Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

The Thorns Remain by J.J.A. Harwood

1 review

booksalacarte's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

The Thorn Remains- 2.5⭐️ 1.5🌶️

1919. In a highland village forgotten by the world, harvest season is over and the young who remain after war and flu have ravaged the village will soon head south to make something of themselves.

Moira Jean and her friends head to the forest for a last night of laughter before parting ways. Moira Jean is being left behind. She had plans to leave once – but her lover died in France and with him, her future. The friends light a fire, sing and dance. But with every twirl about the flames, strange new dancers thread between them, music streaming from the trees.

The fae are here.

Suddenly Moira Jean finds herself all alone, her friends spirited away. The iron medal of her lost love, pinned to her dress, protected her from magic.

For the Fae feel forgotten too. Lead by the darkly handsome Lord of the Fae, they are out to make themselves known once more. Moira Jean must enter into a bargain with the Lord to save her friends – and fast, for the longer one spends with the Fae, the less like themselves they are upon return. If Moira Jean cannot save her friends before Beltine, they will be lost forever

✨My Opinion✨

This was an interesting step into a world of Celtic fae mythology. I admit that the setting and time period was hard to nail down at first with only references to “the war” and “the flu” as clues. As someone who isn’t personally familiar with Scotland, everything was so vague. I wish there had been more definitive aspects of the setting and time period in the authors descriptions of clothes and cultural references.

Throughout the first 1/3 of the book was so heavily focused on grief, the bargaining set up, and lore. Quite frankly, I was bored. There wasn’t much going on. By 30% there was no indication if the book was starting to lean toward fantasy romance or just standard fantasy. That’s a long time for me to not understand the tone of the book. 

Once the plot settled in and got moving, it was a decent read. But a great drinking game would have been to take a shot every time the main character said her family split up after her father died and she was so alone all the time, because her mom was so busy working.

The LGBTQ rep felt disingenuous and pasted in with no lead up or follow up, which made it feel like it was just to check a box, rather than it being an original plot choice.

The ending was rushed and so one sided that it left glaring questions all over the place and truly had the FMC’s character development backslide. It could have used 50-100 more pages to wrap everything up.


*thank you Magpie, Harper 360 and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review
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