When You Had Power was just the first book in @susankayequinn@wandering.shop ‘s series Nothing is Promised and the novels are clearly meant to be read together so I can’t really comment on the story as a whole but only first impressions. With that said, I enjoyed what I’ve read so far. The world Quinn describes is intriguing and I’m excited to learn more about it in coming books.

I also enjoyed the characters even though I don’t feel like I know any of them very well yet. The book is short and leaves you wanting to get to know the people better and I’m looking forward to going a little deeper in the rest of the series. What you do see, however, is some interesting insight into the effects of multiple pandemics and displacement and what that does to a person’s sense of home and family. It’s only lightly explored in most near-future fiction and I really appreciated Quinn’s thoughts on the topic.

All-in-all I’d recommend When You Had Power as a good, easy read but make sure you’ve got the rest of the series ready because you’ll want to dive right in. I either need to wait for the next books to arrive or try to figure out where I left my Kindle.