excited about this story…until I read it.

This is an absolutely fantastic story I would recommend to anyone who loves fantasy. The world building is phenomenal, the characters are realistic, strong and well cast. The book is hard to put down! Please hurry with Book 2, I want more now!