charliauthor's Reviews (531)

A little disappointed that there wasnt more fighting and would have liked to have more about how Ares took more things down but overall was fab and i loved seeing the Nero stuff. Meeting Claudius and Karnas back in the day was great but still not enough about why Eo was so taken by the Ares symbol. 

Obviously this is much more condensed than a full novel but i love that it just gets down to the nitty gritty. Fitchner is such a bad ass and i love it. He has no issue with throwing that razor around and i am here for it chile! haha  

When I initially felt id been reading for a lifetime and realised it was only 8%, i knew there were going to be some problems. Not only was this book painfully slow, it didnt actually make that much sense. 

Its a modern setting but the monarchy and FMC Aliyah speak like they live in Bridgerton which just didnt make sense. It was clear the author doesnt really know much about royalty or how upper class dialect is supposed to work. We dont say “is it not” after every question. It just read so childish and uninformed/researched. At one point she wrote him a letter and sealed it with wax. In a setting that has mobile phones. Noone actually does that anymore!!!

MMC Elliot was just too much of a simp for me. It was cute at the start but by the halfway mark he was still spitting soliloquies about her beauty and i was just over it. Theres nothing wrong with being cute but this was some serious overkill! How he didnt know who the ADOPTED BLACK princess was in a white royal family made NO sense. 

Aliyah apparently makes all these changes in parliament or wherever but never goes outside. Then we throw in some random rape at the end!? (I skimmed the end after i gave up) Jeeezos this was insanity. 

If you like cutest slow burns then whatever but this was really immature and the royalty element was forced and ridiculous. 

Was there ever any doubt that I would love this? Nope!
This is of course a prequel told from Fitchner's POV during his own time at the Institute and how he became a Peerless Scarred. It documents how he met Brynn etc and continues to show how disgusting the Golds can really be when trying to keep people beneath them.

I really liked the narrators who did an excellent job and of course the dramatisation was just epic in all the right places. I love that we get to see how much of a real G Fitchner really is since he seems to have lost a bit of his edge in the main series. He's definitely not one to be played with in this first of 3 volumes!

I thoroughly enjoyed this! I listened on audio and the narrator did a great job at portraying the snarky hides-her-pain-behind-jokes vibe that is DS Alice Washington. 

This book is authentically British and unashamedly Northern and fun. Ive seen shows exactly like this with the archetype characters that make a crime book everything it’s meant to be. I liked the backstory for Alice but also those of the supporting cast who all felt real and fleshed out enough for me to care about them.  I liked the humour, the nostalgic references and the look into how UK policing works as we usually only see the US version. I also loved the subtle but poignant social commentary relating to Violence Against Women and Girls and how so many people are failing to protect us because of their own biases. 

My only two issues with this were perhaps there were a little too many sarcastic quips/similes and that there wasnt actually that much of the stalking. The POV of the stalker was great and the reveal surprises at the end were largely unexpected but i think i needed it to be a tad bit scarier/focus more on the crimes. 

Other than that, this was a smooth and easy read that had me interested from front to back. A really impressive debut and i hope to see more Alice adventures with the main man Roy! 

For the most part, I really enjoyed this although there was a lot to be desired textually and in terms of the overall plot. 

Firstly, I loved the mafia/black familymash up. I thought it was done in a mostly realistic way that allowed me to believe that there were black and mixed men and women at the heads of crime families which hasn’t largely been done before.

To have the same feelings and elements of dark/ mafioso romance coupled with the passion and sensuality and sexuality of black men and women was just absolutely chefs kiss. I loved Enzo I really liked Lucia and the host of secondary characters that supported them throughout. 

However, there was something that felt a little rushed or maybe unfinished about the writing style and the plot. There were a lot of names and relationships and familial ties coming at you really fast. Even though they were repeated it got rather confusing and the way it was explained wasn’t helpful. 

I really enjoyed the smut in this. That of course was from a predominantly black gaze which made it all the more sexy. Enzo knew how to lay pipe and I was not mad at it. He and Lucy‘s connection felt rather Insta love but that was not too much of a problem overall.

I’d love to read more in this world, but I’m not sure I could handle the writing style in such quick concession the way I usually devour smutty books one after another. 

I do definitely recommend for the dark romance lovers who might’ve always just wanted an extra bit of melanated spice 

I love this series for the positive Black love and loveable characters but what is it with the excessive descriptions and explanations of what they do for a living!?
With Samiah it was the tech stuff, with Taylor it was the fitness now with London its the surgeon stuff. 
I dont care that you have a cardiovascular extrapolation in the morning. This is a ROMANCE! I care about the love, the meet cute, the blossoming relations and yes, the smut. When their first coupling was fade to black i fucking lost it. 
This book is called the hook up plan so is meant to be about hooking up! Why did we hardly ever get any details of them actually hooking up with just repetitive snippets of how many orgasms he’s able to give her!? I wish i got some too sis cause we did not see them! So so disappointing in that respect. 
London while very entertaining was going overboard with the daddy issues and not liking Drew in high school. Its been 15 years. Gtf over it! Its really not that deep!!
How long were we on the crap with the sister sending nudes. How long were we back and forth about London choosing where to take her residency!? It was just dragging for no discernible reason. 

The best thing about this after the humour was MMC Drew. Hes hot, rich and mature in all the ways that London wasnt. I loved how down bad he was for her without being a simp. 

Great writing, great rep but if all her romance books are gonna be heavy on the back story with minimal romance or smut then this will be my last one. 

Cute series overall but needed way more spice!

I found this very immersive and culturally rich throughout which was beautiful. It felt authentic and grounded in its depiction of culture however, it did feel a little vague in parts while super repetitive in others. 
Aasira has grown up in a special school for girls with magic who use dance as a sort of conduit for it to fight in a kingdom's army. She has grown up as an outsider within this place because her mother is a supposed traitor to their kingdom. This point was hammered in at every possible occassion and got rather tiresome by the halfway point. We're constantly told about her mother’s betrayal and how much she wants to prove she is not her mother and the depths she will go to to prove this but a lot of the depth of that was just always on the periphery. Constantly being told how her mother's betrayal effects her rather than feeling it through her emotions, actions or words just made it feel a little flat. It took too long to get to any real tension or for her to leave the special school when it was clear she was always going to do just that.

It got interesting when it was clear that her mentor was hiding something from her and once the ball got rolling on that element of the plot it was more engaging. However, as a YA book, it didnt get much deeper than that which is fine but i just would have preferred a bit more danger or deeper reasoning behind the big bad reveal. 

Generally its a good YA outing but even though it finishes on an opening to continue in book 2, i have no real desire to do so. 

LOVED IT!

I loved everything about this book, this series, this world! I just loved it! It was the best ending for all our Hebden Bridge girls and im just so in awe of a trilogy plus prequel novel being top tier all the way through. 
I found HMRC original and fun and witchy and Human Rites just doubled down on all of that in the BEST way!
Its giving Charmed, Tomb Raider, Relic Hunter, The Mummy, Back to the Future and just absolutely viiiibes!

For fans of the series, i think its perfect. For anyone wanting to start the series, there is no fumble at the end! Its just so much fun and so funny and relatable. I laughed out loud so many times!

Thank you with my whole heart to the Publishers and Netgalley for the arc! All opinions are my own! 

Sigh, okay...let's go.

I'm aware I'll likely be in the minority for this but I'm past caring at this stage.
When I read Legendborn a few years ago, I liked it well enough but I did struggle with the trauma/slave narrative and so focused more on the Fantasy/Arthurian element of it which I enjoyed a whole lot more. After giving it a re read, this was still the case and I spent most of my time trying to get my head around the lore as I found this more interesting than the other side of the plot which i found rather depressing and not what i usually want in my Fantasy.

Saying that, there was no reason for me to have spent any time getting to terms with the Arthurian parts of this, because in Bloodmarked, none of them matter and the actual knights and Arthur take pretty much a back seat to everything else.

This book was too long and by the end, straight up boring. It took entirely too long to explain what the 'bloodmarked' stuff meant considering we went into this on an entirely different plot point. What happened to Camlinn? What happened to the demons? What happened to Nick? Everything that got the ball rolling by the end of book 1 was some how just forgotten or set aside for heavy dialogue with over explanation and forced tension. Action scenes seemed to just be thrown in when it was convenient, then we went back to talking then started the whole process again. I spent half the time yelling at Bree and Sel for being really annoying even though their parts were the only parts that interested me by the end.

Bree and Sel's relationship in this was great in the sense that they actually built one. They scenes together were probably the best and i was all here for the yearning and deeper meanings cause i love me some romance. Their relationship was also miles better in comparison to Bree's and Nick's who Bree hasn't spent nearly any time with, but is somehow obsessed with and thinks is God's gift. Where in book 1 there was genuine reason for her feeling conflicted between the two - regardless of my feelings on that set up - by this book, it was infuriating to watch Bree continue to have these deep and meaningful convos with Sel only to either shut him down or act like she doesnt know what hes trying to tell her. This took teen angst way too far for me. No one is that fucking stupid.

On top of that we have Little Miss Bree who thinks she knows everything while knowing absolutely nothing and not even trying to learn. Why did i spend 50% of the book with people not acknowledging her role as the Scion of Arthur, another 40% running around the countryside and the the last 10% finally deciding that she needs to learn things and at the ends of

their enemy

of all people who, spoiler,

isnt actually their enemy anymore

. It was tedious and ridiculous and just made me want to claw my brain out of my skull (i had the audiobook). Bree has absolutely no agency about anything. she spends the majority of the book being saved by everyone else while telling those same people she doesnt need to be saved.

The side characters (William and Alice) were basically carrying a lot of this on their back and despite wanting more of them when i first started, the new Black characters introduced felt caricaturist to me. The Southern accent, formerly enslaved hoodoo/voodoo/root demon was something straight out of Supernatural and i just didnt like the clicheness of it all. Valc was a better addition than some others but still just a bit too gimicky for me. There were a few scenes were Bree managed to address the nature of her root and the crafters but it was clear once she was with them that she didnt really...belong!? Bree has spent so much time being the only Black girl among her white friends that when she was finally around Black people, she didnt really relate to them either. She had no real connection or understanding of her root and i found this comical, as she she spends so much time demonstrating and performing her Blackness to not reaaaally - in the confines of this book anyway - be Black enough. I found it very odd.
The racial aspects of this book were always going to be a struggle for me because i'll be the first to say that this is not meant for me. As a Black British person, this lived experience of racial tension and residue of enslaved people onto their descendants and institutions etc. just does not hit in the same way as it does for African Americans. I do not take away from that experience and understand that it speaks to a lot of people in this way, but it just didnt to me.

The ending felt weak. Much so like the end of Iron Flame with Xaden turning venin or whatever that was, Sel going into his dark side wasnt even a surprise so it felt lazy. The whole Arthur possession thing we could see from ten miles away so not sure why Bree couldn't and the pacing was just off throughout. I wanted more of the dream/memory walking stuff. I wanted more knights and armour and fighting and called Scions and it was just all...politics!?!

I could really be here forever but I'll leave with this: I am very happy for this author to have had the impact she has with this series. There are series much worse than this who get all the editions and all the marketing and all the praise, so for a book by a Black author to receive the same accolades and legions of fans who think it can do no wrong and go to the mat for it, i'm very happy for it. Carve your lane in this space that is constantly taken over by white authors, i'm here for it as a Black person and as a writer. 

As a reader, however, this was not for me. It was too long, too forced and just too...sad. I come to Fantasy to have fun and by the end, I just wanted it to be over.