Reviews - The Balance of Fates

106 reviews for:

The Balance of Fates

Raquel Raelynn

3.84 AVERAGE

emaxxx's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-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: Complicated

milliethebookworm's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous emotional lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A sapphic Romantasy where a witch travels to a magical academy, competes in difficult trials, uncovers a murder plot, all while falling in love with a vampire!

A fine plot in general, but Unfortunately, this book is just not written well.

In the magical world of Hontaras, there are three mystical families: witches, werewolves and vampires who have a tenuous co-existence with a violent history. Lucia is the shy eldest daughter of a powerful witch family, and the subject of much humiliation as her witch powers haven’t bloomed yet. It’s a surprise to everyone when Lucia is chosen to complete in three difficult trials, where the one winner will become the new guardian of the all powerful Orbis Libra, the magisk crystal which supposedly keeps the mystical families in check. Lucia must fight to prove herself a powerful witch, and she is surprised to find that she is growing feelings for the enemy vampire, the beautiful and deadly Adelaide…

Issues I found:

Info dumping - particularly historical tidbits or witch mythology that are never mentioned again…
Strange grammar- Present progressive
Time jumps, location jumps… the chapter or new section begins with Lucia in a new location with no description of how she gets there until after the fact
Characters- Lucia is the oldest daughter so has been raised more strictly than her younger sister- she is very sheltered barely leaves home. So she’s naturally shy and timid, not self confident, which can come across as annoying after a while, since she doesn’t really change much personality wise until 90% of the way through this book
Also, Lucia, who’s supposed to be sweet and wholesome, discovers that her mother is a murderer… and then doesn’t tell anyone… um… I thought she cared about the truth and justice
Romance connection: Lucia and Adelaide are obviously physically attracted to each other, but not a lot of emotional connection happens. Also I don’t really understand what Adelaide sees in Lucia, because Lucia is just kinda.. boring!
The spicy scenes are very vague not super romantic
Plot is ok. I’m not a fan of academia settings, and to be honest the life threatening trials our heroine must win is a bit overplayed in fantasy books
The ending had predictable elements. Also ended with a lot of action and left things unresolved for book two

Unfortunately this story just skips around a lot, isn’t cohesive and needs a lot more editing.

Content Warnings

satsucayanan09's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

buffyreads's review against another edition

3.0

We should be more different than two people can be, and yet I feel so complete when I’m with you. Like I belong.

The Good
Let's get this sapphic fantasy show on the road! I really felt for Lucia. (I do have complaints though.) She is anxious, abused, bullied and treated horribly by everyone but her sister who even at times does not actually see/understand her either. The romance between Adelaide and Lucia was well done. I love how intense Adelaide is and how strongly she felt for Lucia. She wanted to love her and understand her in a way no one else did. Their relationship was my favorite part of the book and were when Lucia was the most likable. I found the world-building to be interesting especially the dynamics and history between the clans. The bits of language sprinkled throughout were cool.

The Bad
While I was interested in the main parts of the world-building, I felt there was a lot of seemingly unnecessary details added especially at the beginning that overwhelmed me. The reader is bombarded with locations, lore, and small tidbits that it can't all be stored. When given too many details at once I stopped storing somethings for later because I couldn't identify what's important and what's just fluff. Lucia as a lead character frustrated me. While I understood she was abused, manipulated, and isolated – her lack of a mind of her own frustrated me. I never felt like she truly had thoughts of her own, they were constantly influenced by outside forces. And her own thoughts and decisions were often stupid or naive. She never does anything herself, only when someone tells her to or tells her not to. I craved real character development and felt frustrated as it only came at the very end. I also don't understand Cassius. He tried to kill Lucia during the trials and then both Lucia and Adelaide are fine with him at the party. He then tried to kill Lucia again, Adelaide says they'll deal with him but nothing apparently happens and Lucia is will to hang around him again. This is not how any normal person would react and makes no sense. I think I just didn't like Lucia or rather having to be in her head.

Format:
Ebook — Kindle Unlimited

The Rating
I give this book a 3/5

kaydawn's review against another edition

Eh.

pepperstep's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional 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

arkayspark's review against another edition

4.0

Received from voracious readers. It is a world of witches, werewolves and vampires. Lucia is an interesting heroine…privileged by being one of the most important witch families but forbidden from leaving her gilded prison. At the beginning she attends her third attempt to Bloom…come into her powers as a witch…and fails again. As the story progresses she develops as a witch and a person . She has a massive lack of self esteem and is completely blind to everyone and everything that isn’t part of her restricted world. Through struggle and love she does grow up. Her lover, Adelaide, we know less. We only ever know her through Lucia’s eyes. However the ending leaves us with everything just as chaotic as the beginning..with a love story that may shift the world.