Review: Accession by Terah Edun

Title: Accession
Author: Terah Edun
Series: Sarath Web, #1
My rating: 1 / 5
Pages: 203

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Sixteen-year-old Katherine Thompson wasn’t trained to rule a coven. That was her sister – perfect, beautiful Rose. But when a mysterious plane crash kills off the heir presumptive of the Sandersville coven she has no choice.

After stepping in to fill her sister’s shoes, Katherine realizes she didn’t have a clue – faery wars, depressed trolls and angry unicorns are just the beginning.

For centuries, her family has served the high Queens on both sides of the Atlantic but it is a well-known rule that mid-level witches stay away from high-level Queens.

But when Katherine’s youngest cousin vanishes without a trace in the Atlanta court and no one wants to investigate, Katherine decides to step into the darkness on her own. She will soon discover that nothing, in a queen's court, is as it seems.

-- As seen on Goodreads

My Thoughts

I was instantly captivated by Accession’s blurb. I loved the concept! There was so much potential for an epic read. We have Wiccan royalty and the political balance between each of the royal families and how they interact with each other. Add to this the heir to the throne’s death, an unwilling replacement, and a potential kidnapping plot, and it really sounded like a book I could fall in love with.

Quite quickly into the book I realised that the writing style might turn into a problem. The writing didn’t draw any necessary emotion or reactions from me, and I didn’t connect with the characters or the story in the way I need to enjoy a book. I thought the dialogue was prone to info-dumping and structured a bit weird – this quote sums up what I mean:

Katherine asked, “Are they all caring detectors?”

“The human officers are,” said the fire marshal beside her while his eyes swept over the field for any sign of disturbance, his binoculars at the ready in his hands.

“And the warlock officers will use their senses,” said Katherine softly as she paced away from the cars, opening her own magic to the auras in the field.

Why did Katherine have to say “And the warlock officers will use their senses,” out loud? Shouldn’t this be an internal thought? This happens quite often, and it gave me the impression that Katherine constantly mutters to herself. When this happens, it is information that we need as readers to fully understand what is taking place. I can’t see why she has to speak this info out loud though! The book is written in the third person, and it seemed completely unnecessary. It felt like she was walking around doing a piece-to-camera, narrating the story for us the readers, and interacting with the other characters within the pages. I’ve never read anything done like this before, but I have to be honest and say it didn’t work for me.

I think I could have overlooked most of my gripes with the writing style if I liked the main character. I didn’t like Katherine at all. The way things are told, I know I’m supposed to be sympathetic toward her, but it felt like a glass wall was build up between my sympathies and Katherine’s story. I could pinpoint what I was supposed to feel for her, but there was a huge disconnect. She’s not the heir to the throne and has to pick up the slack. She appears disadvantaged in comparison to her elder sister Rose, and the regular every day responsibilities fall on her shoulders. She has a chip on her shoulder, and her attitude completely turned me against her. Yes, she has been dealt a bad card in life, but I thought she was unnecessarily bitchy. It became tiring when all she did was complain, bitch and moan about everything. She’s incredibly self-centred and a GROUCH! There is a snarky-ness that is entertaining, but I felt this just made Katherine’s character look terrible.

I’m quite disappointed with Accession. I feel there is so much potential for an awesome story here. I was expecting layers of royal and political intrigue, with Katherine out for revenge for her elder sisters death. Unfortunately, that never materialised, and with disliking the MC and a writing style that I didn’t enjoy, the book just didn’t work out favourably for me.