Really enjoyed this one! I should have read it so much sooner! But I don’t regret it. This maybe a new obsession! I love the characters, plot, etc.

I love space opera. Picking up this book was the best thing I did. The premise was very intriguing to me and I couldn't wait to get started. I appreciated the opening preface chapter(s). They paint the picture of where the world is set and gives a glimpse at what is in store for the characters. In some cases, I prefer less description, but this was an exception.

I was hooked all the way through. Palmer Pickering is a new author for me. I found her writing to be captivating and very moving. I enjoyed the pacing of the plot. It's not a quick read. I definitely needed to set aside many hours every day, but it is so binge-able. I could put it down. It was the perfect source of entertainment during my down days while I was on vacation (recently). MOON DEEDS is just so good and I already diving into the sequel. I cannot wait to see what happens next!

Unfortunately, I could not get through this book. The writing wasn't mature enough and the character development left much to be desired.

This is quite a difficult book for me to review. On the positive side, the world building and history of the Cephs is intriguing. I would have liked to have seen more direct involvement from them but I'm guessing it's coming in later books. The found family aspect is also a bonus for me. I love to see those kind of relationships develop

However, there are two major areas I had issue with. To begin with, I enjoyed the Twins stories. The first half of the book sees them separated but trying to reach each other. This really worked for me and the trials they went through kept me racing along. In the second half of the book, after they came together, the relationship began to feel a bit stagnant, with a recurring "not talking about our recent trauma but being incredibly angry at each other for no reason" theme. It got a bit repetitive and boring. At that point, all character development seemed to stop. And interest waned.

The second area is the pacing. Hoo boy! I felt that this could have probably either been two books or had some serious editing done to remove a big chunk. As I said, the first half raced along, being both exciting and full of suspense. The second half.... not so much. Lots of wondering around and chatting. It sped up a bit towards the end but then just ended. I was surprised to reach the end as I felt that there was at least another 2 chapters to go. It felt that the entire story had been written and then it was cut into arbitrary chunks without regard to he story.

I'm not sure I will carry on with this series. I did start to get frustrated with the main characters and, for me, that is not a good sign. If you like the more spiritual side to your magic and a slow burn to the story, this could be the book for you.

I'm giving this book overall 3.5 stars.

Positives-
I loved the world building. Pickering does an incredible job of really immersing you in this fantasy-dystopian-wizardesque landscape with a combination of vivid illustrations and scientific rationale all while incorporating the other-worldly backdrop. The juxtaposition of life on earth vs the moon was really well done. And also made me never want to live on the moon.

Torr & Cassidy. Love both of these characters and it's been a while since I've read any novel that centers around the core relationship between a brother and sister. I'm excited to explore their bond more in the second book (fingers crossed)

Found family- I had fun finally finding Jasper and creating a family with Berkeley, Hawk, Durham, Roanoke, etc.

Less positives-
I love a long book. Honestly, the longer the better because then I don't need to suffer the withdrawal when it's over. But this book was long only for descriptive and world-building purposes and less so for any plot advancement. Like I said, I LOVED the world building. But I would have really liked to have some more action sequences (or even one). Some other reviewers have said they thought it took too long for Torr to find Cassidy and his family but honestly that was the most exciting part for me and I flew through the first half. Hoping for more character-driven scenes and some action.

Side characters/dialogue. I mentioned earlier that I loved the found family aspect. But that being said, the side characters fell really flat for me. Berkeley was really interesting and I'm excited to find out more about him. But aside from him, even Jasper was kind of vanilla and the conversations between all of them just felt very cookie cutter and uninteresting.

The role of women. I hope she's going somewhere with this. Because women are just treated like shit. Objects by both humans and cephs for breeding and r*pe. I get it... women are a rare commodity on the moon. But give them some credit. I have yet to see a strong woman character. Not even Cassidy (yet... hopefully this changes). Gabira was the only maybe threatening female but she is portrayed as a villain. Maybe other planets with have a different view towards women and we'll get to see how different it is for them to be treated with dignity and respect. Hopefully. Even on earth there are arranged marriages, etc. Jasper says he didn't want to "sully" Cassidy by sleeping with her. Which I get... she was 15, he was 20 and he was living at her parents' house. But those are better reasons for distancing himself rather than worried about her "honor." Like come on.

Anyways overall I did enjoy this book. I think this was a great entry point into the world Puckering is creating and am excited for the next one.

Dnf 15 %

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted this book to fill the void that the Expanse books by James SA Corey left in my heart, and I tried to be more engaged in the worldbuilding, but this felt more like a war drama and I wasn't into it. I understood the urgency of what was happening, but I didnt quite feel it... or maybe it was the other way around? The prologue that set the scene for this stpry was amazinf, and I would read a history of this earth in the style of the prologue in a snap. One of the mcs felt too agro and I couldn't connect with them and the other felt too passive and helpless and I couldn't connect with them either. May try picking it up again as an audiobook later to see if I can get more through it and change my opinion, but for now, I'm putting it down.

I recieved access to this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I'm giving this 3 stars, it wasn't horrible but it definately had room for improvement. It was an incredibly interesting concept for a book, the idea that those certificates that claim to give you a place on the moon could one day be actual land deeds. The history of the Cephs and how they came into power was also very well thought out and explained with great detail.

However, it felt like this could have been at least 2 separate books. All the time spent heading to the moon felt like it could either have been its own story or completely eraesed with the story starting on the moon and their history being told through flashbacks.

Over a thousand pages in a book is usually very exciting to me as it will keep me occupied for a while, however I spent most of the time reading checking the page to see when I would be done. I didn't connect with the characters much and the constant reminder that women were unsafe or property was a turnoff to me. Despite the cliffhanger, I don't think I will be reading the sequel.

Very interesting concept though, and I wish the author the best.

This was a good adventure story! It took me a little to get into but once everything started I had trouble putting it down. The character development was fantastic! They have a lot of depth and the twins' personalities are the kind that draw you in wanting to know more. The pace is good and the world is quite interesting. Thank you Love Books Tours and Palmer Pickering for sharing this book with me!

3.5 stars

Moon Deeds is an exciting sci-fi/fantasy blend with interesting worldbuilding and a whole lot of adventure.

We follow twins Cassidy and Torr, who are living in the not too distant future, when aliens have invaded and dominated the majority of Earth. The only defence against alien technology is magic, but when one of the magic safety shields inexplicably drops, the alien Tegs starts to invade. The fate of humanity lies in the hands of the prophesied Star Children… yet they still have a lot to learn about their powers.
What follows is a story filled with magic, prophecy, space travel, family, friendship and adventure.

Now, I loved everything about the concept of this story; the strong sibling bond, the intriguing sci-fi/fantasy worldbuilding, the prophecy, the space adventure… yet something about the execution just didn’t work for me. Don’t get me wrong, I had a good time with this book, but there definitely were some things that held me back from getting fully invested.

Let’s just get the negatives out of the way first, but please keep in mind that this was my personal experience. You may feel very differently, so I would highly recommend you to just check it out for yourself if the premise sounds interesting to you!
Okay, so, I think my main issue here is the character work. Now, Torr and Cassidy are both very well-developed characters and they undergo some good development throughout the story. However, the side characters all felt quite flat to me and I didn’t really jive with the character interactions and cringy dialogue.
On top of that, I felt like the characters often acted quite naive, immature and silly, which was super jarring for a story with such supposedly high stakes. And that leads into my next quibble, which is that I never felt the urgency in this story. I mean, I liked following these characters on their journeys, but I never got the sense that they ever really had a good clue of what they were doing. This made it very hard to feel invested, because the plot just felt a bit aimless and meandering to me.
The final thing that really irked me is the way women were treated on the Moon. I was honestly appalled by the lecherous behaviour of the men there and I got quite annoyed with how many times we get descriptions of men looking at women’s bodies. Like, I get it, there aren’t a lot of women around, so it’s all very interesting… but please just behave like normal human beings and keep your primal urges in check ffs.

All that said, I still enjoyed the story overall, because there were a good amount of positive aspects to this book that definitely saved it for me.
Firstly, I was a big fan of the sibling dynamics in this story. Cassidy and Torr have a very strong bond and that definitely kept me going throughout this book. We get to read from both of their perspectives and I really liked that they both had very distinct personalities, yet you could also see similarities between them because of their twin bond. My favourite aspect of the dual POV structure was the fact that we get to see each of these characters through the other's eyes, that added a nice layer of depth and complexity to these characters imo!
Also, there is a third POV introduced in Part 2 and I think that character absolutely stole the show, I would have loved an entire novel from their perspective tbh.

The worldbuilding was also very fascinating and I think that aspect of the book will be a huge draw for many readers. Right from the get-go, you can see that the author put a lot of care and effort into crafting this world. We get a good look into the history of this world and also learn about the current political landscape. But my favourite part was the shamanic magic, I loved how that was incorporated into the story. We get to see our characters unravel hidden truths about their ancestry/heritage and slowly start to unlock their powers, which was very compelling and interesting to follow.

All in all, this wasn’t my favourite reading experience, but I am still glad I read this book. It was an intriguing and ambitious start to what I expect to be an epic sci-fantasy series. Even with all my gripes, I am still interested in checking out book 2, because whew… this one ended on a brutal cliffhanger and I would really like some answers!
If you are in the mood for a fast-paced sci-fantasy with fascinating worldbuilding, intriguing magic and a good sibling relationship, then I highly recommend you to check out Moon Deeds asap!

While I found this book intriguing and did end up liking it, it was really hard for me to get into at first and started out a bit hard to follow. I plan on reading more of the series to see how I feel then, but for now I just kind of feel neutral. I’m not obsessed with it, but I don’t hate it either.

WARNING: F-bombs, other swearing and crude language liberally scattered throughout the 3 parts of this 600 page book. -2 Stars for the author's inability to write without being offensive, and failure to use a free online thesaurus. Book not recommended!

If you're able/willing to wade through the muck to the storyline, it's extremely slow-moving, repetitive, and disjointed. The general idea is fine, but it feels as though the story-board suffered an accident, and everything got mixed up.

It begins with a very quick summary of the invasion that happened decades before. It all seemed innocent at first, but turned insidious! Then the reader is given pin-hole views of events experienced by a couple of people. We are not given full pictures of what is happening in any one place, much less the world.

The worst failings are that the characters were so flat and often unlikeable, it was hard to care about them. I eventually gave up!

The author 1) skipped forward and back in time without warning, 2) mentioned very strange hallucinations but never explained whether they were actually seen or imagined, 3) gave animals odd behavior, 4) imbued people with magical powers, 5) sometimes forgot the powers were still switched on, 6) food stolen was carefully listed (so it appeared important), but only mentioned--in another brief list--later. 7) Events were described in OCD detail one moment, then the train of thought is abandoned and forgotten. (See screaming squirrels, tree branches breaking and falling, but little reaction from people hit or almost flattened.) Significant scenes were distributed like debits and credits; but nothing balanced.

Topics (like betrayal) were distributed like potholes in a muddy and rainy cracked roadway. No mention at all, then repeated (re-hashed, agonized over, traumatized by) so many times, there was no way to dodge the jolts and splashes!

Opportunities for good dialogue and interesting story possibilities flew right past so often it was distracting. "Wait! I wanted to know that!" or "We don't ever hear about ___ ? Say it isn't so!"

I usually finish every book I begin to read, but the senseless swearing became too much when I was in part two. So I will never know who the Star Children are, and I feel completely indifferent--except that I was in the mood for some good science fiction, and now I have to search for alternatives.

I do not recommend this book to anyone except a very well-compensated story editor.

2/5 Stars

Thanks to Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) and #NetGalley for the temporary loan of the preview; the review is entirely voluntary.

#MoonDeeds #StarChildrenSagaBookOne
#NetGalley
#IndependentBookPublishersAssociationIBPA
#PalmerPickering #PalmerPickeringAuth
#MythologyPress
#MysteryandThrillers
#NewAdultFictionSciFiandFantasy
#MagicalRealism
#InvasionandAliensColonizingEarth
#ScienceFictionAdventures

What an awesome blend of science fiction and fantasy! Great character development. The story is compelling. The writing is superb! I highly recommend this book to all! Thanks #netgalley and #IBPA and #MythologyPress for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are mine.

From the beginning one of my favorite aspects of this story was the great combination between Science Fiction and Fantasy elements. We have alien races on Earth, space travel and yet at the same time more traditional magic and shamanism. I thought this was a really interesting blend and Palmer put them together really well.

This turned into a very consistent and solid read for me. It’s written well and allowed me to just tear through the pages but rarely did I find myself in that blank space that happens in some reads for me where I don’t recall what I’m actually reading or where we are in the story. This means for me the pacing was very well done. Along those lines I mentioned to Palmer that I really thought there was a lot of thriller or suspense vibes throughout the story. There is just an almost constant sense of urgency from our characters from the very beginning.

The character development was also done well. I definitely found myself relating and pulling for a lot of the characters yet finding myself frustrated or angry with some of an antagonists. I even found the emotions that Torr is going through from an early incident in the book and he is dealing with it the entire first book. And I’m sure he will continue that into the second as well. The supporting case is very diverse and I find myself wanting to learning more about many of them.

The world development is progressing well through the first book. You definitely get a very good feel of things early in book one on the state of things on Earth but then things open up way more once things transition off world. So much so we have only been teased at several other locations still. I’m hoping we get to explore some of the worlds mentioned in book one when we venture onto book two!

World Building 5/5
Pacing 4.5/5
Character Development 5/5

4.5/5 Thank you to Net Galley and the author for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Great world building for Earth’s near future. Good character development. A really fun ride. Looking forward to the second book in this series.

Cassidy & Torr are Earthlander twins who may be the prophesied Star Children to save humankind on Earth. The background of the Cephean (alien) invasion of Earth is easily explained by a paper written by Cassidy for a second year Recent History course at San Jose State University. The story goes on to explain where the 20 year old twins are now. Torr is off defending the edge of the Shaman’s Shield which covers a portion of North America and magically protects those inside it from Teg’s army which is trying to take over all of Earth. Cassidy is at home with their parents, attending university and learning the ways of magical plants from her mother.

As the Shaman’s Shield starts to dissipate and recede, Cassidy and Torr escape Earth by using the land deeds to the moon that their wise aunt gifted to them years ago. Passage can only be bought for those that have land, and therefore residency, on other worlds; so the two have to leave their parents behind.

Life on the moon is not easy and they have difficulty finding friends there. There are very few women in the moon colony and Cassidy is attracting lots of unwanted attention. Politics are disorganized and there seems to be foreshadowing on where the twins can fit into their new society.

My only complaint: A cliff hanger ending isn’t a proper way to end a book.

A wonderful storyline and wonderful characters. This was a lovely touching story that had me hooked from beginning to end.

Review of eBook

When the Cepheans first came to Earth, they settled in a colony with humans. But political unrest, interbreeding, and greed caused a global war. General Djedfptah [Jed] Tegea united the downtrodden young Greek men, the disenfranchised young Turkish men, and the mixed-race half-human/half-Cephean Tegs; together, they took power in Greece and Turkey. It wasn’t long before Tegea announced the joining of his forces with those of Jared Metolius, who had built a large mercenary army that operated in Eurasia and Africa. Together, in 2077, they formed the Global Alliance. Promising to unite the world under one government, Metolius took over as president, diplomatically urging other nations to join the alliance while Tegea united the mercenary armies and christened them Tegs. Shortly after this, he negotiated the Technology Transfer Alliance Agreement with the Cepheans and the Tegs became unstoppable.

As their power grew, the Alliance took over more nations, transforming them into a Cephean-structured economy. Soon it was clear that the Cepheans were behind both the Alliance and the Teg army and were systematically converting Earth into a Cephean colony.

A Cephean bomb attack on the isolationist government of the Free States of North America turned Pensacola, Florida into an ash-filled crater that the sea ultimately consumed. Despite the attack and the air and ground offensive that followed, most of the free states banded together to become Gaia United.

Around the world, Shamans working against the Cephean takeover created a defensive shield to protect their citizens from the Cephean/Teg takeover. The Druid’s Mist and the cloud barrier Shaman’s Shield protect the people but no one knows how long the people can survive isolated inside the cloud barrier, but the magic has proven to be an effective defense against the Tegs and the Cephean technology.

In 2090, freedom survives only on the moon, technology counters magic, and the Star Children are the only remaining hope for humanity. But many believe the Star Children are only a wishful myth and their one truth is that the Tegs are working with the Cepheans to take control of Earth.

Cassidy Daga and her twin brother, Torrance, supposedly the legendary Star Children, each hold a deed to a plot of lunar land and, after the Shaman’s Shield begins to retreat and Torr’s unit of the Gaia rebels surrenders without resisting, the two decide to try to go to the moon and claim their land.

Are Cassidy and Torr the Star Children? If not, can they find the Star Children and save the Earth?

========

The extensive narrative is divided into several sections: Preface I – Home; Preface II – The Cephean Invasion of Earth; Part One: Earth; Part Two: The Moon. Within Parts One and Two there are several chapters. As the unfolding story reveals the nuances of the struggle with the Cepheans, the story comes together like pieces of a puzzle.

Intriguing characters, a powerful, spellbinding narrative, and a strong sense of place pull the reader into the telling of the tale from the outset. Remarkable world-building, a complex plot, and an impressive amount of attention to detail all work together to bring the story to life. Believable, relatable characters keep the reader invested in the telling of the tale. “Moon Deeds” is a brilliant addition to the science fiction genre; however, readers should be aware that all of the various plot points remain unresolved as “Moon Deeds” comes to an end. It is only the riveting weaving of character, plot, and place that keeps the rating from being lowered in response to the massive cliffhanger on which this portion of the story ends.

Highly recommended.

I received a free copy of this eBook from Independent Book Publishers Association, Mythology Press and NetGalley
#MoonDeeds #NetGalley

When the aliens first came to Earth nothing much changed. They shared their knowledge and technology, their takeover was so gradual that no one could stop them. Now the only parts of Earth safe from the TEG army are those behind magical shields.
There is a prophecy of the Star Children who can call upon the star people to save Earth. And it looks like the magical shield
protecting the prophesied twins may have just dropped.

This book grabbed me right away. But in the second half of the book my mind started to wander and I got a little bored.
Once they got to the moon the story started feeling a little choppy

Having said that for a 600 page book it went by rather quickly. I would be interested in the second one. But if I were not reminded of it, I may forget about it.

Thanks to Palmer Pickering, Netgalley and Mythology Press, for the advanced copy in exchange for honest review. All thoughts are my own and left voluntarily.

Actual rating 3.75 ⭐

Prepare yourself with fantasy/space opera info-dump! But it's all worth it! World-building was fantastic and easily imaginable. Characters were captivating and had great depth in background story. I see you Torr ;) It's full of adventure and magic. Also, look how beautiful cover is! 🤍

Palmer have created an impressive and lush universe and I can't wait to read what happens next with our beloved Cassidy and Torr.

I may change the rating after reading Light Fighters. On to the next book!