Well. Hated that.

Fantasy romance is a big tent genre. Very box of chocolates, never know what you’re going to get.

This particular book was in the vein of that other Sarah-named fantasy romance author…

And maybe that’s not for me? This one took inspiration from my least favourite parts of that other-Sarah: the Orientalism of those ‘tanned’ batboys, a certain snarky assassin FMC from the mines, and that plot-monkey the Suriel 😅

And then it just had too many of my personal pet peeves. Let’s get into it.

The pet peeves:
▪️ literally. zero. on-page falling in love. The beginning was that ‘enemies-to-lovers, actually instalust’ thing I hate. Then the second half was… whatever that was
▪️ calling guys ‘male’ instead of a man? I’m over it
▪️ this wasn’t queer-baiting but it was dragon-baiting
▪️ there’s a fine line between fun banter and being insufferable—and we blew passed it (especially with the “insults” that were just thinly veiled reassurances for the reader that his dong was indeed large)
▪️ my least favourite rationale for POV-switching: doing whatever will manufacture the most twists, story be damned
▪️ a franken-character FMC who was both ✨so bad✨ / stabby but also devoted to helping others; particularly victims, children, and cute animals plus gives all her money to charity. Sure, Jan
▪️ the plot was utter nonsense—we kept falling off literal and figurative cliffs into different stories (why were there cavemen??)
▪️ “Moonbeam”
▪️ that villain: so cartoonish, so dropped from the story whenever we felt like it
▪️ the sexy times were making me physically cringe
▪️ the writing was sooooo overwrought. Normal glances “slayed”, questions were “barbs”, words “cut with a serrated blade”, looks “chilled to the bone”—all on the same page (of a not-that-exciting scene). It was too much

But here’s the thing: all of my pet peeves don’t matter if you—like me!—love a campy and derivative riff on an old favourite. The other-Sarah this was riffing on just wasn’t enough of an old fav for me, I think 🤷🏻‍♀️