I loved this one so, so much more than I did Ruined. I'm glad I continued on in this series because I almost didn't, and I would have missed out on Vaughn. Does my love stem from the pirates? Possibly. But more likely, it's the amazing and adorable banter between the two mcs. 

The first half of this book was 5 stars, easily. Stella is hilarious and so strong witted that I couldn't help but fall in love with her right alongside Vaughn. Vaughn made me smile countless times, and I lost sleep staying up late to burn through the first half of this story. 

I liked that in the second half of the story, we got to see more of the pirate side of Vaughn. There was a cause that they were working towards, and it gave something to the story that was outside of just another season in London. The devastation that hit Stella broke my heart and brought tears to my eyes. And then what happened to her relationship with Vaughn after pretty much killed me. 

This story was really well written, and the relationship between the two characters was so beautifully constructed that I couldn't really have asked for more. 

I could, however, have asked for less. I think the push and pull between Stella and Vaughn nist went on too long. She tried to push him away too many times, and it got rather repetitive, annoying, and boring. It was almost the same conversations every time she did it, and the same repetitive internal dialogue over and over again. At some point, it stopped adding to the story and started taking away from it. 

I loved the character development that Stella went through, but it happened a little too late for me for it to make a dramatic impact. Instead, I just had this feeling of “FINALLY”. 

Either way, I hope we get some closure on what happens to Adalina because that's two books she's been a part of, and I still have no idea what's going on with her. 

This was a nice glimpse into Raffiel.

I appreciated this Novella as we didn't really get to see too much of him. I really wish there was more of it, as I really liked him as a character. 

I truly believe the novellas are the best thing to come out of this book series.

I liked this one. It was pretty good, honestly. On par with book 3. 

I really appreciated Neelo's relationship with Talhan. He was so supportive of them and always there no matter how they treated him, and my heart really went out to him throughout this book. 

Neelo wasn't my favorite. I liked them at the beginning. I liked delving into their life with their mom. Their back story and history was one of the better ones written throughout this series, but I really struggled with their personal growth. They were just so stagnant for so much of the story. Refusing to work on themselves and pushing people away because of it, and at first I was understanding, but then it became super, super repetitive, and I started to get annoyed.. I'm glad they got there eventually. I did enjoy the self development that eventually did happen, I just think it took too long, and it took up too much of the story. 

I loved Talhan. I think his sense of humor was perfect and really needed in this story because Neelo did tend to weigh things down a little bit. I looked forward to seeing more of him as their relationship grew, and I think he was wonderful. 

I will say, I don't think I zoned out as much in this one as the rest. Maybe because we're getting closer to the end of the series that all of the scattered plot points are starting to come together, but I was a lot more focused in this one than the other 3. 

This is my favorite Okrith novel to date. I really enjoyed Bri and Linas' story. They are both such badass women that watching their attraction grow and their love take root was honestly such an amazing thing for me. 

I have struggled with this whole series with staying invested in each book. I often find myself wandering off into lala land and unable to focus on the plot because it's just not quite strong enough for me. There are little pieces here and there that tend to pull me back in for a while, but I never stay fully invested or committed. 

I enjoy each story, but I never venture into love. I think the relationship between Lina and Bri in this one was strong enough that I was able to care more about what happened to them. The couples in the previous two books were just okay, and I didn't fully connect with anyone. But that changed a bit with this one. I enjoyed following the two women throughout the story.

This just didn't work for me.

It's apparently supposed to have Gothic vibes, but I most definitely missed that somewhere. 

I'm setting aside the abuse and trauma that Beatrice went through because I don't want any of that to influence my review of this book. 

Beatrice was hard for me to like. He was constable fainting, or collapsing, and crying. And running. In almost every scene with the Duke she was running away from him.Dominic was supposed to come off as dark and brooding, but he just came off as an insufferable ass and I really did not like him whatsoever. It doesn't help that there's no real character development in this book, nor do you see any part of the characters other than what's occurring on the page at that moment. What does the Duke do when he's not taking a second out of his week to basically fight with Beatrice? No idea. 

Their relationship was a joke. There was nothing to it. There was no banter. If we're pretending that them fighting at every interaction was banter, then fine. But other than him calling her a witch and saying that she's spelled him or whatever, I wouldn't have known he was into her as he spent more time ignoring her than not. On top of that, there are no sparks. None. There is no lingering flame. No, nothing. I couldn't stand these two together. 

Obsessed. I was so obsessed with this book for the first two-thirds of it (because I'm pretending the end never happened). I couldn't put it down, I couldn't sleep, I thought about it constantly. 

The gothic atmosphere and the haunted feeling to it just had me so enthralled. I couldn't learn about Fairydale or Elizabeth or Darcy or Caleb fast enough. 

The occult, witchy aspects of this book aren't usually something that I'm drawn to or that I look for in a book, but this one just worked for me tenfold. The balance between the stories we were uncovering and how much still left us in the dark was perfect. I never felt frustrated or like the book was stale. Honestly, for a long time, I never wanted the book to end. 

And then… the end came. And I wish I never read it. I wish that I had stopped reading before Sela entered the story. I wish I never knew about her. 

The bouncing timeliness between Lizzie and Darcy was everything. The Demon aspect of Amon was everything. Their love and desire and the forbidden relationship was swoon worthy. I was obsessed. Everything to do with Sela and Amon in the last bit of the book? Trash. I'm upset that I read it. 

My review is for the book if you pretend the end never happened. 5 stars. The ending. 1 star. I cannot tell you how frustrated and broken-hearted I was. 

This was the best book of the series, but still, not a great book in my opinion. 

I think if the author slowed down the pacing of this book, added in some character dimension and maybe some world building this story really could have gone somewhere. But it was just so barebones, a shell of a story filled with hollow and empty characters who were void of personality or feeling.  

The story was okay. I liked her going after Caine. But it wasn't enough.

This book moves so fast. I feel like I got the cliffsnotes version in fast forward. 

We're constantly moving from scene to scene. There's no world building, hardly any descriptions of anything, and the chapters are a mix of povs from different characters. 

There's still a history between the four characters out there somewhere that I'm just never getting, so there's a blank space in this series where that belongs. 

It was frustrating to read, but it was at least a super quick read. 

This book is a load of hot garbage. 

It's book one in the series, but I feel like I've been dropped off in the middle of chaos, and I have no idea what's going on. 

It reads like I'm supposed to know all of these people and their history. I felt lost from start to finish with the story constantly bouncing around and dumping all this information onto me nonstop. Nothing flowed together. Nothing made any sense, and I still feel like I've missed an entire book somewhere along the way that holds all of the history and explanations I'm dying for. 

The same struggles I had with books 1 & 2 followed me into the final book of this series. 

My biggest issue is with the sheer amount of different povs there are. It's not the number of people we cover that I can honestly say I enjoyed. It was nice getting insight to everyone, but these books bounced around CONSTANTLY. Hardly any plot was covered in a chapter or a character's pov before we were being shoved into someone else's head with an entirely different plot going on. I never found myself getting invested in anything because there wasn't time to. As soon as I started creating a connection, I was being thrown somewhere else entirely.

All of the relationships in this series were insta love. It might have been a “slow burn” series, but there were a good handful of insta love couples. (Aka, all of them). I never connected with Aiofe and Declan at all, which put a huge damper on the series because even though we followed a bunch of other people, they really were the main focal point. 

I did, however, connect with Cait, and I loved and looked forward to her chapters so much. 

I enjoyed the overall story that was being told. The twist was kind of obvious, and you saw it coming, but I think the story itself was well thought out. It just wasn't well executed. Conversations and plot points were constantly being retold from one pov to another, and I found a lot of the books to be repetitive and things to be OVER explained. 

My stars are entirely for the behind the scene politics and espionage that went on, and not for the pirates, because they never felt like real pirates to me, just kids playing at being pirates. All the stars for Cait and her rebellion