Empire of Shadows

The Mummy meets Uncharted in this fun, female-led mystical adventure with unexpected themes and oodles of heart.

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Yes. Yes. YES.

OK so this isn't the kind of book I'd usually pick up and I honestly don't know why because The Mummy and Uncharted are two of my favourite things ever. So you take those, yeah? And you scatter in a bit of female rage and anti-colonialism and you get a book that is going to be rattling around in my head for months to come.

Full disclosure: I wasn't sure about this out the door. The story takes a few chapters to find its feet, with a some clunkiness that makes sense when you understand that it is a rework of a previous story. But oh boy, when the story gets into its rhythm and the current picks up I was completely swept away by the tide.

Our heroine Ellie is so much more than the outline of a female Indiana Jones. She is a woman who just wants to do what she loves in a world and time where she struggles to get anyone to take her seriously. Benson really handles the topic of suffragette-era feminism in a way that makes it an integral part of the story without coming across as preachy. Even in Adam, the male lead, she writes a man who has these learned quirks from society and tries his best to overcome them, and never faults him when he wobbles.

And Ellie & Adam? Oh please. Yes. More of them. Their interactions are so delightful, each of them shining with a wonderful character of their own and then pulling together into a duo I genuinely want to see on the big screen. Their friendship is warm, their romance slow burn, and after a while it begins to feel for the reader like adventuring with friends.

I also want to give a shout-out to the villain who honestly managed to be chilling without really doing much to enforce that image. His mannerisms, his presence, his utter lack of genre-typical monologues and grandstanding just made him so intriguing. In fact, all of the peripheral characters had a charm of their own, with the story recognising the nuances of good vs evil vs just plain selfish.

This could have been just another entry in a super formulaic genre, and whilst it isn't going to break any moulds, it is hardly cast in a mould that requires breaking. We know what we are looking for when we dive into the genre, and Empire of Shadows delivers a fun, interesting story with characters you just can't help but love. What does make it stand out somewhat from its peers is not only the aforementioned feminist struggle, but also the light it shines on colonialism, cultural theft, academic thirst vs cultural preservation, and how power must be earned, not seized.

All in all, this story impressed more and more the deeper I fell into it, right up to a climax that had me on the edge of my seat. It absolutely delivers on all the major markers of the genre and gives us characters that I am super eager to follow into more adventures.

I always end ARC reviews by thanking NetGalley and the publisher for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review and there, I've done it. But I also want to thank them for putting this series on my radar. I will be eagerly awaiting the next.