Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖 (soooo I LIKED this story but I struggled hard, especially in the beginning. It felt so long and so much unnecessary circling and if I was a person that DNF I probably would have)
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Humor: Yes, a bit
Perspective: first person only from heroine
More character focused or plot focused? character
How did the speed of the story feel? slow
When mains are first on page together: Took awhile! 12% (chapter 5) first meet but not on page again until 17%
Cliffhanger: It does – it’s not super steep like the mains are on page together but it leaves it open and it’s clear there’s more
Epilogue: No
Format: listened to the audiobook from my library (Hoopla)
Why I chose this book: It was a book of the month for A Love Less Ordinary group on facebook and I was curious and I kept hearing quotes from it on tiktok
Mains: This is a M/F relationship between a cishet hero and heroine

Should I read in order?
This is book 1 of Hart’s Fae & Alchemy series.

Basic plot:
Saeris opens a gate between realms trying to save her own life and is thrown in a world of Fae, war and alchemy.

Give this a try if you want:
- Fantasy romance
- fae hero
- human heroine
- enemies to lovers
- fated mates
- tattooed hero
- magic!
- age gap (haha. He’s older by 1708 years or so)
- does end on a cliffhanger
- shadow daddy
- forge working/metal converting heroine
- save the world
- elements of telepathy
- bit of a slower burn
- medium-ish to maybe higher steam – I know there’s AT LEAST 3 scenes but pretty sure I missed one or two more

Ages:
- heroine is 24/25ish, hero is 1733 years

First line: taken from audio, may have butchered
“You know there’s really no need for all this violence.”

My thoughts:
Ohhh I struggled so hard with this book in the beginning. It felt sooooo slow and long. I didn’t mind the writing, but I was waiting and waiting and waiting for the mains to be on page together. And it felt like every thought wasn’t just stated, it was stated multiple times in various ways, all saying the same thing. So it was paragraphs just stating a single idea. And since I’m in my era of novellas I really struggled with this aspect of it. If I was a person that did not finish books I probably would have dropped it.

BUT I am really glad I stuck it out! Because I do think it got so much better. There were some parts I really, really loved in this book. Quite a few scenes that just captivated me, and gave me tingles. I am not 100% sure I will continue with the series though. I’ll have to wait and see what I hear about book 2.

I did think Kingfisher’s reasoning for his bad attitude wasn’t my favorite – especially when his turn around just seemed out of nowhere. It was just a bit too ‘easy’ in the relationship aspect in the latter half for me.

Few random reading stats for this author
# of books read: This is my first
Average rating from me: 4 stars
Favorite book: This one

Cock/Hero Stats:

- Faie have better senses – larger heart with a slower heartbeat
- He can use magic and dematerialize

Content warnings: (This should be taken as a minimum because I could have missed some!)

- parental death
- murder, death, and violence on page
- forced sterilization of the heroine
- alcohol usage

Author given content warnings: Didn’t hear any on audio

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes, safe sex, consent, pregnancy/child in the story:

Safe sex: 

  No, but heroine has been sterilized so there’s no risk of pregnancy 

 
How’s the consent? 

  It’s...okay – there’s some dubious elements due to the enemies aspect 

 
Pregnancy/children in story? 

  No pregnancy or children in the story! 

 
Chapter 12 – kisses
Chapter 20 – kisses
Chapter 22 – 🔥kisses, oral for her, sex
Chapter 27 – 🔥spooning, boob play, sex
I think I missed another scene or two in this gap
Chapter 37 – 🔥bj, sex
Total chapters - 46