Not enough of it to give me much of an idea as yet. But I'm interested in continuing.

This review can also be found on Dusk Angel Reads

Writing
Okay, this book was quite disappointing to me in many ways. One of which was the lack or world building & explanation around the magic systems. While I wasn’t necessarily confused about the magic, there just wasn’t enough of it! We were only told the bear minimum of what it can do, not how or why or any background. Again for the world building, there was barely any! I feel like I don’t know any background about the world, the magic, the war or anything really. The book was quite fast paced but I think that was part of it’s downfall as there was never slow points to be able to explain anything.

This book felt very centred around the characters which meant the plot felt very lacking. However, even though it felt more character driven the characters were very lacking and under developed as well.

I also want to talk on the fact that this book was advertised a ‘villain romance’ but this slightly spoilery, so skip to the Plot section if you don’t want spoilers.
I honestly don’t see this as a villain romance. Nadya falls into Mal’s group SO quickly. There was inner turmoil because of what he was, throughout but she never really acted on that! She just accepted him, trusted him and fell for him so quickly! Even as a reader, he didn’t feel like a villain for 80% of the book. He was a little questionable but it all seemed genuine until the very end when he betrayed her. So yeah, I really don’t think this is even a villain romance. It’s just a romance but one character turned out to be an ass…

Plot
The plot of this book was kinda all over the place & there wasn’t really a big ending like was expected. The whole book felt like it was building to something. I was waiting for Nadya to have her big powerful moment but it never happened. It all just kinda feel flat in the end.

Characters
This book follows Multi POV between Nadya (Nadezhda) & Serefin. There is also one major side character, Mal (Malachiasz).

The only character I enjoyed was Serefin. He was a kinda mysterious character and we were left guessing whether he was the bad or good guy throughout. Even though he was one of the POVs the main focus seemed to be on Nadya, which is mostly where the plot takes place. So his POV points were lacking a little when it came to plot but I still enjoyed reading from him. He felt the most developed out of the characters.

As for both Nadya & Mal, they were both very flat one dimensional characters. Nadya was built up to be a kinda ‘chosen one’ character but that never amounted to anything. While her POV was where the action was, I didn’t like reading from her POV. She was a bland character & very contradictory of herself all the time! Thoughts would be one thing but actions would be the opposite. Neither Nadya or Mal developed at all throughout the book, they felt like the same boring characters all the way through & I didn’t care for either of them. Which made me care less about what happened to them in the plot..

Overall
This book was just disappointing in so many aspects! I started out by reading this physically but then swapped to the audiobook. Which I will say was quite well done. I definitely prefer the audiobook for this one. The 2 voice actors that play Nadya & Serefin brought the characters to life a bit more than they actually felt in the book. I am still curious about book 2 of this book, mainly for Serefin and his story but I probably won’t pick it up unless I can grab the audiobook.

This review can also be found on Dusk Angel Reads


Writing
My god, was this book intense! It’s been a while since I have read an adult fantasy book, so I kinda forgot how intense and detailed they can be. There was a lot to this magic system & this world, as well as the insane plot but not once was I lost or confused. This book was so well thought out, explained & detailed. My issue with Adult books is generally the slower pace because of larger amounts of world building but that was not the case in this book! It was the perfect balance of fast paced, detailed & intense and I loved it!

The only thing I disliked and I think the book could have done well still without it was the odd romancey obsession that the MC had with a specific character. It just was kinda pointless to me when the same idea could of been achieved by other means.

Plot
I’ve already partially mentioned the plot. It was fast paced and insane basically. Plot twists on top of plot twists! This plot was SOOO unpredictable it’s not funny. It was just out of this freaking world and you could barely process one thing before another unexpected thing happened! Was definitely a roller coaster ride.

Characters
This is a hard bit to talk about without spoilers because nearly all the characters make drastic changes throughout the book and my opinions of them jumped around all the time! So I’ll just talk about Rin our MC.

Rin, in the beginning I really enjoyed. She was doing what she could to get out of a shitty situation & wouldn’t let anyone hold her back. But by the end of this book, I don’t even know if I like her as a character. Don’t get me wrong, she was written amazingly but her actions in the book make you question everything! For the most part in books, we root for the main character to succeed but this was definitely a twist on that usual view of the MC.

Overall
All I can say it, this book was insane! This book was intense! This book was a freaking roller coaster!
It was amazing and I HIGHLY recommend it!! I can’t wait to read The Dragon Republic, book 2!
Only reason it didn’t get a 5 stars for me was that iffy romance part which I didn’t enjoy but the rest is perfection.

Link to review is coming closer to release date.

Actual rating: 4.5

Actual Rating: 4.5 Stars

Thanks to NetGalley & Page Street Publishing for providing an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

You can also find this review on Dusk Angel Reads

Writing
This book was actually REALLY good! The writing was very gripping & interesting. I read 75% of this book in 1 day because I was just so into the story, I just couldn’t put it down! I really enjoyed the writing. The author did an awesome job of describing the world & magic system thoroughly but it never felt like info dumping which was awesome. The characters developed well throughout the book, some good & some bad but the development was there and it felt natural.

Plot
The plot of this book is so freaking interesting. This book basically follows two possible futures after a certain point in time and it was done SOO well! There was action & drama in both sides that kept you on your toes! It was very unpredictable as well which is awesome. The whole plot just flowed really well on both sides. I thought things might of been confusing but that definitely wasn’t the case. The author did an awesome job of writing this unique plot and I loved it.

I also love that there was never any confusion when it came to the 2 different plots we were following. Obviously both sides followed the same MC & I feel like she felt different in each side and she developed differently because of what she went through on that side. It was just written really well!

Characters
The characters are kinda hard to talk about because there were 2 versions of most characters, one in each possible future. The characters in each future developed really well though & I was really invested in these characters. Especially so on one of the futures and I really liked one of the romances , which is really weird as I’m just not usually that person. All the characters were really well done, the good guys & the bad guys. They were all written very well! I think that is all I’ll say about the characters as otherwise it is going to get too confusing by trying to avoid spoilers if I actually talk about the characters individually.

Overall
I really enjoyed this book! The characters were awesome, the world was super interesting, the magic system was unique and interesting as well. Everything about this book was just interesting & fun. It dragged me in and did not want to let go! I really hope there is a sequel to this book. It ended as if it was leading into another book but there is no series for this book on Goodreads and I can’t find any info for it! I really hope there is though! It was just so good and also, like I said, the ending felt like it was leading somewhere else & I need to know!!