Accession by Terah Edun [Review]

Accession (Sareth Web #1) by Terah Edun
Format: ebook
Source: provided for review as part of the Heroes Urban Fantasy bundle
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Date read: September 27, 2014

Sareth Web
1. Accession - Paperback | Kindle

Terah Edun
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Synopsis (Goodreads):

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 soon discovers that nothing, especially in the Atlanta High Queen’s court, is as it seems.

When she accidentally opens a rift in the search for her cousin, Richard LeCross, the Queen’s warlock, decides that Katherine is more trouble than she’s worth. He determines that this mortal, dangerously close to becoming a High Queen, needs to die. But killing Katherine is easier said than done. For a young woman who’s always believed in right versus wrong, she’s about to go head over heels into the dark side.

Thoughts on Accession: I can genuinely say I had no idea where half of Katherine's motivation came from in this book. While the world building seemed to be very in-depth, the way it was presented often left me scratching my head in confusion. Large chunks of narrative backstory were interjected during tense scenes which basically destroyed all the tension and left me skimming.

I also have a personal problem when a book (whether it's part of a larger arc or not) doesn't resolve anything by the end. As far as I could see, there was zero resolution to the overlying arc. While Katherine did figure out a few of the things thrown at her (how to act a little more like someone in charge, that a queen's life is full of hard decisions), it felt like we stopped mid-story as far as the main arc was concerned.

As far as Katherine herself, she never acted like someone who was grieving. Whether she was close to her sister or not, I had a hard time connecting with someone who didn't show much of any emotion when her entire life was thrown into disarray in a heartbeat. It was mentioned that she couldn't wait to escape Sandersville, yet when she becomes the heir she just sort of accepts that she's going to be stuck there now.

Uneven characterization and a virtual info dump of backstory at odd moments kept me from falling into this story and being able to suspend my disbelief. While I think the world building is solid, having all that information thrown about just made it tedious to wade through and disconnected me from any of the action taking place at the moment.