Review: Feast Of Summer

Feast Of Summer by Regina Del Madrigal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ll start this review with a thank you to Regina Del Madrigal. Whilst roaming around Goodreads, as I so often do, I came upon a request upon her profile. She was looking for people to review her new book, Feast of Summer. Now my to-read list is already super long, but I gave the book a look and I was intrigued. It sounded exactly like what I was needing in the moment. After all, I’ve been on a massive fantasy binge and anything with the promise of witches and kidnap is right up my street. Thus, I dropped her a message. I received a review copy, and when things went a little bit weird with my Kindle and the file not working Regina was more than happy to send me a different format to help me out. In short, she was lovely. Of course, you care about the story more than you care about how lovely Regina Del Madrigal happens to be – thus, I’ll move forward.

As soon as I started the story, I was pulled into it. Very quickly, the world and the characters come to life before you. You get an idea of who is who, of what is what. Without things getting complicated, we’re quickly introduced to the world of Cora. Then, just as quickly, we watched as her world is ripped away and she is suddenly captive in a world she does not know. Despite how little time we spent in Cora’s village, we really did get a feel for so much. In fact, I would have loved to see more of it. I really feel as though that aspect of the story could have been brought to life in so many vivid colours. Considering how well it was brought to life in so few pages, I’m positive it would be great fun to see it all across a longer time period. In part, I think this is because I enjoyed the introduced characters so much.

Of course, we have the wonderful abduction aspect to keep us intrigued when Cora’s world is ripped away from us. I really did enjoy watching this unfold, finding myself engaged in the storyline in no time at all. I do have a slight qualm, though. I feel as though the synopsis ruined some of the surprise for me. “He had been ordered to kill her. He abducted her instead.” Those are two wonderful lines. They pull you right in. There is such promise, so much that you expected. However, it does ruin the story somewhat. I feel as though removing those two lines from the synopsis would make the book much more enjoyable. We spend so long not really understanding the motives of our captor. The book progresses with us in the dark, with us curious like our main character. Yet the information is lingering at the back of our mind. The synopsis tells us what is to come, in this one regard, before the information hits us. With this information held off until quite late in the book, I really think it would be better if we were unaware of the fact. There would be a bigger shock factor, more excitement when the reveal comes about. It is a brilliant storyline, I cannot deny that, yet I feel as though the synopsis gives more away than it really should.

Nevertheless, as I said, I had a lot of fun with this one. It was so addictive. I could have easily completed it in one sitting, had I not done the silly thing of picking it up at stupid o’clock at night when I was already tired. The story really captivates you, and you’re constantly questioning what will happen next. You have so many questions, you’re pulled in to the development, and putting the story down becomes extremely difficult.

That is not to say the story is perfect. I’ll admit that a couple of things diminished my enjoyment to a small degree.

Whilst I really enjoyed our main characters, I will admit to a bit of annoyance during the early captive stages of the story. I feel as though she gave in too early, that she was unwilling to do anything to fight back against what happened to her. I wanted more in the way of daring escape attempts, more fight from her. Nine times out of ten, I say this about such stories, though, so I guess I just expect more from captive females than I’m ever going to be given.

Another thing is that the story felt a little bit confusing at times. Sometimes things weren’t as clear as they could have been meaning one of two things happened. I backtracked to double check what I’d read over, and it would then click. I carried on reading until things fell in line. This didn’t happen much, but there were a couple of moments where this seemed to happen. Mostly it was when the action was occurring, where things needed to be clearer.

These, however, were small aspects. As a whole, the book was thoroughly enjoyable. I had so much fun with it, and I’ll be needing to take a look at Regina’s other work. I know for sure that I will need to take a look at book two, as I’m more than curious to see what comes next in this story.

It was a great read, and I’d once again like to thank Regina for allowing me to advance read this in exchange for an honest review.

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