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soulhaven's review
4.0
If there's one thing you can rely on Sonya Lano for, it's a lovely, poetic style of writing.
This book is for fans of romance who like a more complex plot than simply will they, won't they, will they, won't th-? They did... because HEA.
You also want to be a fan of loves with a pre-destined feel, because this is definitely one of those. Sometimes I found it hard to ship Alynah with Kirian, because Alynah fights against it, and since we're in her head I wanted what she wanted... and that was to run away... except when she enjoyed kissing him... I suspect Alynah was as surprised as me.
The first half of the book was filled with Alynah's attempts to escape and then little moments of her and Kirian being a bit cute together. It's fun watching them develop, so although you might start to wonder when the story will take a turn, just be patient.
About halfway in, things get significantly more interesting when Kirian's brother Kevrick turns up. He's an interesting one, because he's very much a bad boy the way he manipulates people, but I found him quite redeemable (he was working on a bigger picture that was a good cause), and as I tend to have a bit of a bad-boy leaning, I almost wanted Alynah to make the shift...
Trying not to be too spoilery, but I think Kevrick is also the character with the most agency (he pretty much set everything in motion), and so by definition he is the character that most captured my interest.
One Trigger Warning--there are some quite graphic memories revisited, as several characters within the book have been kept as sexual slaves. So if this is not your thing, then this may not be the book for you... or you can skip ahead. On the other hand, others may find it quite titivating.
I did struggle at times with the labels applied to some characters simply because they had a ramped-up sex-drive (slut, depraved...). While for some this drive may have come from a dark place, for others, it came from a history of victimisation (and in reality, it's simply a matter of a sliding scale!), so it did unsettle me at times. However, as we're reading through Alynah's eyes, it makes sense that things are coloured by her opinions. And this is probably why she and Kevrick could never ship.
The key magic in this story is Alynah's (and some other characters) ability to split her spirit from her body. She was able to use this as a way to avoid being affected by truth serum (a very handy purpose!), to do a bit of a drone-like look-ahead over the forest canopy, and to return from the dead (even when she didn't want to). And the extension to this magic is the title characters, the Ever Spirits; spirits who remain in the ether who don't seem to be able to impact the physical realm, but can send other spirits BACK to the physical realm... They have their own ambitions in this story and are rather amused by Alynah's plight as little more than a pawn, despite her best efforts.
This book is for fans of romance who like a more complex plot than simply will they, won't they, will they, won't th-? They did... because HEA.
You also want to be a fan of loves with a pre-destined feel, because this is definitely one of those. Sometimes I found it hard to ship Alynah with Kirian, because Alynah fights against it, and since we're in her head I wanted what she wanted... and that was to run away... except when she enjoyed kissing him... I suspect Alynah was as surprised as me.
The first half of the book was filled with Alynah's attempts to escape and then little moments of her and Kirian being a bit cute together. It's fun watching them develop, so although you might start to wonder when the story will take a turn, just be patient.
About halfway in, things get significantly more interesting when Kirian's brother Kevrick turns up. He's an interesting one, because he's very much a bad boy the way he manipulates people, but I found him quite redeemable (he was working on a bigger picture that was a good cause), and as I tend to have a bit of a bad-boy leaning, I almost wanted Alynah to make the shift...
Trying not to be too spoilery, but I think Kevrick is also the character with the most agency (he pretty much set everything in motion), and so by definition he is the character that most captured my interest.
One Trigger Warning--there are some quite graphic memories revisited, as several characters within the book have been kept as sexual slaves. So if this is not your thing, then this may not be the book for you... or you can skip ahead. On the other hand, others may find it quite titivating.
I did struggle at times with the labels applied to some characters simply because they had a ramped-up sex-drive (slut, depraved...). While for some this drive may have come from a dark place, for others, it came from a history of victimisation (and in reality, it's simply a matter of a sliding scale!), so it did unsettle me at times. However, as we're reading through Alynah's eyes, it makes sense that things are coloured by her opinions. And this is probably why she and Kevrick could never ship.
The key magic in this story is Alynah's (and some other characters) ability to split her spirit from her body. She was able to use this as a way to avoid being affected by truth serum (a very handy purpose!), to do a bit of a drone-like look-ahead over the forest canopy, and to return from the dead (even when she didn't want to). And the extension to this magic is the title characters, the Ever Spirits; spirits who remain in the ether who don't seem to be able to impact the physical realm, but can send other spirits BACK to the physical realm... They have their own ambitions in this story and are rather amused by Alynah's plight as little more than a pawn, despite her best efforts.
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