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goodeyreads 's review for:
This Vicious Grace
by Emily Thiede
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
Thank you to Wednesday Books and Netgalley for an eARC.
THAT WAS SOMETHING.
I feel perplexed by my thoughts on this one.
We’ll start here. On one hand, I had a hard time putting this down. The writing was great and captivating. Easy to follow and fly through. I LOVED the banter between the love interests Alessa and Dante. And hello, a bodyguard romance? YUP. You read that right. The build-up was sweet and I liked how they got to know each other and connected on multiple levels.
I also did liked this cast of characters. Everyone had different personalities and nobody blended into the background. I would have loved even more background on Alessa’s new group of friends to solidify those relationships even more.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t call this a strong fantasy. It leans heavily to the romance (which is fine for me), but not hard enough into the world building and magic system. Things were laid out well, yet as I was finishing the book I realized some aspects just didn’t make sense? It’s hard to explain, but as a devout fantasy lover there were things missing for me.
Definitely still interested in the second book. I think that has a lot of potential and I would looooove to see where this romance can go. Can’t wait!
Overall audience notes:
- YA/NA Fantasy Romance
- Language: a little
- Romance: vague open door
- Violence: physical and magical altercations, creature attacks
- Trigger/Content Warnings: attempted murder, near death experiences, kidnapping, imprisonment, mentions of past child abuse, thoughts of suicide (and others trying to convince the MC to commit suicide)