The Empress (2) (The Diabolic)

I received this ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest and voluntary review. I was in no way compensated for this review.The Empress is the highly anticipated sequel to S.J. Kincaid’s The Diabolic and what a whirlwind of read that was! It has the same high stakes and fast paced plot that will leave your head spinning by the end! I was once again a little befuddled with some of the worldviews, the space, the politics, all that new vocabulary. But as I was expecting it this time, it wasn’t as hard to get through.Nemesis and Tyrus have their work cut out for them. Many of Tyrus’ subjects still oppose to having a Diabolic as an empress. She’s fights off numerous assassination attempts every week. The most pressing problem is their enemies and how relentless they are in their attempts to overthrow Tyrus’ reign. But Pasus has other plans in mind. Political intrigue takes over much of the plot in this one. Backstabbing and plotting are all over the place. Tyrus and Nemesis know they will need more help on their side if they ever hope to be rid of Pasus once and for all. So they leave to go find the Interdict and hope that he may grant Nemesis personhood in hopes of quelling the protests of a Diabolic married to the emperor.Naturally, things don’t go as planned. There was a lot more going on in this one than we saw in the previous book, at least I thought so. And this one is even shorter than its predecessor! Yet it’s jam packed with so many twists and turns! Seriously, I feel as if I might have reader’s whiplash! But in a weird way, it was kind of thrilling!True, I suffered from bouts of confusion again. We get deeper into the politics in this one. I have never been a fan of politics in any scope, so you can imagine how trying it was for me to get through some of these moments. Then add in some time-warp traveling or whatnot and you can pretty much color me confused in some parts of this one. Despite all that though, I did still really like this one. Outside of the politics portion, you once again have these amazing characters that you watch grown and change and totally surprise you in so many ways!This book had its surprises too! Though I won’t get into that! But just know that the last quarter of the book or so was chock full of them! Every time I thought Kincaid had me shock, she would proceed to shock me further! It was unreal!One thing I did notice that was missing was the romance between Tyrus and Nemesis. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not totally gone. But with all the chaos that surrounds them, finding time for a romantic interlude was a lot harder than you’d think! The stolen moments were sweet though. But I kind of missed “them” overall. It was like they hardly had time to be together together anymore. And yes, I meant the double phrase there! Spell check did not like that either!I found that The Empress was a very character driven novel as was The Diabolic. While things may get overly complicated plot wise, I find I still love and hate these characters. I won’t get into where they all fall under. But they are still very real, very complicated people.Reading The Empress totally spun my head all around! I have no idea what to expect next! Just when I thought I had things figured out, Kincaid surprises me once again! If you were a fan at all of The Diabolic, I highly recommend continuing the story! The wait for the next book very well might be disastrous! I’ll just let you think on that.Overall Rating 3.5/5 stars—again with the minor takedown on rating. Still a GOOD read! Slightly better than good even! But all the politics and added time leaps kind of spun my head in the wrong direction. Not the good head spin I’ll tell you. Still it was a most fascinating read and I look forward to the conclusion!

I remember after I read Diabolic, I really enjoyed it but just felt... incomplete. The world was so big and the upheaval that the whole Empire had gone through just seemed like there was so much more story to be told about Nemesis and Tyrus. I highly doubted it would be an easy road for them. I talked to SJ at the time, and she said she had no plans to write another, that it was meant to be a standalone. But lo and behold, to my shock and delight months later, she said was coming out with Empress. And boy, did she just gut me from start to finish. This is the book I wanted her to write, and there was very little sophomore slump. In fact, I would say this book surpasses Diabolic by a lot.Tyrus and Nemesis are together and while it seemed like everything might be perfect after what they've gone through, nothing could be further from the truth. The whole universe seems to be balking at Tyrus' golden vision of bringing back science to the world, and people still do not see Nemesis as a human being. This is all I'm going to say about the plot. You have to discover it for yourself.From start to finish, this is a rollercoaster ride where the action, politics, and character development doesn't stop. You can't even take a breath as a reader. And when you think things couldn't get any worse or more heartbreaking, think again. I don't think I've read a second book in the recent past as a good as this one. And that's hard to do. Usually I see second books as filler. This book seemed even more important and the stakes that much higher than the first. I'm not even sure that it can be completed in a third, but we'll see. After my heart and guts were on the floor at the end and I was gasping for breath, I just came to in amazement. I've always been a huge fan of Kincaid and think that her Insignia trilogy is largely underappreciated. But she has just improved and improved, and I'm just delighted for her. She has the guts to take things all the way, and I hope others now see what I've seen in her from the beginning.You have to read this book the moment it comes out. You won't be disappointed and you'll be clamoring for the next one like I am.

• Author: S.J. Kincaid• Series: The Diabolic Book 2• Pages: 378• Genre: YA Dystopia / Sci Fi• Rating Out of 5 Stars: 2.5“Faith can inspire greatness, but it can be used to justify breathtaking cruelties.” There were bits I enjoyed. The visuals that you get are one of my favorite things about S.J. Kincaid's writing. The fight scenes and political backstabbing were also very well handled. Down side; there were far more times I wanted to reach into the story and smack heads together. I found some actions of our main cast to be far more over the top than they really needed to be. I understand that we're in the transition of weak to strong, what makes us human, what doesn't and vice versa going on. For me Empress comes across far too whiny to lead into what I'm sensing is the third books storyline. Personally, I still think Diabolic stood strong enough to be left as a stand alone. That being said, will I still pick up and read the third one if it comes out? Yes absolutely. I'm still interested to see how this wraps up and the great big F-You that Nemesis is going to dish out.

I much preferred this book compared to its predecessor. Nemesis continued her growth as a person and her continuing relationship with Tyrus was engaging and heartbreaking. The vividly described violence of the first book was toned down here and that was appreciated. Top notch writing!

Je me souviens encore de ma première lecture de ce tome et de mon état tout le long de celle-ci. Ce livre est rempli de rebondissements, l'autrice ne nous donne pas une seule minute de répit. Après Diabolic, on a qu'une seule envie : se jeter sur la suite et The Empress ne déçoit pas. Les aventures de Némésis et Tyrus se font de plus en plus dangereuses et palpitantes. On s'attache de plus en plus à cet univers cosmiques et aux personnages. J'ai adoré tout simplement.Mon pauvre petit cœur de lectrice en a pris un coup !

The Empress is a wonderful very different book it stepped outside the normal, it included threats from people nature and one another. I don't want to spoil anything but the ending is NOT a happy on but its NOT a sad one either it is in a way very new and inspiring, it far exceeded the previous book(The Diabolic) and is probably the BEST book I have EVER read I really hope you love it as much as I have it was absolutely marvelous

After the first book I didn’t thought it could get better but it did, it was very frustrating i was about to throw the book because I was so mad but in a good way.At the begging I thought that everything will get finally better, but of course it didn’t, it’s like everything went in the wrong direction!I was not expecting at all the ending it was very shocking, and made me sad. But I loved it the characters are amazing.

My son was thrilled to find this second book in the series (Diabolic) wrapped under the Christmas tree. He says it was thoroughly engrossing.....he was completed zoned out reading for 2 days. He gives it the thumbs up.