Reviews

I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The ideas are compelling, but the execution is...poor. There are plenty of blanket statements about the vicissitudes of love and human existence, but the actual storytelling is scattershot and doesn't make sense. A good fantasy book has solid world-building and balances explanation of magical rules with an assumption that the reader is a (somewhat) intelligent person; this has neither. I wish Roselle Lim had more clearly outlined Camille and Ward's previous relationship and current predicament (and, in fact, the plot in general); I went back to review certain chapters because I thought I had missed something when, in fact, the explanation was never there.

Perhaps this received better editing before final publication, but even so...it needs improvement.

annettebooksofhopeanddreams's review

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5.0

I have to admit that sometimes I do judge a book by its cover. And this cover came with a lot of expectations. For some reason I had totally expected this to be a light hearted romantasy. I guess it's because of the colors, the silhouettes, the entire vibe. So, when I needed a quick and easy read I was totally convinced this was the right book to pick up. After a few pages I already realized that maybe this book was a lot more than that, but I was already invested by then.

Sometimes you think you need one thing and discover that the thing you're getting is even better. In this case I thought I needed a light hearted romantasy and I discovered that this book was not exactly that but was a million times better. I don't think I can fully explain why. Explaining why comes with spoilers and the one thing you don't want for this book is spoilers. Discovering what's going on is at least half of the fun of this read.

The other part of the fun is the romance. Quite often romances are dreamy and romantic, but not very realistic. In this case the romance is messy at times. We understand why there have been issues with their relationship in the past and why these characters have to keep on working on their relationship to make it work in the future. There are moments these characters mess up, there are moments their relationship is not so perfect. And that's exactly what makes this story so meaningful.

I also really loved the magic and mythology. It's all quite complicated and I'm really impressed that the author made it all work and that it somehow seemed like this all made sense. I also really loved the Gods we got to meet in this story and the roles they were playing. And then there's of course the magic of the shops and the differences between the main characters being reflected by that magic. I can't wait for this author to write more books with fantasy elements. I'll for sure read them!