This book surely was a rollercoaster that I wouldn‘t go back in line for.
I was sold the moment I saw the cover & heard it was a Les Dames Blanches „retelling“ with an enemies to lovers trope. SOLD. Therefore, you can imagine my expectations were set high.

And almost all of them weren't met. Look, it is still a good book. It is still something that I can see people enjoy. But it just wasn't what it promised to be. But before I spill all the tea, and cover the mess with all the salt I have to offer, let's focus on the good part of this book: the worldbuilding.

For someone who wanted to give people in the fashion of the mysterious ladies from France a great backstory, Kathryn Purdie definitely succeeded to create a world and magic system that had me hooked. Like for the most part, I asked myself whether I would be able to be a Bone Crier myself with all the prices it came. Because I really really want to. But that price? Damn, way too high! I loved the way she created a magical system connected to gods, death and the afterlife while also emphasizing the importance of life and vitality. The world we got presented in this book could easily become a favorite of mine. But was, unfortunately, overshadowed by the characters and their lack to convince me.

See, if you sell a story as "enemies to lovers" to me, you need to know, I'm not taking excuses. You either sell this romance and the characters good, or don't even start bothering me with the enemy talk in the first place. Ailesse and Bastien both started off as strong characters that had a purpose in life. One, to become a ferrier of the dead, one to revenge the dead. So you can guess I was very excited to see their paths cross, and ready for the drama.

The drama just never happened. It's not even that the romance didn't convince me (which it didn't), but even the enemies part of this trope was just not convincing enough to make me care about their future or relationship. Where's the tension? Where's the angst? Where's the hate? I didn't feel any of it. So I just sat there, hoping the tension would come any moment, and instead had to watch the two characters losing their potential while also falling in love with no transition whatsoever.

And that is what bothers me most: no transition. Not if it came to the feelings of the characters, their motivation, their development. Nothing.
The story kicks off with such a promising, strong start, and the ending does pick up that strength again and delivers us some great moments. But the middle part of the book just felt repetitive and empty, focusing too much on unnecessary scenes instead of development - character and plotwise.

Who suprised me was Sabine, the secondary character. Not expecting her POV or her bigger role in this book, she saved most of the slow middlepart by letting us readers come closer to the world and magic system of the world. As her story was more connected to the worldbuilding (which as mentioned I truly enjoyed), I was more invested in her storyline than that of the two protagonists. If it wasn't for her and the world of the Bone Criers, this book could have easily ended up as a DNF.

Overall, it's an okay book one can enjoy if the expectations are not set high. It has a strong start, lots of potential (that I still see for the sequel!), and an ending that does make me want to pick up the sequel! Sabine is the true star of the book, stealing everyone's show. The romance unfortunately didn't satisfy me for a second, and caused way too many plotholes in the already too weak middle that lacked of transition and proper development.

I'm still unsure whether this is 2.5 or 3, so let's settle with 3 stars.