Factions: Coup d'Etat

by Marian R. York

Factions: Coup d’Etat, by Marian York, is a gripping urban fantasy novel, a dark and often frightening portrayal of a world torn by greed, the lust for power, and divergent personal loyalties.

Four factions rule the great city of Axis and fight for increased control and power. Everything is at stake and every strategy, no matter how desperate or questionable must be considered. Will Minya’s orchestration of forced genetic enhancements on the Leinka faction continue unabated or will Minya, always resolutely loyal to Leinka, seek outside help to alter that course and risk her faction’s dissolution? Every choice will either alter the path to peace or enter a new path to destruction.

Genres: Fantasy

Paperback

First published November 20, 2013

About the author

Marian York was born and raised in Tyler, Texas (about halfway between Dallas, TX and Shreveport, LA). Her dad is a freelance artist and guitar teacher who spent a lot of time making up stories for her and her two siblings. Her mom has a love for books that she passed down to Marian and truly inspired her to write.

Marian is an avid gamer and she loves anime and manga (comic books as well). She hopes all that has inspired her can be seen and felt in her work.

Now married, she spends her time in the Great White North, passing the cold days inside with a pen in her hand and a journal on her desk.

Reviews

[Kathryn Svendsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fighting, unrequited love, friendship, magic, genetic enhancements, this book has it all. Factions: Coup d’Etat is about a city at war for 800 years with 4 different factions vying for power. The original leaders are long dead. It’s likely that no one even knows why they are fighting one another. And within it all people are still people, trying to figure who they are, what they want, who they are loyal to and how to fill that void of loneliness.

One of the main characters is Minya, and throughout the book, we learn her history bit by bit. This allows us to really get to know her and understand her well, and her relationship with Shiori or Shi as Min calls him. Minya belongs to the Leinka Faction, but Shiori is a neutral who gets kidnapped by the warring factions and forced to work for them until he escapes or is kidnapped by another faction. Shiori and Minya a good friends and even when Shiori is not working for the Leinka Faction he watches out as best he can for Minya.

I really liked the loyalty in friendship between Shiori and Minya; both were willing to give their lives for the other. It made me cry for Minya at her pain of the thought of Shiori dying and leaving her alone in the world. I appreciated the strong character that Shiori displayed. He seemed very noble to me.

This novel is thought-provoking in respect to what we find acceptable as strategies for war. In this particular situation it was genetic enhancements. The Leinka Faction was researching and experimenting with enhancing its members with genetic engineering. Unfortunately, not all of their engineering was taking a permanent hold. When the genetic engineering broke down, it caused extremely painful, horrible deaths.

There is a lot in this novel. I gave it 3 stars.




Thank you to Zharmae Publishing for providing a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. All thoughts are my own.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a lot going on in this book, and while the first half was a bit confuisng, the second half was smoother and more gripping.

I like the characters, especially Shiori. He is very noble, and is willing to fight for his beliefs, even when it hurts him personally. He looks after Minya as much as he can, and does his best to help anyone more unfortunate than himself. Minya herself is a mysterious enigma that I never quite got a handle on, and so I’m not sure if I like her or not.

I found the biggest flaw in the book to be the world building. I have so many questions that weren’t answered. Why are there 4 factions? How did the split begin? How does the Neutral zone survive if all the factions are hungry for every scrap of power? What is the war really about? Why is Minya so devout to a leader that doesn’t seem to look after her? Is she really so naive, or is there something else about her?

So many details seem to be missing from the story. This really hampered the first half of the story since I was just so confused by everything, I couldn’t really develop a firm connection with anyone. It was only when Shiori became a more prominent character that I was able to get into it. Once I formed that connection, the rest of the story flew by.

Overall, while I had a hard time getting into the story, once I was there, it was great. The struggle for survival in the later half was quite exciting. The story isn’t very upfront about it, but it seems like the start to a series. Hopefully one that develops Di’s character more as he is quite intriguing.

[Andrew Call · Rating 4 out of 5]

Factions: Coup d'Etat is an impressive first book from Marian York complete with a few stand out characters and a mixture of fantasy elements. While, admittedly, it took a few chapters to understand the world being created and the use of the above-mentioned fantasy elements, once you realize that York has crafted a cross between future dystopian fiction, biological warfare, YA emotionality, and a healthy dose of swords & shields things come together and move forward convincingly. At times Factions felt like I was reading through a favorite role-playing game, with Final Fantasy nostalgia getting strong on occasion, and the cross between blades on belts and hi-tech human-enhancing technology gave the book a strong steampunk/mixed world vibe. That’s when York throws in some magic, romantic entanglements, and a struggle for Faction control akin to Dune or something Shakespearean. York's love for literature and its many genres is very apparent. For a young, fresh author Factions Coup d’Etat showed a promising start for both York as an evolving wordsmith and the Factions series as a sprawling world still waiting to be explored.

[Infinite Scythe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book for free from Goodreads (err first reads I think it is?)

Honest review here.

The premise of the book seems solid. Warring factions with different ideals. But the groups aren't really defined in the book. Mostly just the Leinka and Rhenn. I think they are all fighting for the land? Or dominance? I'm not too sure. There isn't too much background to go on.

The beginning was abrupt. It just jumps into action which would be good except you don't really understand what's happening until the second half of the book.

Writing wise I feel like while the book's content was young adult the writing of it was not. It felt like junior high student writing at times...
The dialogue was a little fake seeming at times. Mostly Shiori. Whose ethnicity I'm not too sure of? Or maybe I just missed it. Anyways. He uses contractions at the wrong times. He also uses 'heh' a thousand times. It annoyed the heck out of me as it never once gave anything to the dialogue. Maybe it was there for character but even that is a stretch.

Which leads us to character development. They all seem rather flat. Sure they have their 'ideals' but they show a limited number of emotions. They all choose to hush up and share nothing besides what they feel is necessary. It does not make you want to root for the character or even dislike them.

Now a quick note on Shiori. Constantly talking about his death, leaving mysteries till the very end. Speech feels stilted imo. Motives? Eh basically whatever he feels like.

Now I know this review sounds harsh but I am trying to give my honest opinion. I will try to read the second book if I can get my hands on it. I hope there is improvement.

[J.B. Rockwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Factions is somewhat of a melting pot of genre fiction. That's a good thing! As the other reviewers have pointed out, this book is part dystopian future (setting is 800 years in the future with a tumbledown world and four factions fighting), part fantasy epic (Swords! Knives! Hack and slash!), part love story, part homage to video games with the same mash-up of elements. That said, this book will certainly appeal to fans of genre fiction-especially gamers as the themes and characterization are very familiar. As others have noted, it takes a bit to figure out the landscape of the larger story and for the characters to fully develop, but once it gets going it's a pretty entertaining ride. Characters are well-developed and their interactions keep you engaged and reading along. This book's definitely worth the price of admission and with a sequel coming out soon (Nov/Dec 2014) nows the time to pick up a copy and devour it.

[susan murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Won from goodreads
Minya lives in one of four factions that rule the city of axis. Minya is part of a research team doing enhancements but she has been taken off as told she's not up to it.
Minya gets hurt in one of the fights against another faction but recovers quickly and persuades the leader they need more help with the research so she goes looking for shiori and get him to come back to help. The story is around minya and shiori and the fighting between the factions the relationship between them and how they help each other. Really enjoyed this book look forward to the conclusion .

[Lee Parker · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a copy of this for free through Goodreads First Reads

It was really hard to enjoy this book, when you have no idea what on earth is going on. I still have no idea why there is a war, why there are factions, what each stands for, etc. The story itself is interesting, but it definitely needs more information.

[Kori Klinzing · Rating 1 out of 5]

So many of my fellow readers have already pinpointed why I did not like this book: the first half is confusing and hard to get into.

Which is a problem if you want any readers to even get to the second half, which is supposedly more gripping and easier to understand. You can't expect an audience to linger on faith alone. I couldn't; I only got to page forty before I gave up. Of course, for me it was less that I couldn't understand the world or what fantasy element each faction was supposed to represent, and more that I disliked every character. Minya was flat and insipid, Shiroi was condescending when he wasn't flat-out annoying. Which saddens me. The description had sounded interesting when I picked it up.

[Ruth York · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the character development in this story. The book gained momentum and ended with me caring so much about Minya. As soon as I finished this book, I was ready to start the next installment. I look forward to seeing how this new voice develops as a great story teller. She is original.