Book Review: When the Moon Hatched (The Moonfall Series #1) By Sarah A. Parker

Genre: Romantasy

Pages: 690 (Paperback)

Spice: 🌶️🌶️

⭐⭐⭐

Spoiler-free Review!

Summary

As a hardened assassin for the rebel group Fiur du Ath, Raeve's mission is to follow orders and not get caught. But, when a rival bounty hunter turns her world upside down, Raeve finds herself imprisoned by the Guild of Nobles and sentenced to execution. When the powerful King, Kaan Vaegor, finds her in a cell, echoes of the past race between them and Raeve will soon find out there is more to the both of them than meets the eye.

My Review

I'll be honest, I had difficulty writing a summary for this that was entirely my own. I used a lot of what's written on the back of the book. Simply because upon finishing When the Moon Hatched, I still didnt really know what it was about. Very overhyped.

Starting with Raeve, our FMC. There was really nothing likeable about her at all. Her inner monologue tended to be very repetitive and the constant "undeserving of happiness" mindset is something I can never get into. She was so closed off to all the other characters. But also to me as the reader, which made it hard to connect with her. While she is said to be the most deadly assassin in the rebellion, we didn't get to see much of that. If at all. I'm so sick of these FMC's that are described as "deadly weapons, dangerous killers, the most skilled fighters," and then there is nothing in the book to prove that they are as described. Quite often they are written as the opposite.

Kaan Vaegor, our romantic interest and MMC was delicious. A perfect cinnamon roll who I have no notes for. 10/10.

When the Moon Hatched is often referred to as beautifully written, with a lyrical and poetic style of storytelling. And while yes I can agree that Sarah A. Parker's writing has a poetic aspect, it is overdone. Metaphor after metaphor after metaphor for the same thing. Too much flowery wording that makes descriptions way longer than they needed to be and really didn't add anything. Just fancy words for the sake of fancy words.

If the descriptions were Shakespeare, the dialogue was Trailer Park Boys. "He's fire and brimstone. I'm shattered ice. Our collision is steam and destruction, destined to dissipate." Followed by: "Fuck you, you cock-fucking fuckhead." The dialogue was so opposite from the rest of the writing and it drove me crazy. The balance was wrong and it always threw me off.

The one thing I really did enjoy about this novel was the world and the dragons. I had no difficulty understanding the world or timeline. Just read the glossary in the beginning and you should be fine. I loved the concept of the dragon moons. It created really pretty visuals and something about the word "Moonplume" just hits my ear so good.

The romance between our main characters was one of the biggest issues for me. I was not buying it. I really tried, but I was not seeing the chemistry between them. This is not a slow burn at all, which is totally fine, but the intimate scenes felt off and oddly placed. With the romance being the (sort of) focus of the story, I feel like it just wasn't doing what the author intended for it to do. It just fell flat.

I say that the romance was "sort-of" the focus for the plot, because I honestly don't really know what the plot was. I'm going to give the author some credit though. This is the first book in a series and a good series needs to be able to build, starting with the origin. I did see the ending coming from a mile away, but I still liked it and it set up the second book really well. I have high hopes that the next book in The Moonfall series will have a solid plot and we will get to see more of Raeve's skills.

To finish off, I want to say this story wasn't bad. I actually really enjoyed the story as a whole. I just did not at all like the execution of the book. If you are someone who loves epic fantasy with a romance subplot (like myself) I wouldn't bother adding When the Moon Hatched to your TBR. However, if you love Romance focused fantasy novels, this might be right up your alley.