This book is a mixed bag. On one hand, the writing feels fresh for a romantasy. Drawing on fairy tales like Rumpelstiltskin and Beauty and the Beast, the book finds Ella trapped in the fae realm by a bargain made with their morally grey prince. She's just about learned to use alchemy to turn things into gold, but here? She's tasked with turning gold BACK into what it should be, something she's not sure is possible.

It was a quick, rushed jump from Ella hating Ruskin to loving him. For a FMC whose main drive was getting back to her father, all her character-driving motivation was lost with a swift jump to 'the other side'. The characters have barely met after their rocky, kidnapping start before they fall in love. It just felt off. This swift drop in morals is a key factor in my inability to connect with the characters.

I've seen a few people comparing the book to Sarah J Maas, and I disagree. The storytelling is much better than that. This said, it's easy to see why this comparison has been made. The author appears to have lifted all of her favourite bits from other popular romantasy books and added them here. This is okay if you take an idea and run in a completely different direction. After all, some of the best stories are made this way. Whilst Zara Storm manages to do this to an extent, it's unfortunate that the book is too similar to these books in a rather big way. The obvious one is Callie Hart's Quicksilver, another fae meets alchemy romantasy. Unlike Quicksilver, this book felt more predictable, despite the characters' motivations being explained poorly. Unfortunately, this book will always be heavily compared, especially when it doesn't exceed those before.

However, as I've mentioned, this was an easy listen. I'm sure the next book will develop the main characters further. The narrator did a good job of making the character voices unique. Some of the minor characters, like Destan, were very enjoyable. It's not a dark romance or particularly smutty. It felt like something that would have made a better Young Adult book with less smut included. I wish I had more good to say. It's not a bad book, it just gets easily lost in the sea of similar romantasy titles.

Where the story may go next is intriguing. That said, though this book ends on a cliffhanger and I'm a sucker for reading second books, I can't see myself picking up anymore of this series unless I was given a very good reason. This doesn't use the ideas of others well enough to be lacking in originality.

Thank you to Zara Storm, Victory Editing NetGallery Co-op and NetGallery for the opportunity to leave an honest review.