“Perhaps everything he’s said to me— that he’s beneath me, that I don’t respect him— maybe he he actually believes that””

WELL WHY WOULDNT HE?!?!? You have given NO argument to the contrary!! 



I’m gonna get this out of the way. The setting was the best part and the Romance was the worse.

The love triangle (?) was so unbelievably forced. She does not like either of these people and at no point is there an actual reason for that opinion to change. If you wanted to run this as an enemies to lovers having them kiss in the first book the way the do was the WRONG way to do it! 

The setting is beautiful. The world has so much potential (even if the world building is a little heavy handed at times). We just had the misfortune of seeing it through the eyes of petulant children! Like why is the ACTUAL child, the 15 year old girl the ONLY ONE with real class consciousness and an understanding that other people live different lives than she does?!?! 

Honestly I think the story would have been so much better if it was told from the older brother’s perspective. What he is doing is a trilogy on it own!! You have to do a lot to make your main character feel superfluous to the story. 

Imma give the next book 50-75 pages to change my mind but unfortunately I'm probably going to DNF this series. 

This books was darling! Just what I’ve come to expect from Ross. She has such a flowy and poetic writing style! 

Spoilers Ahead 

This book kept me on my toes and though I guessed many of the major events how we got there rarely panned out how I expected. 

The time that spent at the front vs the time spent back in Oath felt like two entirely different books. Not in a bad way, just that there is a notable tone shift. 

I love that Dacre’s is so charming, but every now and then his mask will slip and you’ll see who he really is. 

Roman’s amnesia got fixed WAY faster than I expected. I thought that would be an issue they spent the whole book fixing, not fix it in the first half. But it is what it is. 

Tragically I think Forest was wasted as a character. I spent the whole book convinced that he and lieutenant Shaw were the same person. Or at the very least he was an agent sent to oath for the purpose of delivering Roman’s propaganda to the Gazette. See in my mind what happened was they send Forest the second Alouette so he could magically get the articles he delivered. There are also moments where Roman COULD have seen Forest but them never does. So I thought for sure I was on the right track! At the very least I thought he MUST have been apart of the Graveyard. Like he was running them from out of the mechanic shop casue he knew what it was like to fight for BOTH gods and wanted to get rid of both of them. But nope. He’s just kinda… superfluous. He really doesn't DO anything. In either book really. He’s just kinda… there. He was so suspicious and sneaky and for what? His story I was incredibly disappointed in. 
 
Overall I loved it. I liked how killing the big bad wasn’t the end of the story. They still had to deal with the realities of the war and how it changes a society. 

Way cute. Just as fun as the first book! 

I love how the A plot of these books is a paranormal romance while the B plot is

fixing years of social injustices and dismantling the class system

 

I should have DNFed this. I almost did so many times but then never did. 

This book wanted to be erotica SO FUCKING BAD but was constantly burdened by having to remember the plot! 

Just becasue the “childish” love interest is the man this times doesn’t make that descriptor any less CREEPY!!! you aren’t circumventing a trope, it’s still just bad! 

 This book was the exact quality I expect from RedTower books. They need to use the money they set aside for sprayed edges and put it into hiring an editor. This read like a first draft. How was this both rushed and agonizingly slow? 

Very cute! Liked it a lot. 

Spicy enough that I wouldn’t recommend it to my mom, but nothing crazy. 

BIG points for none the spicy scenes being “cringy”. Most of the time when I LISTEN to romance books I’m laughing my way through them cause they are so goofy to listen to. But these were surprisingly pleasant. 

Well thought out B plot! Love it when the FMC and MMC have actual goals and issue going on that don’t explicitly revolve around the other. Makes them feel for real and flushed out. 

Very much looking forward to bk 2! 

Very fun read. Has the same issue of telling more than it shows that her other books have. Also has the same rushed and disjointed ending as they all do as well. 

The fight scenes are either really, really good, or painfully bad with no real in between. I also have to remind myself that in Levenseller books that when I get that “oh no, this is way to easy! Something must be about to go wrong” I need to ignore it. It ends up working every time. 

The love story progresses WAY more naturally than in the first book (not that it was a high bar)

Riden’s brother remains a superfluous character that did absolutely nothing for the story. I would have suggested writing him out all together.

The dialogue sure was…something, and that I’ll I have to say about that. 

A fun read. Glad I finished it! 

So I read this book while I was fixing my garden. A storm came through and knocked down my tomato trellis so I was fixing it and it’s important to me that you have that context. That is because I was taken by surprise at the ending, not necessarily because it was a twist ending. But rather because it just ended. I’m expecting another two or three hours to be on this audiobook. When all of a sudden I have the narrator popping off with “ has been an unabridged reading of….” 

Shocked me because not a lot happened. 

I like the main character enough. I do think she was entertaining. But I don’t think that her skills shined through well because for some reason the author decided to make everyone she went up against incompetent? I would much rather the crew be just as formidable as her crew is said to be, rather than one person on the crew (the interest obviously) Be intelligent so that she has an easier time sneaking around. It really kneecaps your main character to have everyone that she interacts with be below her. It doesn’t make her look cool and exciting the way that I know the author intended, it just made the book feel cheap.

I really do like the magic system in this. It’s subtle. It has distinct rules and shortcomings. It meshed really well into the world.

t That said having an entire arc of the story dedicated to documenting exactly how it works felt really unnecessary. I had figured out the rules of her powers long before all of that so it just felt redundant. And the villain that they’re dealing with in this section was not built up enough. He should’ve been mentioned beforehand. Because it just felt like an excuse for the author to info dump rather than a natural progression of the story.

On the romance:

what in the Insta love Lacroix brand love triangle nonsense was that? That was so quick and so unnecessary. This book was trying to be an enemies to lovers but failed spectacularly. They were MUTUALLY into each other way too soon. I really just need Tricia to bite the bullet and start writing adult books. At least new adult. It’s clear that she wants to, and I think that it would severely improve the overall quality of the books if she wasn’t having to tone them down to fit into the ya genre.

Was a quick read (apparently), And I have the next book on hold. I was under the impression that this book was a duology but looking on  here I saw a third book listed? So I guess I need to look into that to see how many books I’ve gotten myself into. 

So let’s get this out-of-the-way. The main character is so annoying but she’s funny so I forgive her for that. She is a quintessential mean girl who thinks that the only way for her to succeed is for others to fail. I’m really glad I read this book before reading her sister’s book (didn’t know existed until I was halfway through) because if I had, I don’t think I could’ve gotten behind the main character at all. 

This is not a hard book to read, the big big reveal that comes about is extremely easy to guess. At no point do they really try to hide it? If you can guess something is gonna happen you’re probably right and in the instances in which you’re not what you imagined was probably better. There were lots of times I was reading where I was giving the book too much credit and also expecting it to solidify itself into a single genre. 

This book tries to be a murder mystery, a romance, a period drama, a found family story, and a paranormal thriller, and somehow fails to adequately be any of them. But like a jack of all trades, it manages to be just enough of all of them to be interesting. I will say that the main characters point of view was arguably the most boring point of view that the author could’ve chosen. 

We have mentions of this obscure war, talks of conquered nations (is her sister book a colonizer romance?), but it’s all just there for backdrop. It doesn’t affect the plot pretty much at all. We have murders going on that are treated extremely casually. It is a pallet cleanser read. It got me out of my slump so I have to enjoy it.

That said, I knew that the resolution to all of the issues the main couple faced were going to be fixed within a page. “ hey I know I tried to kill you multiple times, and I exposed the secret that you specifically begged me to keep safe. And I quite literally called out a hit on you from a magical demon man because that was the only person that could kill you, but I think you’re hot so we can just put that all behind us right?” And by golly they did.

Don’t go into this book looking for substance go into it looking for vibes. That’s why I have it rated a little bit lower, because I do like a book that I can pick apart, but this one is pretty surface level. Regardless it was entertaining and I think I’m gonna grab the sister‘s book to see if that flushes out the world better. if it does, I may come back and change this rating because I may just not have all the available context. 


Edit—so I’m back from halfway through the sister’s book and yes. The sister’s love interest is proud Colonizer and so is the sister. Also the sister is insufferable. Unfortunately she isn’t funny insufferable like the MC of this book, she’s just insufferable. The sisters book does to a better job at being a murder mystery so far, but that really all it has going for it.

Very cute. If you liked the setting of bridgerton you’ll probably like this book! Kind of a slow start but darling once you have a better grasp on the characters and their personalities!