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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I love this story. The tension and when will they....
Can't wait for book 3.
Can't wait for book 3.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I enjoyed the continued focus on female friendship and solidarity in this book, as well as the plot (especially the twists towards the end - I really liked that the stakes were so much higher than the first with people actually dying and staying dead!). It’s just a real shame that so much of the book was focused on this lukewarm enemies to lovers plotline. The will they won’t they really got tired towards the end, and it really felt like the actual plot only came into focus in the last 20% of the book. That said, I’m looking forward to how the story wraps up in book three. And I said this for book one but the audiobook is fantastically narrated.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Genocide, Violence, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Infidelity, Sexual content
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Oh man… where do I even begin?
The first book in this series wasn’t perfect, but I genuinely had fun with it. It ended on such a juicy cliffhanger: Lia discovering that the sailor she’d been seeing, Jason, was actually Prince Alexandros, the very man she was once betrothed to before fleeing her home. Naturally, I was hyped.
I was ready for all the tropes: yearning, unresolved tension, enemies to lovers angst, an engagement loaded with resentment and heat, and, of course, some progression in the overarching plot involving the Eye of the Goddess and the priestesses.
What I got instead was… 600 pages of absolutely nothing.
The book is just the FMC, Lia, oscillating between being desperately horny for the MMC, saying she hates him, getting jealous, being mad for no reason, and then horny again. Rinse and repeat. There’s a near hate-sex scene every other chapter. Everyone around her keeps telling her how much Xander loves her, but she either denies it, ignores it, or spirals into some self-pitying, contradictory monologue while still being jealous and touch-starved. Also, there’s body betrayal in every third chapter. No exaggeration.
Oh, and let’s not forget that he kisses another woman. For no reason. Because why not?
You want plot? There is none. The central story around the Eye of the Goddess is basically untouched until the last 80% of the story. It honestly felt like the author wanted to stall any real plot development to stretch the series out, but didn’t fill the space with meaningful character work either.
And that’s the real tragedy here: if you’re going to pause plot progression, you better give us compelling character dynamics! But nope, that wasn’t present here either.
Lia devolved into someone irrational, constantly angry, horny, jealous, and weirdly oblivious to everything going on around her (including her own sister’s painfully obvious romantic situation). Xander, once a character with some personality, got flattened into a cardboard alpha male whose main function was to put Lia on her back and declare vague feelings of lust for her without any other substance.
Even the steamy scenes fell flat because I was so annoyed by both of them at that point. There was no tension anymore, just exhausting repetition.
It’s so disappointing because the setup had so much potential: an arranged marriage between two characters with a tangled past and tons of emotional baggage? That’s interesting. That’s tension. That’s fertile ground for drama, angst and development! But all that was squandered here in favor of horny filler and character regression.
This book actively made me like the characters less and killed any interest I had in the ongoing story. I can’t believe I read almost 600 pages of this.
The first book in this series wasn’t perfect, but I genuinely had fun with it. It ended on such a juicy cliffhanger: Lia discovering that the sailor she’d been seeing, Jason, was actually Prince Alexandros, the very man she was once betrothed to before fleeing her home. Naturally, I was hyped.
I was ready for all the tropes: yearning, unresolved tension, enemies to lovers angst, an engagement loaded with resentment and heat, and, of course, some progression in the overarching plot involving the Eye of the Goddess and the priestesses.
What I got instead was… 600 pages of absolutely nothing.
The book is just the FMC, Lia, oscillating between being desperately horny for the MMC, saying she hates him, getting jealous, being mad for no reason, and then horny again. Rinse and repeat. There’s a near hate-sex scene every other chapter. Everyone around her keeps telling her how much Xander loves her, but she either denies it, ignores it, or spirals into some self-pitying, contradictory monologue while still being jealous and touch-starved. Also, there’s body betrayal in every third chapter. No exaggeration.
Oh, and let’s not forget that he kisses another woman. For no reason. Because why not?
You want plot? There is none. The central story around the Eye of the Goddess is basically untouched until the last 80% of the story. It honestly felt like the author wanted to stall any real plot development to stretch the series out, but didn’t fill the space with meaningful character work either.
And that’s the real tragedy here: if you’re going to pause plot progression, you better give us compelling character dynamics! But nope, that wasn’t present here either.
Lia devolved into someone irrational, constantly angry, horny, jealous, and weirdly oblivious to everything going on around her (including her own sister’s painfully obvious romantic situation). Xander, once a character with some personality, got flattened into a cardboard alpha male whose main function was to put Lia on her back and declare vague feelings of lust for her without any other substance.
Even the steamy scenes fell flat because I was so annoyed by both of them at that point. There was no tension anymore, just exhausting repetition.
It’s so disappointing because the setup had so much potential: an arranged marriage between two characters with a tangled past and tons of emotional baggage? That’s interesting. That’s tension. That’s fertile ground for drama, angst and development! But all that was squandered here in favor of horny filler and character regression.
This book actively made me like the characters less and killed any interest I had in the ongoing story. I can’t believe I read almost 600 pages of this.
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I hate that I have to wait until December to read the last book of the trilogy.
adventurous
challenging
dark
inspiring
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
funny
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Sloooooooow pacing, but still an interesting read. The will they or won’t they got kind of tiring by the end. Also the ending was a twist, but also where did any of that come from? Hopefully the final book wraps everything up nicely.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated