dbguide2's Reviews (863)

Not that I need to start another series (I know how many ongoing series I have, I just don’t want to know) but I liked this! It was a good start to a series and kept me engaged throughout. I hope I get approved for the next ones because I definitely want to carry on with them.

I loved the Arthurian inspirations! It was fun and I liked the addition of the Fae – a genre I’m happy to be exploring more of. I liked that Boleyn focused on Morgan and not Arthur as most retellings/inspired books tend to do. She’s a strong character, wants to prove herself, and she wants more for herself. I always root for the characters who have this fiery need to prove themselves. 

I’m thanking Boleyn a ton because she added the line: “who did this to you line” to the book. Instantly I wanted to read it quicker because that line will always get me to read a book faster. The line comes from the other main characters and while he seems to be your “typical brooding bad boy”; of course you find out he’s much more than that. I always enjoy seeing the path that a character takes and specifically how he ‘ll walk his path. Plus I get to see the romance blossom over the series 😁.

There wasn’t a lot of action as they were in the castle for the first half and travelling for the second. But what action we did get I liked so I want to see how Boleyn might do in a big battle. Usually with Fae there’s magic involved and we got a glimpse of that here and I want to see how she writes more magic. 

I liked that we’re slowly getting to know more about the Fae through someone who doesn’t really know much about them – so we’re learning along with the main character. I like that the Fae “lore’ (so to speak) changes with the various books as different authors decide what to keep and not in their respective books. Some books might keep the same characteristics here and there, but Queen of Roses proves to be more subtle and different than the common (not that it’s a bad thing) wings and pointed ears. 

 I wanted to like this so much but it let me down and I was so sad. It had everything that I wanted! But it just didn’t execute it well enough. I think it was a mixture of the characters, the writing, and a confusing plot.

I get unlikeable characters, I even like that they’re unlikeable sometimes. For me the two sisters just had no personality. I didn’t like either of them, they were flat characters. I think I maybe could like Clara; but since most of the story was through Natasha’s eyes, all we saw were Clara’s negatives. Which, let’s be honest here, I don’t think Clara really had many negative characteristics. Natasha just wanted to see her sister as an evil person, so she was.

It’s not even that “Oh, the curse made her (Natasha) annoying” – I was totally fine with the curse making her dark – it’s how that was written that annoyed me. I also didn’t like how she viewed relationships – even if this is set in the past – why do we have to have do all of this slut-shaming?

I would’ve liked it if we got to the other land earlier. I also thought Natasha would travel between the two worlds often instead of spending a tiny bit in the other world. It’s just what I thought would’ve happened and then it didn’t. Which made me sad and once again felt a bit let down by the book.

I just wanted more. I think that’s what annoyed me most of all. I expected so many things from the great cover and the synopsis and nothing worked out for me. The ending came out of the blue for me. It didn’t make sense and I didn’t like the sudden time jump we were given. 

 I’ve been meaning to actually sit down and read Dracula since I got it whenever in 2022 or ’23, whichever. I subscribed to the original Dracula Daily emails, even read a couple, and then missed a bunch of ones.

I liked how it was formatted in the review copy. The original text normal (so like any other book) and the comments and/or fan art made by readers on the margins of the pages.

Really, I think all classics should be read like this or sort of like this. The bite-sized chapters makes it easier (of course not every classic has dates like in here but you could still read one chapter a day). You could even follow along in a normal copy of Dracula – keep to the dates in the book and browse the tag on various social media sites. Obviously it will be different to what was gathered in this book, but still nonetheless fun. 

I was interested in this book – it wasn’t one of my most anticipated books but I did have my eye on it. Unfortunately the interest fizzled out quickly. I liked the book but not enough to give it a higher rating. I was bored, but not enough to stop reading it. I’m glad that I was speed reading it and reading the ebook and audio because if I were just reading one and at a slower pace – a definite dnf, that I can tell you.

I had various issues but a big one was that it was Adult but the writing seesawed from feeling Adult to feeling YA. The characters were Adult and their experiences were Adult, but the writing, quite a couple of times, felt like any other YA book. I actually thought it was YA at first because the cover looked YA to me and the synopsis could be a YA book as well. 

For the first 10 or 20% I couldn’t tell the sisters apart in their chapters. The sentence would say Esther and I had to remind myself of which one she was. Their voices and personalities did start to become more visibly/easier to tell apart as I carried on. I really liked Nicholas and Collins – more than I did the sisters. They felt like they had more personality right off the bat whereas it (for me) took a while for the sisters to grow on me.

I, and I know a bunch of other readers felt the same, did not see Joanna and Collins’ romance coming at all. It was extremely out of the blue and I didn’t see any chemistry between them. All throughout I’m thinking “cool when are Collins and Nicholas getting together? Nice, a bodyguard romance.” 

My other issues were the pacing and worldbuilding. The pacing was so extremely slow. It only really picked up in the last few chapters but even then it still felt a bit slow. The world building was ok but I wanted more? I wanted to know more about everything. More about the world and the spells and the magic system. The characters exploring all the books and the magic. But I also wouldn’t want a sequel because this book didn’t interest me enough (to want for a sequel). 

I feel nothing for the characters and I could not tell you a single thing about the world 

Larkwood managed to keep me entertained throughout and I liked that. I haven’t read such a mega epic fantasy book in a while and I think that added to my “do I like this or not?” line of thinking. But I’m glad that I grew to really like it. The pace doesn’t really pick up at all, it remains a steady slow throughout. Which didn’t bother me either – I’m happy about both things.

I’m no stranger to odd fantasy names (Kvothe hello) but the audio did help with everything. Also to remember that it’s Csorwe rhymes with doorway. I liked Csorwe’s character. She was interesting and had a lot of depth to her. I can’t wait to see where we go with her in the sequel. I liked how she changed over the book (and the years). Csorwe, as a kid, just goes along with what she’s told to do but it’s not really what she actually wants. I liked that she began to stand up for herself later on; it added to her personality. Hopefully the next book will have her be louder and more stabbier.

I didn’t realise it but I do like end of the world books and books where the protagonists have to stop the world ending. Here it’s much slower than in other world-ending books. But once again, I really didn’t mind it like I thought I probably would.

Honestly, I don’t think I understood everything about the magic system or world-building. There was so much to take in and sift through but I liked what we got and hopefully I understand more as I read on. It wasn’t info-dumping per se but if you’re not a fan of a lot of world-building and it being a bit confusing, I wouldn’t so much so recommend this to you (low fantasy, however, might do the trick).

Tal annoyed me so much at times and then I liked him 😄 – especially when he was bantering with Csorwe – I do love my banter. Either he gets a redemption arc or he goes villain in the sequel – I’m down for either. I felt like we sort of were able to understand him but I’d like to see more.

I really liked Shuthmili – I think she was maybe my favourite with Csorwe a bit behind. I liked how just similar to Csorwe – growing up, having certain expectations pushed onto her. She too decided to make her own choices, to leave that life behind. Taking her life into her own hands made her a more interesting character which I liked.