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katiechasingchapters's review
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Violence and Animal death
phiagrace97's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
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? It's complicated
3.25
This book seemed slightly lifeless and forced. I did enjoy aspects of the romance and was intrigued by the mystery, but the resolution felt flat and lazy. Additionally, I really don’t know why we had to start off with a rape scene and suicide attempt. It just all felt like it was too big of stakes and simultaneously like there were no stakes at all.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide attempt, Violence, Vomit, Rape, Toxic relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Murder, Gaslighting, and Abandonment
sneaky_snake22's review
adventurous
emotional
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? No
5.0
I loved this book. The first two chapters are rough in content but then it picks up and is a highly addictive read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Violence, Murder, Sexual violence, Fire/Fire injury, and Homophobia
maggienack's review
3.5
After reading Winter’s Orbit found another m/m political marriage book. This one is more fantasy than sci-fi. I enjoyed this. The relationship developed along with the mystery of the series of attacks.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Sexual assault, Homophobia, and Kidnapping
hazybee's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
The world building and depth of the characters was amazing! Reading this was like watching a well directed movie: all the pieces were there and when they get slotted into place it simply feels right, not cliche or too simple.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide attempt, Death, Self harm, Rape, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, and Homophobia
Moderate: Alcohol, Vomit, Animal death, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, and Sexism
nevher's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
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? It's complicated
5.0
This book… is if not my favorite-then one of my favorite books of all time. And in terms of lgbt romance, fantasy.. it IS my favorite. The world building is definitely there, diverse characters, interesting plot. I was actually surprised by the big reveal. The romance was perfect. I never loved slow burn until now and it was sooo so so worth the investment.. which didn’t even feel like an investment. I was hooked the entire time. I want this- leather bound- on my shelf neoow.
Spoilers!!
On a serious note (**trigger warning be advised**)
I really appreciate how the author depicted SA and the broad spectrum that exists in such violence. The dissociation, the trauma, the victim blaming all felt real and I’m so happy it wasn’t glazed over like it is in some books.The interrogation with his abuser was therapeutic in a way. Not everyone gets to confront their abuser and even less often are they made to face consequences. I love his support system. How people instantly believed him and knew what happened to him was wrong. I found Vel relatable even though he was frustrating at times. I also love how, during his journey to healing he unravels plots, makes friends and grows closer to his husband. There is visible growth in him as a character.
On a spicy note- The tension was *smacks lips delectable. Yesss I am what you could call a smut enthusiast, a connoisseur if you will. Fox Meadows you were cooking with this one.A talented rider indeed. If you want explicit sex look no further.
Overall I can’t even ask for anything other than MORE. I’m looking forward to the next book! Like please let this be like a 10 book series lol I can’t get enough of these characters
Spoilers!!
On a serious note (**trigger warning be advised**)
I really appreciate how the author depicted SA and the broad spectrum that exists in such violence. The dissociation, the trauma, the victim blaming all felt real and I’m so happy it wasn’t glazed over like it is in some books.
On a spicy note- The tension was *smacks lips delectable. Yesss I am what you could call a smut enthusiast, a connoisseur if you will. Fox Meadows you were cooking with this one.
Overall I can’t even ask for anything other than MORE. I’m looking forward to the next book! Like please let this be like a 10 book series lol I can’t get enough of these characters
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, Homophobia, and Sexual assault
merc_birb's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
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? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Homophobia, and Rape
Moderate: Racial slurs and Violence
curiousarty's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
I really enjoyed this book from about the 10% mark to the 40% mark. The first few chapters (until the MC and LI meet) were difficult to push through, and everything from about the middle towards the end I really did not enjoy. The last 50 or so pages, I forced myself to finish and even skimmed in places.
But the reason I give this a 3.0 and noting lower is because I think most of my feelings about this book are based on personal preference, not on how good or bad the book is. I think it's a pretty good book; it's just very much, most definitely, not for me.
The biggest hurdle for me was the pacing. Something absolutely AWFUL happens to the characters every 4-5 chapters, sometimes sooner. I found this extremely difficult to deal with. As soon as I began to relax and enjoy the romance and the political fantasy aspect, someone would literally be murdered. It was horrifying. I found myself constantly putting the book down so I could recover.
The second thing I struggled with was the romance. This is really disappointing because I initially KEPT reading because of how sweet and adorable the romance was. But once the two characters started staring at one another with bedroom eyes and thinking about sex constantly, I lost all interest. A few days after their first time together (and wow, that sex scene... it was so incredibly long, almost like an AO3 fic. I confess I skimmed the whole thing), they were madly in love. The entire relationship takes place in like two weeks. It was... well, "disappointing" is really the only way I know how to put it.
The third and final thing I'll complain about is the world building. There are SO many characters and titles that I literally couldn't recall who was who. I wish 50% of the characters had been cut. At one point they reveal who they think "the killer" is, and that revelation occurs at the end of the chapter (a typical cliffhanger for this book). I knew it was supposed to be a big deal, but... I genuinely had no idea who they were even talking about. I know Vel (pretty snarky MC), Cae (macho sweet LI), Markal (bestie), the two sisters, the dad, the grandma, the grand-non-gendered person (grandma's sibling), the guard captain guy, and some girl Markal was seeing but I don't know where she came from. Oh and Cae's ex whom everyone acted like was the god Apollo come to life. That sounds like a lot of characters, right? Now add about thirty more. Yikes!
Things I did like: initially, the romance. Like, I was in LOVE! I would read more fantasy romances from this author, but I will check reviews first to make sure the pacing is to my taste.
I did like the world the characters inhabited. It was just confusing.
I love queernorm fantasy worlds; I'm queer myself. But sometimes it felt like characters existed just to be an example of this or that member of the queer community. It did not feel organic. But I loved the idea and I want more of this. Again, would read more from this author for that reason.
I guess I'm mostly feeling like... I'm glad I finally read this one (was on my TBR list for a long time) but also grateful I finished it so I can move on to something else.
But the reason I give this a 3.0 and noting lower is because I think most of my feelings about this book are based on personal preference, not on how good or bad the book is. I think it's a pretty good book; it's just very much, most definitely, not for me.
The biggest hurdle for me was the pacing. Something absolutely AWFUL happens to the characters every 4-5 chapters, sometimes sooner. I found this extremely difficult to deal with. As soon as I began to relax and enjoy the romance and the political fantasy aspect, someone would literally be murdered. It was horrifying. I found myself constantly putting the book down so I could recover.
The second thing I struggled with was the romance. This is really disappointing because I initially KEPT reading because of how sweet and adorable the romance was. But once the two characters started staring at one another with bedroom eyes and thinking about sex constantly, I lost all interest. A few days after their first time together (and wow, that sex scene... it was so incredibly long, almost like an AO3 fic. I confess I skimmed the whole thing), they were madly in love. The entire relationship takes place in like two weeks. It was... well, "disappointing" is really the only way I know how to put it.
The third and final thing I'll complain about is the world building. There are SO many characters and titles that I literally couldn't recall who was who. I wish 50% of the characters had been cut. At one point they reveal who they think "the killer" is, and that revelation occurs at the end of the chapter (a typical cliffhanger for this book). I knew it was supposed to be a big deal, but... I genuinely had no idea who they were even talking about. I know Vel (pretty snarky MC), Cae (macho sweet LI), Markal (bestie), the two sisters, the dad, the grandma, the grand-non-gendered person (grandma's sibling), the guard captain guy, and some girl Markal was seeing but I don't know where she came from. Oh and Cae's ex whom everyone acted like was the god Apollo come to life. That sounds like a lot of characters, right? Now add about thirty more. Yikes!
Things I did like: initially, the romance. Like, I was in LOVE! I would read more fantasy romances from this author, but I will check reviews first to make sure the pacing is to my taste.
I did like the world the characters inhabited. It was just confusing.
I love queernorm fantasy worlds; I'm queer myself. But sometimes it felt like characters existed just to be an example of this or that member of the queer community. It did not feel organic. But I loved the idea and I want more of this. Again, would read more from this author for that reason.
I guess I'm mostly feeling like... I'm glad I finally read this one (was on my TBR list for a long time) but also grateful I finished it so I can move on to something else.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Animal death, Murder, and Violence
ehmannky's review
emotional
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
3.0
I think overall this book was fine, but would be better served if people knew going in it was less romantasy (the romance is very much a B-plot in this when I felt it should have been the A-plot) and more political/court intrigue and recovery from trauma. There's also not that much magic in it either.
I liked the characters and their relationship, and I liked getting to explore a world where queerness is embedded into the society, but the overall mystery and court intrigue did nothing for me. I think many problems could have been solved had the timeline been drawn out and the characters given more time to adjust to things and interactions with more of the palace residents. Like, this is billed as a slowburn, which I suppose it kind of is considering it's over 500 pages, but the story itself takes place over 3 weeks, with the romance taking place over 1 week. Like for the reader this is a slowburn but it's still soooooo fast in-universe. And since it's such a short timeline, I truly did not care even a little bit about the reveal of who was behind the mysteries, because we really had so little interaction with them throughout the story. I cannot believe there was a villain monologue where every step of the plan was spelled out (because again, the book's timeline is so short, and there's not really any space for the characters to actually solve the mystery or learn about this secondary character). I also didn't care for how there's never any down time. Every single chapter ends with some kind of cliffhanger and interruption. Like, it got to the point where Cae and Vel would have a quiet moment and I'd just brace for someone to knock on the door because they never get to have a normal conclusion to a story.
As many reviewers have pointed out, there is an on-the-page rape very quickly and most of the book is Velasin recovering from it. And even though there are trigger warnings, I think it's important to know that this assault and his first suicide attempt take place within the first 50 pages. Like, avoid if that would be triggering.
I liked the characters and their relationship, and I liked getting to explore a world where queerness is embedded into the society, but the overall mystery and court intrigue did nothing for me. I think many problems could have been solved had the timeline been drawn out and the characters given more time to adjust to things and interactions with more of the palace residents. Like, this is billed as a slowburn, which I suppose it kind of is considering it's over 500 pages, but the story itself takes place over 3 weeks, with the romance taking place over 1 week. Like for the reader this is a slowburn but it's still soooooo fast in-universe. And since it's such a short timeline, I truly did not care even a little bit about the reveal of who was behind the mysteries, because we really had so little interaction with them throughout the story. I cannot believe there was a villain monologue where every step of the plan was spelled out (because again, the book's timeline is so short, and there's not really any space for the characters to actually solve the mystery or learn about this secondary character). I also didn't care for how there's never any down time. Every single chapter ends with some kind of cliffhanger and interruption. Like, it got to the point where Cae and Vel would have a quiet moment and I'd just brace for someone to knock on the door because they never get to have a normal conclusion to a story.
As many reviewers have pointed out, there is an on-the-page rape very quickly and most of the book is Velasin recovering from it. And even though there are trigger warnings, I think it's important to know that this assault and his first suicide attempt take place within the first 50 pages. Like, avoid if that would be triggering.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Rape, Animal death, Violence, Blood, Sexual assault, Death of parent, and Murder
isxelle's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
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
3.25
3-3.4
i forgot to make this review so i can't remember my exact rating.
cute romance combined with healing from trauma and an intriguing political murder mystery. i'm grateful for a book club i’m in for making me pick this one up. i probably wouldn’t have otherwise because i don’t usually gravitate towards books with heavier traumatic topics. TW for sexual assault in ch 2. as a result of this life changing event, we follow vel on his road of healing and recovery. cae is such a perfect man. he’s so whipped for vel and i was living for it.
However, with all these different elements i feel that the overall story ended up lacking in some aspects. there’s a whole other 2 countries on this map that barely get mentioned. off the top of my head, i can’t name a single thing about them and that is if they were even mentioned in this book at all.
another aspect of this world is magic. it turned out to be quite an important detail in this book and i feel like we were told rather little about it. i’m surprised that there aren’t any defenses against magic users. it’s against the law to use magic on others without their consent but that’s that. that’s literally it. there’s no defences or anything talked about in this
it’s kind of surprising that the events of this book took place during a little over a week. the escalation was crazy. i honestly had kind of bad vibes from laecia in the beginning with the way she was saying she’d whip the ralian bruteness out of him. i suppose with ralia’s reputation that was to be expected, but i can’t believe she devolved into madness that fast. maybe she was always like that and had never grown up? cae had mentioned her saying “she deserved it”
in reference to a kid she had got in a fight with and then many years later saying the same thing when killing a groom. she was always getting people to do her dirty work. ALSO what the hell happened to her magical exhaustion. does she just have crazy stamina???? that anad guy said she seemed tired but then a couple hours later she was crushing hearts and frying more nerves. i definitely have a lot of questions.
this part is just be me having a personal ick, but vel is the kind of person who cannot accept a compliment and it pissed me the fuck off at some points. he is so self-deprecating and it was annoying me. yknow those types of people who are like haha i fucking suck lmao. ya that is him.
i liked the beginning and middle more that the last like 100 pages.
i forgot to make this review so i can't remember my exact rating.
cute romance combined with healing from trauma and an intriguing political murder mystery. i'm grateful for a book club i’m in for making me pick this one up. i probably wouldn’t have otherwise because i don’t usually gravitate towards books with heavier traumatic topics. TW for sexual assault in ch 2. as a result of this life changing event, we follow vel on his road of healing and recovery. cae is such a perfect man. he’s so whipped for vel and i was living for it.
However, with all these different elements i feel that the overall story ended up lacking in some aspects. there’s a whole other 2 countries on this map that barely get mentioned. off the top of my head, i can’t name a single thing about them and that is if they were even mentioned in this book at all.
another aspect of this world is magic. it turned out to be quite an important detail in this book and i feel like we were told rather little about it. i’m surprised that there aren’t any defenses against magic users. it’s against the law to use magic on others without their consent but that’s that. that’s literally it. there’s no defences or anything talked about in this
it’s kind of surprising that the events of this book took place during a little over a week. the escalation was crazy.
in reference to a kid she had got in a fight with and then many years later saying the same thing when killing a groom. she was always getting people to do her dirty work. ALSO what the hell happened to her magical exhaustion. does she just have crazy stamina???? that anad guy said she seemed tired but then a couple hours later she was crushing hearts and frying more nerves. i definitely have a lot of questions.
this part is just be me having a personal ick, but vel is the kind of person who cannot accept a compliment and it pissed me the fuck off at some points. he is so self-deprecating and it was annoying me. yknow those types of people who are like haha i fucking suck lmao. ya that is him.
i liked the beginning and middle more that the last like 100 pages.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm
Moderate: Sexual assault, Homophobia, Violence, and Outing