The beginning was a tad slow, but I did become interested in the larger world building and political setup of Scion London. 

SS is so good at weaving threads that turn into a beautiful web, and I can't wait to see how that continues through this series. The ending had me shouting in joy, and then on the floor....

I read another book that was a road trip romance and THIS is what I wished that book was. I enjoyed this a lot!

Cat Sebastian just puts something in these books! I love this series! 

This was fine, I unfortunately was able to predict what was going to happen in a way that didn't quite keep me fully engaged. I could've also used a bit more angst/hatred if we're really calling this enemies to lovers. Like yes, they are a Witch and a Witch Hunter, but I think we were told 'i hate him' too much vs showing us that on page. Overall it was a fairly straightforward ya romantasy

I went into this knowing nothing and honestly recommend knowing as little as possible! You shouldn't read this if you don't like ambiguity tho!

The ending of this book is truly mind blowing and honestly beautiful. 

The audiobook had a fantastic afterword that I want to quote “If the narrator has lived a life as best as she could, wildly unconventional, but one that has given her joy in many ways, hadn’t she triumphed over cruelty after all? Over having everything stripped from her? Her dignity and essential humanity winning in the end?”

that was rough. not the ending I was hoping for.

The first 30% was so promising 😭things were moving along but then we just got bogged down in so much magic and endless ‘battles’ . It felt very repetitive as was the writing - the same phrases repeated over and over.

I think the fundamental problem with this series is the ‘magic’ system. Basically if you create this ability to alter reality to an extent where anything can change and there are no rules, then there’s no way for the reader to have a grasp on what’s coming. In the second book as well as this one I just felt like we were being pulled along and told oh we have x problem then we’ll just do ✨magic✨ and solve it. There’s no logic behind what’s going on and that makes it frustrating and disengaging to read. There’s no puzzling out what is going to happen in the plot because they’ll just always create a new way to do something.

Changing the main pov from Sancia to Berenice was an odd choice for a final book in the series? Like why? It’s not that I don’t like Berenice as a character but we followed Sancia through so much!

As someone who is a big Gregor stan even though I didn’t expect to get a ton of him in this book, I was hoping for more depth to his arc and not a blah resolution. He’s literally a main character in books one and two, and he was written out of the story completely.

While I can appreciate the overall message of this series being: it’s not the technology we have it’s what we do with it, the society we create. Getting to that ending wasn’t the payout I was hoping for.

ending: 

So people stop using language and writing to communicate cause everyone can just hear everyone’s thoughts? So in this reality there’s no books? Fiction? What an odd thing to posit… in a fiction book.
Did everyone just go to another planet? I actually don’t understand. Where the f are they going?
Actually absurd that Berenice is just left behind by the society she fucking saved

I honestly don’t know what to rate this. Was it good? Not really? I had A Time for sure. The first like 1/3 of the book is extremely slow. Her father is the scum of the earth. There’s a marriage of convenience of course. Weather magic which was kinda slay. Mediocre smut :/ But then a little political intrigue and things get WILD in the last 20%. Honestly around then when I was getting worldbuilding lore dumps (which should’ve happened much sooner) I realized it’s a series 🫠 Overall definitely could’ve been at least 1-200 pages shorter. But am I gonna make everyone who told me about this book stick to our buddy read? You betcha

Oh also they’re German the audio narrator does a German accent for Wynter yes spelled with a y 😭

Idk this was just whatever

STOP - If you haven't read The Whispering Dark by Kelly Andrew (her first novel) you really should before reading this because there is a big overlap between these books!!!

Now said overlap/tie-in to TWD is phenomenally done and I was squealing and gasping at the reveals. Of Kelly's books, this was the best written in terms of plot pacing and story development. I couldn't read fast enough!
Literally my only qualm is I don’t think there was enough relationship development and that it's very sudden. Which sucks cause it’s not a long book & I would’ve gladly read more chapters to expand upon this!

My first Beverly Jenkins! I really enjoyed this. Spring is a fierce, strong and independent horse tamer/rancher and she doesn't take crap from anyone. But she has a complicated past.

Garrett just really wants to stand by her and treat her as the goddess she is.