Sunday 18 August 2024

Book Review: Nine Tailed by Jayci Lee (YA Fantasy)

Nine Tailed (Realm of Four Kingdoms #1)
Jayci Lee
Montlake
1 August 2024
352
eBook - PDF
YA Fantasy
ARC via NetGalley

In a race to stop an ancient evil from destroying the worlds as they know them, Sunny comes to a startling, heartbreaking if she chooses love—everything will burn.

Sunny Cho aspires to be the dullest, least interesting person in any given room, which can be challenging for a nine-tailed fox spirit. So she drifts from city to city—staying clear of any and all attachment—and keeps her fox buried deep inside her. It is better this way. She would rather live as half of herself than risk losing control of her terrible powers.

Ethan Lee, a friend she left behind eight years ago, is a brilliant and distractingly hot PI. When he tracks her down and asks her to help him find his brother’s murderer, Sunny knows her uneventful life is about to be turned upside down.

Traversing the mortal realm and the world of gods, Sunny and Ethan discover their quest is much more dire than mere vengeance, and their friendship might be…more. An ancient evil is stirring, and Sunny is faced with an impossible save the worlds from annihilation or claim the love fated by the heavens. 


Nine Tailed was a mixed-bag read for me. On the plus side, I loved the dose of Korean folklore, and the story premise was interesting and held a lot of potential. In general the plot was entertaining too, but the book had a few flaws which detracted from the good points to the extent that this only became a three-star read for me. The prose felt a little juvenile at times, the romance was predominantly insta-lust and I couldn't get behind it, the pacing was erratic, and towards the end a ton of new characters were suddenly introduced all at once with no time for the reader to get to know them. The finale of this book also felt rushed after a slow build-up at the start. Overall, a great idea, but the book could have used more polishing/editing before release to help it reach its full potential.

I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

No comments:

Post a Comment