Reviews

i hate to say it but i was underwhelmed :((((. i really love ft lukens and writing style so much. her first two books were five stars and i haven’t read the third one yet. the cover and premise for this was so interesting, i was looking forward to it.

it about knox, a familiar to the goodness of death, and he wants to explore human life. ellery is our other character and they are stuck in a 5 year winter. due to this their family farm is failing so they move to their cousins house in the city to make money. knox and ellery form a contract, where knox helps ellery find out what happen and ellery helps knox be human.

idk the romance really wasn’t there for me. i feel like the romance is mostly want draws me to ft luken so i was a bit disappointed. it took second to the main conflict and just felt rushed. like their were together for at most two week and ellery literally pulled an orpheus and eurydice. the found family aspect made up for it a little buttt idk. she has written other books with found family (so this is ever after) and the romance in them was more present. idkkk it just wasn’t for me.

speaking of, the orpheus and eurydice moment was my favorite in the book. while the confrontation was a bit cringy (just a bit of the dialogue!) i really loved what happen. ellery letting knox have the choice to do what he wanted after knox had been bonded to master after master was an amazing choice. and the walk out of the underworld, the tension of ellery not knowing if knox was following them!! it was my favorite scene in the entire book.

knox was my favorite. he was hilarious and i loved watching him learn how to be human. (his misunderstanding of common phrases was hilarious) i really like the angst. he realizing that the winter was continuing because of him and arabelle’s death and his first time grieving were such good moments for him. ellery was cool, i don’t really like characters with their type of personality but they were enjoyable. zada and charley were adorable and charley was my second favorite. she was just so outgoing and fun. bram was hilarious and i liked the friendship that bloomed between him and charley. everyone hating on hale was also hilarious.

all in all a fun read. 3 stars ⭐️

jasshicks's review

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emotional funny hopeful mysterious 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? N/A

5.0

I honestly didn’t want to put this book down, but I also didn’t want it to end. It made me so happy to read a book with a non-binary character where it’s just who they are and everyone accepts it.