This book was just short of perfection for me. I adored Wilder and Jaxon’s story. The ups and downs and emotional turmoil. The realistic behavior of how the south generally treats anything outside of the patriarchal heterosexual relationships was “refreshing” to not see it hidden away and act like it doesn’t exist. 

I wasn’t a huge fan of the mixed media in this aspect along with the dual POV but that’s a personal opinion, and why it lost .25 stars for me. I will absolutely be checking out the rest of this series!

The book starts a bit slow but the world building helped a lot. I wasn’t too thrilled with the LI. He was very condescending and gaslit the MC a lot but it was very much the norm of fantasy genre romance. It’s also very on brand for the misogynistic society the MC came from for her to continue to be attracted to this type of character. I plan to read book two to see where this goes. The spice is a bit kink (audiences, rough play, etc). The vibe is very much the LI between the MCs in FBAA by JLA. The last 25% of the book is really what makes this.

I really enjoyed this book. I was hooked 25 pages in and finished it in a day. The magic system is well explained, the characters are mostly well fleshed out, and while the end was a bit rushed, I enjoyed the flow of the story. I highly recommend if you like YA magic/fantasy books!

I’m not sure how I feel about this book. There were a lot of words for very little plot until the last 15% or so of the book and even then, it never truly drew me in till the last three chapters. It’s well written in terms of grammatical structure and descriptive terms but there was a lack of movement in the story that just left me slightly intrigued but also bored. I will probably continue with the next book but not right away.