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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
4.5 Stars
I absolutely loved this. Ms. McConaghy did an excellent job at presenting both sides of an issue and letting the reader make up their minds. The character development was perfect. The feelings! So many feels :(
I absolutely loved this. Ms. McConaghy did an excellent job at presenting both sides of an issue and letting the reader make up their minds. The character development was perfect. The feelings! So many feels :(
This is one heck of a highly recommended book that I do not regret reading! Loved every second of it and honestly it was such an easy read which made this book a quick read and fun ❤️ But can I just say I WASN'T PREPARED TO BE ATTACKED LIKE THAT!
This one had such great potential but I just couldn’t get on with it!
Both main characters weren’t very likeable, the writing was jumpy & there was 2 parts in the storyline that made me absolutely fuming.
I read it to the end, I quite liked Aria’s ending but not Avery’s - it just wasn’t for me, but I’m sure other will enjoy it!
Both main characters weren’t very likeable, the writing was jumpy & there was 2 parts in the storyline that made me absolutely fuming.
I read it to the end, I quite liked Aria’s ending but not Avery’s - it just wasn’t for me, but I’m sure other will enjoy it!
Katharine is a judge for the Aurealis Awards. This review is the personal opinion of Katharine herself, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of any judging panel, the judging coordinator or the Aurealis Awards management team.
I don't always give reviews to books that I don't like but this one had me in love with the idea but left me feeling disappointed. I just could not get into. Avery and Aria were okay, but there was more that left me upset with them than loving them. I really really wanted to enjoy this book because the summary left me excited but with two completely different story lines for our main characters that felt really discombobulating at the end, I just feel confuse and sad. I wanted to love this but I didn't.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
4.5 Officially
You joined souls once in this life, and once only.
Leave, I told her through the bond.
Please. I need you to leave.
Not without you, she whispered into me. Never without you.
This book wrecked me you guys. Gah and I already am going to just go ahead and say sorry for all of the quotes I’m about to put into this review. I just can’t pick some and not include others.
Basically, I found this book randomly some months ago on another friend’s to-read list. The beautiful cover intrigued me, as did the synopsis. Mates that dies with one another? But not in this case—not with Ava. The reviews that I read spoke of unimaginable grief but also of healing and hope and finding love after thinking you were going to be incapable of ever feeling it again.
The people of Kaya die in pairs. So it is and will always be.
Me, being the romantic that I always have been and hopefully always will be—was interested. I have actually been in somewhat of a reading rut for the past month or so, just not knowing what to read or only wanting to re-read things. After stumbling upon this book again yesterday, and after reading some of those reviews, I knew that I needed to read this book. I needed to feel something new (even if was grief). Sometimes you just know that you need a book like that to really touch you in a way that others don’t.
“No Pirenti man or woman could ever imagine what the bond feels like—you see your other half, and you come to understand why it is that you’re alive in this world. All that you are is for them.”
I’m not going to lie, when I started this book, I was pretty skeptical. While I wanted to hold out to find out what happened, the writing was not my cup of tea at all. This book is a prime of example of a writer that does a lot more telling than showing. I was so disappointed in those first few chapters because good dialog especially is a really huge thing for me. I first found this to be a bit cheesy. When Ava, pretending to be Avery, is being escorted to the Isle with Ambrose the banter that they have seemed very unrealistic to me. Ambrose, who is supposed to hate the Kayan people, starts to call Avery, “Ave” as a nickname. Now I am a huge supporter of nicknames but there is NO WAY IN HELL that someone like him is going to start calling someone should be his sworn enemy by a familiar nickname, days after meeting/imprisoning him. Might be a little thing to some, but I was really close to just putting the book down.
“You are one of the most romantic men I have ever met, Ambrose. You can be generous and kind, when you are not forcing yourself to be otherwise, and I think one day you will find a very passionate love, and it will make you understand the futility of denying it.”
Before I get too carried away with all the feels, this is a story centered around four people—or five, I guess. In the beginning we are introduced to Avery and Ava, a mated pair who are on a mission to kill the Queen of Pirenti. Avery ends up dying (not a spoiler, you know it’s going to happen) and even though Ava should be dead, she survives. She is the only known Kayan to survive something like that. Two years later she, dressed like a boy, is captured by Ambrose (who happens to be the Queen’s son) who is charged with taking her to a prison. She tells him she is Avery and the first half of the book is about their journey to the prison and the start of an unlikely friendship. Parallel to that is a story about Throne, Abrose’s warrior/hard ass older brother, and his wife Rose whom very few people understand.
It hit me then—who was I to love a creature like this? I didn’t deserve her, and there was no lifetime in which I ever could. She loved a man I not remembered—a man with black hair, who had stood straight at his death and died for his country. A man who had known the line between right and wrong. And here I sat, a complicated mess of compromised beliefs and stretched morals. All I had left, all I possessed, was this stupid truth.
That was a super shitty synopsis but I just don’t want to give much away. By the time I was about 40% of the way though the book—I was hooked. Either the dialog gets better or by that point it just didn’t matter because the story came and wrapped me up. The romance was so swoon-worthy and believable because none of it was super rushed or came out of nowhere. Sometimes in a book with multiple POVs you like one more than the other. In this case, since it was four people but only two storylines that you can tell are going to meet up by the end, I was entranced by both.
I’d never presume to deserve you.
Ambrose and Avery/Ava. When these two first started out on their journey, you could tell right away that Ambrose was fascinated by the pretty Kayan “boy” but that he didn’t really know why. Through many different instances of saving one another’s lives through accidents the two became friends. Ambrose started telling Avery little snippets of his life and Avery started telling Ambrose why she had only half a soul (and who was to blame for it). Neither one of them knew each other’s true identities. What was cool about this story compared to others that have been set up slightly the same way, is that Ambrose falls in love with Avery/Ava even when he still thinks she is a boy. He loves who she is as a person, not for whatever gender she is. Yes, he was mad at her at first for being lied to but that’s really because he spilled all of his guts out and for the fact that he’d been beating on a girl who took her punishments with ease..it probably got him right in the pride. Their romance is a thing of beauty to watch unfold.
Ava of Orion was not a ghost. She was very far from it. Regardless of how wrong it was, all the threads of my life now came down to a simple fact: I had to have her.
HOWEVER, there were parts that reallllly frustrated me, pretty much all of them dealing with Ava. See, ever since her mate died, she literally has only had half of a soul. So there are a lot of things she can’t feel anymore. When things start progressing with Ambrose anyway though, there are like four or five times that she literally just runs away from him. By the last time I was like what in the actual F, Ava. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose my boyfriend, let alone half of my soul in the process, but I’d like to think I wouldn’t just run away from this living man who loved me with everything he had over and over again. UGH.
It was life bursting back into my soul. It was life and pleasure and touch and so much need I realized I truly had been dying, I had been wasting and now I could breathe because his lungs were working twice as hard, and they were giving me air, just as his heart was beating strong enough for the both of us.
Thorne and Rose are our parallel couple in this story and had been married a few years by the time this book started. There is a pretty fucked up relationship at first. He’s part berserker and literally can’t control his rage (and wouldn’t know any other way of life even if he could) and Rose…I suspect that in our everyday life she could maybe have some form of autism. She can be whip smart and would speak with total clarity at some points but there are others where she was lost inside her mind. Thorne and Ambrose are the only ones that understand her but even while her husband gets it, he doesn’t understand that she loves him and that he really does love her too..I beg you all to hold out for these two because you get to see something really special bloom between them eventually.
“I have to hold on to Avery for as long as I can.”
He stared at me, time slowing, stretching. “But what about me?” he murmured. “I’m the one who’s still alive. I didn’t leave you and I never would. Can’t you see that?”
Okay so confession time. This review has been about all of the..happy parts of this book. There are a few things that happen that are going to rip your heart out. Mine currently feels the effects even twelve hours later. I guess what I personally think is cool about this book is how it goes into how a person really can grieve for someone they love. How much of a toll it can take on them. It also kind of shows the different kinds of love Ava experienced and showed that both were right for her. One was destined to be her mate from the beginning, one became her mate after weeks of hating each other and hardships and getting to know one another first.
I have always been a believer in fate, because I think it’s mysterious and strange and interesting. However (and this is very contradictory) I have also had the belief that you can also be in charge of your own fate with the decisions you make. Ava may have been destined to have Avery for a mate, but what she couldn’t wrap her mind around at first, was the love that she grew into with Ambrose. That was not chance. That was two people coming together and opening up to one another and just simply needing each other. It was a pretty beautiful thing.
Finally, as with other reviews, even though this is insanely long—it in no way does justice to this story. This is really one you need to read for yourself.
“We have no say, in this life, in how hard things will be. What we can control is how hard we fight. How long we endure. How strongly we love.”
You joined souls once in this life, and once only.
Leave, I told her through the bond.
Please. I need you to leave.
Not without you, she whispered into me. Never without you.
This book wrecked me you guys. Gah and I already am going to just go ahead and say sorry for all of the quotes I’m about to put into this review. I just can’t pick some and not include others.
Basically, I found this book randomly some months ago on another friend’s to-read list. The beautiful cover intrigued me, as did the synopsis. Mates that dies with one another? But not in this case—not with Ava. The reviews that I read spoke of unimaginable grief but also of healing and hope and finding love after thinking you were going to be incapable of ever feeling it again.
The people of Kaya die in pairs. So it is and will always be.
Me, being the romantic that I always have been and hopefully always will be—was interested. I have actually been in somewhat of a reading rut for the past month or so, just not knowing what to read or only wanting to re-read things. After stumbling upon this book again yesterday, and after reading some of those reviews, I knew that I needed to read this book. I needed to feel something new (even if was grief). Sometimes you just know that you need a book like that to really touch you in a way that others don’t.
“No Pirenti man or woman could ever imagine what the bond feels like—you see your other half, and you come to understand why it is that you’re alive in this world. All that you are is for them.”
I’m not going to lie, when I started this book, I was pretty skeptical. While I wanted to hold out to find out what happened, the writing was not my cup of tea at all. This book is a prime of example of a writer that does a lot more telling than showing. I was so disappointed in those first few chapters because good dialog especially is a really huge thing for me. I first found this to be a bit cheesy. When Ava, pretending to be Avery, is being escorted to the Isle with Ambrose the banter that they have seemed very unrealistic to me. Ambrose, who is supposed to hate the Kayan people, starts to call Avery, “Ave” as a nickname. Now I am a huge supporter of nicknames but there is NO WAY IN HELL that someone like him is going to start calling someone should be his sworn enemy by a familiar nickname, days after meeting/imprisoning him. Might be a little thing to some, but I was really close to just putting the book down.
“You are one of the most romantic men I have ever met, Ambrose. You can be generous and kind, when you are not forcing yourself to be otherwise, and I think one day you will find a very passionate love, and it will make you understand the futility of denying it.”
Before I get too carried away with all the feels, this is a story centered around four people—or five, I guess. In the beginning we are introduced to Avery and Ava, a mated pair who are on a mission to kill the Queen of Pirenti. Avery ends up dying (not a spoiler, you know it’s going to happen) and even though Ava should be dead, she survives. She is the only known Kayan to survive something like that. Two years later she, dressed like a boy, is captured by Ambrose (who happens to be the Queen’s son) who is charged with taking her to a prison. She tells him she is Avery and the first half of the book is about their journey to the prison and the start of an unlikely friendship. Parallel to that is a story about Throne, Abrose’s warrior/hard ass older brother, and his wife Rose whom very few people understand.
It hit me then—who was I to love a creature like this? I didn’t deserve her, and there was no lifetime in which I ever could. She loved a man I not remembered—a man with black hair, who had stood straight at his death and died for his country. A man who had known the line between right and wrong. And here I sat, a complicated mess of compromised beliefs and stretched morals. All I had left, all I possessed, was this stupid truth.
That was a super shitty synopsis but I just don’t want to give much away. By the time I was about 40% of the way though the book—I was hooked. Either the dialog gets better or by that point it just didn’t matter because the story came and wrapped me up. The romance was so swoon-worthy and believable because none of it was super rushed or came out of nowhere. Sometimes in a book with multiple POVs you like one more than the other. In this case, since it was four people but only two storylines that you can tell are going to meet up by the end, I was entranced by both.
I’d never presume to deserve you.
Ambrose and Avery/Ava. When these two first started out on their journey, you could tell right away that Ambrose was fascinated by the pretty Kayan “boy” but that he didn’t really know why. Through many different instances of saving one another’s lives through accidents the two became friends. Ambrose started telling Avery little snippets of his life and Avery started telling Ambrose why she had only half a soul (and who was to blame for it). Neither one of them knew each other’s true identities. What was cool about this story compared to others that have been set up slightly the same way, is that Ambrose falls in love with Avery/Ava even when he still thinks she is a boy. He loves who she is as a person, not for whatever gender she is. Yes, he was mad at her at first for being lied to but that’s really because he spilled all of his guts out and for the fact that he’d been beating on a girl who took her punishments with ease..it probably got him right in the pride. Their romance is a thing of beauty to watch unfold.
Ava of Orion was not a ghost. She was very far from it. Regardless of how wrong it was, all the threads of my life now came down to a simple fact: I had to have her.
HOWEVER, there were parts that reallllly frustrated me, pretty much all of them dealing with Ava. See, ever since her mate died, she literally has only had half of a soul. So there are a lot of things she can’t feel anymore. When things start progressing with Ambrose anyway though, there are like four or five times that she literally just runs away from him. By the last time I was like what in the actual F, Ava. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose my boyfriend, let alone half of my soul in the process, but I’d like to think I wouldn’t just run away from this living man who loved me with everything he had over and over again. UGH.
It was life bursting back into my soul. It was life and pleasure and touch and so much need I realized I truly had been dying, I had been wasting and now I could breathe because his lungs were working twice as hard, and they were giving me air, just as his heart was beating strong enough for the both of us.
Thorne and Rose are our parallel couple in this story and had been married a few years by the time this book started. There is a pretty fucked up relationship at first. He’s part berserker and literally can’t control his rage (and wouldn’t know any other way of life even if he could) and Rose…I suspect that in our everyday life she could maybe have some form of autism. She can be whip smart and would speak with total clarity at some points but there are others where she was lost inside her mind. Thorne and Ambrose are the only ones that understand her but even while her husband gets it, he doesn’t understand that she loves him and that he really does love her too..I beg you all to hold out for these two because you get to see something really special bloom between them eventually.
“I have to hold on to Avery for as long as I can.”
He stared at me, time slowing, stretching. “But what about me?” he murmured. “I’m the one who’s still alive. I didn’t leave you and I never would. Can’t you see that?”
Okay so confession time. This review has been about all of the..happy parts of this book. There are a few things that happen that are going to rip your heart out. Mine currently feels the effects even twelve hours later. I guess what I personally think is cool about this book is how it goes into how a person really can grieve for someone they love. How much of a toll it can take on them. It also kind of shows the different kinds of love Ava experienced and showed that both were right for her. One was destined to be her mate from the beginning, one became her mate after weeks of hating each other and hardships and getting to know one another first.
I have always been a believer in fate, because I think it’s mysterious and strange and interesting. However (and this is very contradictory) I have also had the belief that you can also be in charge of your own fate with the decisions you make. Ava may have been destined to have Avery for a mate, but what she couldn’t wrap her mind around at first, was the love that she grew into with Ambrose. That was not chance. That was two people coming together and opening up to one another and just simply needing each other. It was a pretty beautiful thing.
Finally, as with other reviews, even though this is insanely long—it in no way does justice to this story. This is really one you need to read for yourself.
“We have no say, in this life, in how hard things will be. What we can control is how hard we fight. How long we endure. How strongly we love.”
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Big trigger warnings for this book! Especially in regards to domestic violence and the idea that you stay with someone abusive because you love them, and no matter what they do to you you’ll forgive them and stick around. Also big TW for grief
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse
Moderate: Grief
Date : 19.11.2017
Trigger warnings for domestic abuse.
Date: 24.08.2016
It's been a while since I read a book that pulled me in.
Thoughts and spoilers:-
Although I did have a problem with all the physical abuse displayed by both siblings, I understand that they lived in a world where men are superior and their actions justified.
The love stories (which generally what this book is about) was nothing short of spectacular. The characters are complex and not two dimensional. I find myself liking all of them despite their faults and imperfections.
All of them joined because of one tragedy, by the name of the book's namesake.
Ava is strong and willful. Her relationship with Ambrose at first was definitely tumultuous but in a way they were made for each other. I didn't think the romance moved too quickly, it was paced perfectly and it didn't feel rushed.
But I find myself enjoying Rose and Thorne (OMG, just realised as I wrote this, even their names are made for each other) a bit more. Their initial relationship was nothing short of domestic abuse, and I wouldn't recommend anyone to romanticize what they had contemporarily, but more than that I enjoyed the growth of their love.
This is an epic love story basically that centered around two couples set in a fantastical world, but it works. The romances are not sloppy or cheesy, they have substance and an original twist in their lore.
I think it's both my gift and curse to spot a good fiction amongst ongoing series. Sigh...
4.5 stars. There isn't a whole lot of world building though.
Trigger warnings for domestic abuse.
Date: 24.08.2016
It's been a while since I read a book that pulled me in.
Thoughts and spoilers:-
Although I did have a problem with all the physical abuse displayed by both siblings, I understand that they lived in a world where men are superior and their actions justified.
The love stories (which generally what this book is about) was nothing short of spectacular. The characters are complex and not two dimensional. I find myself liking all of them despite their faults and imperfections.
All of them joined because of one tragedy, by the name of the book's namesake.
Ava is strong and willful. Her relationship with Ambrose at first was definitely tumultuous but in a way they were made for each other. I didn't think the romance moved too quickly, it was paced perfectly and it didn't feel rushed.
But I find myself enjoying Rose and Thorne (OMG, just realised as I wrote this, even their names are made for each other) a bit more. Their initial relationship was nothing short of domestic abuse, and I wouldn't recommend anyone to romanticize what they had contemporarily, but more than that I enjoyed the growth of their love.
This is an epic love story basically that centered around two couples set in a fantastical world, but it works. The romances are not sloppy or cheesy, they have substance and an original twist in their lore.
I think it's both my gift and curse to spot a good fiction amongst ongoing series. Sigh...
4.5 stars. There isn't a whole lot of world building though.
If all fantasy books were a fraction of what Avery was, then I'd probably read fantasy novels all day long. It made me laugh, cry and angst, and I hated Thorne in the beginning only to care about him in the end (to the point of said crying). I can say I'll definitely re-visit the story from time to time and look forward to more works from the author.