dbguide2's Reviews (863)

I started to like both main characters but that stopped early and then I just disliked both of them. I sort of liked Laia a bit more than Elias. I was, however, annoyed at Laia quite a bit and that didn’t stop in this book. Laia’s shown as this strong character, and she is, but the constant, constant mentions of needing to find her brother… did get annoying and repetitive. Especially when she kept saying that her need to save her brother was immediate and then took her time. I get needing to make plans but it just seemed like she kept forgot her urgent need to save him every time she saw Elias.

I’m hoping that Elias gets better and learns when he’s away from the military school. I don’t like it when the character says or does things because they have to fit in or to ensure others that they’re not sympathetic. In here, mind you, they won’t like it if Elias is being sympathetic to slaves… and treat them like they’re people.

I can guess at the end romantic couple but I really hope they won’t do a love triangle because I just can’t see it. I do like Helene a bit more than Elias and Laia but not enough that I want her as a romantic contender. Also I just didn’t really see enough reasons for the possible romantic couple to be together anyway.

I liked some of the world-building but I thought it was a lot to put in the first book. And then Tahir started to focus more on the characters and plot so the proper world-building was put on the back burner. I love world-building but don’t like it when it’s set aside for other aspects of the book (unless the other aspects are done well and I like them. 

Tuli is such a captivating writer and I can feel her passion and creativity in every single page. I love that I’m rarely bored in her books and that I have to force myself to stop reading because I don’t want to.

I already really liked Zarya from the first book and I definitely love her now. She’s fiery and passionate she is. She stands up for herself, for others. She’s a strong character and actually shows it, not just says it. I can’t wait to see where Tuli takes her in the following books (hopefully to get more books!).

The plot thickens in this sequel with twists and it was done well, as I knew it would be. The pacing was slower but that’s good! Plus it’s a 4 book series so there’ll be a long arc with several smaller ones set over the series.

The slow burn love interest in this definitely heats up extremely and I wanted more! Zabin was a great character – I mean, sure, he did annoy me from time to time. But what’s a romantasy love interest without being annoyed at them? I loved the slow burn aspect. I can’t wait to get to the next book and see where the characters go and how they continue to feel about each other.

I can’t talk about the plot too much because, obviously, spoilers are heavily abound but I thought it was good. It picks up right after the first book and I can tell a lot isn’t revealed yet – because we have 2 more books to go through. And honestly, I can’t wait for that! Tuli writes such rich plots and entangles side and main plots together well enough you don’t realise it.

I always like it when we have a protagonist who’s new to all of what’s going on because we get to learn through them. Plus when it’s magic, most of them are magic-learned, so we get to know the magic system through them. I didn’t fully understand the one in here but I hope the next ones shed more light on it.

She knows how to write plot twists. Other writers should follow her (not naming names but crown and island curse book 😂) Believable, interesting twists – that’s what I want. And that’s what I got so I’m happy

This was… boring but I kept reading to see if it would get better (it didn’t) and I wanted to see who did the deed. Then I managed to figure out who the perp was a couple of chapters before the main character did and it was still… very boring.

Kay, the main character, was as boring as a dry piece of barely-toasted toast (I like my toast very dark). I think the only thing I knew about her was that she played soccer (but then didn’t at all throughout the book because they’d stopped practice due to the death). To be honest, I don’t even know if she liked soccer or was just doing it because she was mostly good at it and could get a scholarship.

There were too many chapters for my liking. So many times a new chapter would start and I stare at my phone like “what do you mean ANOTHER chapter?” It’s not that I don’t mind a lot of chapters in a murder mystery book; just that they should make sense and are mostly, if not all, interesting. This had neither of that.

The whole murder and the mystery, let’s be honest here, was also boring and made no sense to me. Most of me reading this book was just “but why?” and none of it compelled me. Plus I didn’t like the narrator. The motives for the murder felt flat and not really believable to me, plus I didn’t care for the reasons.

Kay said she had friends but I… didn’t see it. Even Brie – their whole friendship had me rolling my eyes whenever they were on the same page. Honestly, maybe if Brie were the main character I would enjoy it more? Still things would have to change then. I don’t mind catty teens (well I can sort of handle them) but them in here just annoyed me so much because that was just their entire personality. Plus their cattiness was involved with a lot of the mystery and I didn’t like how that was handled either.

This was such an amazing and sad read. I’ll definitely want to reread it so I hope there will be an audiobook and I can read it again. Or take it out of the library once it’s on one of mine. Because I very much want to read it again.

This was such an atmospheric read, I didn’t want to stop reading. I wanted to stay in the world, read slower, but also I couldn’t stop reading. So I was quite sad when I finished because I couldn’t stay with them. I loved everything about it (well, except most of the town members). 

I love weird forests and weird things happening in them and this turned out to be different than what I was expecting! I liked that the Lord of the Wood wasn’t what Leah thought he would be. Which I gathered early on but I liked how they showed it. I’m a sucker for a guy who’s supposedly a big baddie but really he’s very sweet and caring. I’ll take this trope in any genre. He was definitely that guy but not in that typical Alpha Male way. The Lord of the Wood was only perceived to be bad but I’m glad we almost immediately saw him to be different.

Leah isn’t your traditional strong female main character but she sort of has that quiet strength that’s actually quite nice to see as there’s a lot of strong fmcs in books. Specifically in fantasy and a bit in paranormal, which I guess this book straddles those two genres. I liked that she was a bit lost in what she wanted to do but she knew she didn’t want to stay in the town. My heart hurt for her (and wanted to hurt her mother a lot). 

I was surprised to see mentions of TV and phones and such because I think when I read the synopsis and started reading the book it reminded me of The Village (the M. Night Shyamalan movie). They had the same vibes – small town, something creepy in the woods, mounds of secrets piling up. So I expected the village and the book to be in a total fantasy world, not like, I don’t know, an hour’s drive from a McDonald’s. Since I love The Village, I immediately started to like it. And then it changed and very much wasn’t like the movie – but it was great because it went above and beyond (my expectations).

I liked that the book showed early that most of what the church and town say and believe in are wrong. In small towns like these, I think it’s quite easy for religion to have a foothold and dominate over others. If you’re not going to church, well… Everyone knows where everyone else stays. Of course not all churches are good; quite a lot of them have lost the light or reason why they started up. In here it was interesting to see what the church was doing – even though they were utterly in the wrong – but obviously nobody would tell them too. Also makes you wonder that these types of things are… surely happening but there’s no Lord of the Wood to receive them. 
 

I liked that, of course, the plot wasn’t something that could be avoided – like she had to get her brother back, and that might be difficult (when she thought The Lord of the Wood to be all bad). But she still managed to sit and smell the roses, start to realise she’s not the person the town’s painting her out to be. Which I really liked! 

When I tell you Damian is one of my favourite fictional characters ever, you better believe it because he is. He’s just that amazing and I love him. I love Roz as well, but Damian just takes my heart (and Roz’s). I’ve recently learnt the “if he could he would” trope and I think it applies to Damian (I think). 

There is a bunch of politics and I get that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I really enjoyed it! I like it best in fantasies when the politics of the world is really intertwined with the rest of the book and characters. I think Lobb did a good job with that – I think that when readers get confused with the politics it’s because the author doesn’t explain it as well as they could. Maybe that’s just me, I don’t know. 

The magic system did take me a while to wrap my head around it (even though this is the second book). It did get better when I reread the audio (plus audio helped me to understand it better). Plus in this book they explore more of the magic system, which I liked to see.  

I didn’t really think I was a big fan of one character “simping” for another but I was extremely wrong because Damian simping for Roz utterly won me over. Like I see it. I see the vision. I get why people love it. Roz was great too, don’t worry. I loved her passion for wanting to help and stand up for everyone. I always love it when we have a strong female main character and that definitely describes Roz.

My heart broke for them two a ton while reading this. I loved to see it because, for some reason, I love it when characters are in danger and have a lot of angst. This duology has it in spades; stemming from the romance, plot, world-building, everything.

Also the progression from the first book where Damian always calls her Lacertosa and then her first name (full name when he’s annoyed, short when he’s more emotional) when it’s serious. To this one where he mostly always calls her Roz but Rossanna when it’s an emotional scene. It’s a good trope and I love seeing it every time. 

Now and then I get a sequel I didn’t like but I’m so happy that this wasn’t the case here. Especially this being a duology – you don’t want the final book to be a bummer. I don’t think Lobb can write a bad book; and I’ll say this just having read two books by her. 

I’ve seen a lot of mixed reviews and I read them and thought “I’d probably feel the same” and Bob’s your uncle, so I did. I decided to DNF around 9% as I didn’t like the main character. Plus it’s in first person pov and I didn’t like the narration. I don’t have anything to say about the plot because I stopped reading before basically anything happened. 

As per usual – all you have to tell me is there’s dragons in a book and I’m there. This was a good amount of dragons, they felt like proper characters and not just plot devices or there for the sake of saying “hey there’s dragons in here”. I do prefer it when the dragons are able to talk to the humans – like they do in here.

I always like it (and I mention it often) when a book is atmospheric – in its writing and description and that was the case here so I was glad to see that. I want to read a book and not want to stop reading because I’m so invested in the story. I want to feel like I’m in the story myself – experiencing the plot alongside the characters. This is Cole’s debut so we’ll see how she fares either in this sequel or another book she puts out. I am definitely interested in seeing them both (as she has both scheduled).

It’s a dual pov as the book follows 2 sisters as they end up in different places facing different issues. That way we got to experience separate locations and get to know them separately. I think I liked Elara (she bonded with a dragon) more at the start and then Faron more at the end so I definitely want to see how that changes, and how they change, in the sequel. They’re both strong and independent characters but they remain close to each other but physically apart. They felt like they were sisters and not just written to be sisters, something I’m always happy to see, as I’ve said it multiple times.

Faron and Elara use different kinds of magic and they’re both explored and explained in their respective chapters. I do think the magic system could have been explained a bit more/better but seeing as it’s the first in a duology, plus Cole’s debut, I’m fine with being a bit confused. But I am hoping I’ll understand more in the second book (and hoping it gets explained more/better).

The plot was full and rich and thankfully didn’t fall apart when moving from one sister’s chapter to the other. I think it helped that most of their plot points linked to each other so that made it easier to understand the plot. I suppose that made it okay for the magic system to be confusing if I understood the characters and plot (does that makes sense? Only for me, I think). The plot’s also very linked to the sisters’ magic – how it works, how they used their magic to further the plot.