kewlkat70's Reviews (250)

I was expecting this book to be awful and I have to say I am completely wrong!

After a few other truly awful books in our rage read book club (misery loves company) we all thought this book would fit the assignment mostly due to the shocked and angry reactions from other readers.  

The shock stems from a twist at the end that many readers felt was unwarranted and made no sense.  

Before I get to the ending, the lead up is actually well written.  Schneider places the reader right in the middle of the world so we are able to learn about the world as we go along.  Actual showing, not telling!  Sure some things are confusing but as the story starts to unravel they make sense.  The magic system is revealed during the adventures of the two main characters. 

As to the ending being a surprise - throughout the book the characters withhold truths or appear to know more than they admit to.  Even so I was surprised by the ending but I knew something was coming.  

Its a good book and written well. 

I'm giving the entire series a 5⭐ rating over all.   

For a reverse harem this series ranks with the best of the genre.  The MMC is fantastic and truly kick ass.   I admit I had this marked as a DNF to start with as I thought the book was heading in a different direction with a MMC that would spend her time running from her fate for books just to create a fake sense of yearning and slow burn.  But instead there is enough of a story to leave that sentiment in the dust 

And this was a great 4 books of story that doesn't waste any time before the next plot point.  

The four MMCs are given enough time to develop and while they fit the typical RH archetypes I can't complain when that is the reason I read these books. 

Sometimes the last book of a series can be a disappointment or too rushed but I felt this book did not falter in its pacing or content.   

If there is anything I would complain about is that I love my HEA epilogues with babies and toddlers.  But apparently this is a hated and unpopular trope and is usually avoided so I can't fault a writer for not including it.  I will have to just pretend that there are cute little dragons and fae casters and incubus and elementals running around.  

A great start to a recommended RH series.  

The FMC is central but the harem has their own connections to each other - sexual and otherwise which makes it interesting. 

The writing and sex explores many different expressions of sexuality including asexuality.  Like the sex wizards series, this is a society that explores the wide range of sexual acts and yet the writing is not pedantic.  

Fantastic premise and well paced throughout. 
It was not at all what I expected but reminds me of LeGuin's writing more than anything else. Especially in subject and tone.  The subject matter could have ended up being tedious and lecturing but there is enough action and an emotional connection between the protagonists that feels real. 

I could not put this book down!  

This book has good parts and bad parts but one of the bad parts is the pacing is all over the place.  Parts of the novel just drag into long explanations and repetitive scenes where nothing is accomplished and then a whole bunch of shit happens in the last 10% of the book that has nothing to do with anything that happened previously. 

If I was not reading this book as part of a book club challenge it would likely have been a DNF as it got so boring and dragged on for seemingly no reason at certain parts. 

3⭐ is a below average read for me.  It would have been lower if it were not for some wonderful aspects. 

First the bad:  

Saeris, the FMC, is one of the most insufferable lead characters of all time.   She has a huge ego for mostly being too stupid to live in most of her interactions with just about every other character.  We get she hates dresses and she thinks she took great care of her brother even though she is barely 2 yrs older and he seems to have flourished while not under her care.  She is well liked and special to everyone she meets although it's difficult to see why.  

Her changes in attitude just occur immediately without any basis.  First she hates Kingfisher than she loves him.  I have a lot of issues with slow burn stories that go from 0 to 100 after 100s of pages of trying to deny there is a physical attraction.  So i think it's a good thing when the couple acts on attraction before they have decided they are meant for each other.   That's real life. 
But here she is hate hate hate can't live without you.  

another bad thing is the pacing as I said before.  There is a lot of "telling" not showing.  The author is trying to create some backstory with her characters and we end up with pages and pages of exposition.  The character Lorreth is given a long story that is detailed and not essential to the plot.  The last bit of the book is such a Deus ex Machina that it needs to be explained and pretty much narrated in order to shoehorn several key points to the novel.  
There is an entire mean girl storyline that is completely unnecessary.  
I actually didn't mind the MMC Kingfisher.  He started off a bit controlling with a touch of martyrdom syndrome .  But he kind of grows on the reader.  Its never clear what he finds so appealing about Saeris although it is made clear in the last 2% of the novel. 

The writing style is not bad but the author still suffers from the one word sentence issue.  Its boring. Repetitive. Amateurish. 

The saving grace in all this are her side characters ESPECIALLY Carrion Swift.   He has the best lines and is such a fun character that brightens every scene he's in.  
In an ideal world this would be a reverse harem with Carrion as the swashbuckling rogue character leading the other leading men - Kingfisher the grumpy dominant one,  Lorreth the poet dreamer, Hayden the Golden Retriever and Taladeius the suave vampire with Onyx the fox - on a multiple realm adventure to find a FMC worthy of their style and grace.  And save the world as they go.  The redheaded witch would fit as a FMC

But, unfortunately this is not the novel we got.   

Rumour has it the the next book will have Kingfisher and Carrion adventuring together and if that is the case I might be convinced to read it. 

I wish this novel was just a bit better.  

Super high marks for a fantastic finale to a fantastic series! 

Ranks in the top spot for RH.  The FMC moves from naive virgin to fae queen with 5 mates in a believable way that is not rushed.  Each relationship gets equal measure and unique personality.  

There are times in these books when the author appears to run out of conflict and then tries to stretch out the final encounter without introducing any new twists to the story.  In this series , the author keeps up the action without overloading the last 15% or succumbing to boring monologue in the middle.  The advantage of a RH is that you can cut the action with a big orgy scene in the middle as a kind of break from conflict.  But it's got to be well paced so as not to seem out of place. 

Its all done well in this last book. I leave the series fully satisfied with the ending and the characters.  

There are many things to love about this book.  Ophelia is a wonderful main character with a solid balance of flaws and strengths so she is never too much of a Mary Sue perfection or too stupid to Live dumbass.   Blackwell is a sexy motherfucker.  There is no slow burn vs insta love argument here...they are attracted to each other and enjoy each other carnally before worrying about whether they love each other or not.   The way it works on real life.  The writing starts a bit over flowery but after the intro the writer dials it back down. 
The sex scenes are hot and plentiful.
This is the first gothic romance that actually feels gothic. 

There are a number of things that don't work.   Admittedly many of these are personal issues so they are not reflected in my rating which is just above average.  

I could not sense what era this is written in.  They seem to be in turn of the century New Orleans as they travel mostly by carriage but there are also cars, although they are new.  The only clothes that are described are formal but would not be out of place in the early 20th century. 
The language and behaviour is modern.  I don't like when writers try to fake an olde timey language style but it seems too casual for this time period.  Enough so that I was constantly trying to figure out WHEN this was happening and that is not what you want in a novel. 

The novel felt very rushed at the end so I was left with an unsatisfactory conclusion.  I admit I didn't see the ending but I also don't think it was sprung on the reader out of no where. There just wasn't any time to process the clues. 

This is mostly due to the trials.  Its very rare that I like these types of survival games.  They take up a lot of time and they are just not very interesting to me.  Its one encounter after another in rapid succession and I am not really invested in the set up or the outcome.  

Finally I was disappointed that this book ends the story of Ophelia and Blackwell, at least as central characters. I have read many series where the book focuses on one book per couple and I have enjoyed them but I have never felt as unfulfilled as I do here.  

The next story takes place with Genevieve who I found to be insufferable as a character in this novel. I don't care enough to follow her adventures.  Especially as I have not had enough of the first couple. 

The story of Neal and Alice among the Gods is adorable. 

The writing is humourous without being crass but there is enough adult references in the novel to keep it out of the YA bracket.

My only complaint was that the story seemed familiar.  I don't know if that is because I had read this before and forgot that I read it or that it was so predictable that it seemed that I had been here before.   It does lend itself to being either forgettable over time so as if no great consequence, or that it stays safe and follows a rather easy path.  

The pacing of this book got a bit bogged down in the middle but with a twist at the end for one more book.