Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - Rose in Chains

Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Rose in Chains by Julie Soto

72 reviews

tpetty's review against another edition

5.0

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

🎧 Title: Rose in Chains- The Evermore Trilogy #1-3

✍🏾 Author: Julie Soto- an auto-buy author for me

📅Publication date: 7-8-25 | Read: 6-27-25

🗣️Narrator: Ella Lynch voices all the characters with standouts from Briony and Toven. The reading style brought the text to life, and the author and narrator worked together perfectly. The pacing and flow allowed me to get lost in the story. The narrator paused and announced new chapters and there was a table of contents which helped me follow along.

🏃🏾‍♀️‍➡️Run Time: 15:35

Genre:
*Fantasy
*Dark Romance
*Adult Fic

Tropes:
*Dramione fanfic-The Auction
*enemies to lovers/rivals
*slow burn romance
*flashbacks
*forced proximity
*magic school-mind magic and heart magic/golden heartsprings
*mutual pining
*royal romance
*a dragon
*the chosen one

👆🏾POV: 3rd person

⚠️TW: slavery/human auction, virgin h, SA/SH, war, abortion, forced sterilization, mind attacks, death of loved ones

🌎 Setting: Evermore-Claremore Castle and Bomard

Summary: Rory is set to become King of the Eversuns but must first defeat Bomard led by Queen Mallow. When his castle is attacked, his twin sister Princess Briony and several others are taken prisoner-the women forced to become slaves to Bomard. Briony is given to her archenemy Toven as a heartspring. She is tattooed and chained to stop her magic and let everyone know she belonged to him.

👩🏾 Heroine: Briony Rosewood-25, Princess of Evermore turned prisoner

👨🏾 Hero: Toven Hearst-25, his family controls Heart Magic in Bomard, Vespa-his fox familiar

🎭 Other Characters:

* Rory Rosewood-Briony's twin, heir-apparent to King Evermore per a "chosen one" prophecy
* Cordelia-Briony's BFF/ in love w/ Rory
* Veronika Mallow-Queen of the Bomardi, bonded to a dragon. A mind reader who wants to end the Rosewood line.
* Lag Reighven+ Gaines- evil handlers
* Serena + Orion Hearst-Toven's parents
* Liam + Finn + Colin-Toven's friends
* Larissa Gaines-from Bomard/Briony's rival who becomes enslaved because of her father's cruelty

🤔 My Thoughts: This was a great beginning of a new romantasy series. The mutual pining, the betrayal, and war politics all combine for a Dramione/Handmaid's Tale/Fourth Wing dark romance. It ended in a surprise and cliffhanger that I can't wait to devour.

Rating: 5/5 ✨
Spice level 1/5 🌶️ most unwanted encounters, kiss/make out between H/h

🙏🏾Thanks to NetGalley, Hachette Audio, and Julie Soto for this ALC! I voluntarily give my honest review, and all opinions are my own.

Content Warnings

ritualreads's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The war is over and the dark forces have won - princess Briony Rosewood and the remaining citizens of Evermore have been captured and auctioned off to the people of Bomard, their rival nation. Her brother is dead, her friends split up, and her childhood crush… purchased her.

The story goes between present day and the past, providing a good foundation of backstory throughout the novel to prepare the reader for what comes next. This provides helpful context, and helps the reader build an emotional bond to characters who are talked about in the present day, but seldom seen. Julie Soto does a great job of building the world, explaining how the magic works, and not overwhelming the reader with all the information at once. Instead, we are introduced to certain topics and explanations only as it becomes relevant, which really helped with the flow of the novel.

Once I felt up to speed on the inner-workings of magic in this realm, and the tensions between Evermore and Bomard, I had already developed a fairly emotional bond to Briony. I loved that even from the beginning, the story felt both unique and comfortable. While not necessarily groundbreaking, it was creative and inspiring, and kept me intrigued. I always had a list of questions about what would happen next - and it was hard to predict.

There were many nuances as we were introduced to essential characters, but only slowly learned what we needed to know about them. Briony’s curious mind helped keep the reader enthralled about what each person’s role was in the bigger picture of the Bomardi line, and who was loyal to it.

The relationship building was particularly good. We saw it first with how connected she was to her people, and to her brother, Rory. While their childhood could have driven a wedge between the twins, their relationship was stronger due to their hardships - because he saw her value, and made sure she saw it too.

“When they were very young, he used to say that they were answering the questions together, as a team”

We next saw the relationship grow between Briony and her captor, Toven Hearst. Throughout the book, we see the two as classmates, as enemies, and as captor/captive. The slowest of slow burns - politics mean that facing any feelings would risk the safety of many.

If you’re expecting a nice, magical romance, you’re in the wrong place. To me, the romance was secondary to the rivalry between worlds, the other relationships, and the plot to save Evermore. This is a fantasy through and through, with dark themes of captivity, human trafficking, non-consent, and s*xual humiliation. Definitely read your trigger warnings before jumping into this. That said, I thought they were handled very well and I was tied into every moment, desperate to learn more.

This was the longest audiobook I’ve listened to, but I was so impressed that I never once felt bored or like the story wasn’t moving. There was always something to unravel and explore. I’m completely hooked and eager for book two.

I only found out after reading that this was adapted from a fanfiction, but honestly, I never would’ve known if I hadn’t Googled it - it truly didn’t feel like one. If you love fantasy, adventure, and dark, brooding men… you will love Rose in Chains.

“She stared…listening to the echo in her ears of him calling her family”

I really think my only qualm with this book was how heavily it is marketed as a romance - I didn’t think the romance was the primary story, nor do I think it was developed enough to be considered the genre of the book. I would barely categorize this as romantasy… but I really hope book two changes that for me, because I can’t wait to see more of these two. In the end, the adventure and the mystery is really what captivated me, not the love story.

Content Warnings

allisonisbooked's review against another edition

5.0

Content Warnings

xenikoo's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

I‘m so grateful that I got to listen to this book before its release date! Thanks to netgalley and the publisher!!
Julie Soto is one of my favorite authors, I‘ve loved all her books and Rose in Chains is no exception. This was way darker than I expected it to be, the stakes are freaking high in this, its so sad to see what all these women have to go through just because of some disgusting people. I felt so much all of them because of the shit they have to endure!
The magic is also so interesting and I already can not wait to get my hands on the next book to see how the magic, the world, this story and the characters continue!! Hopefully we‘ll get to know why some specific people act the way they do! I can‘t wait to read more about Briony & Toven, all the others and their world!
Thank you Julie, for dipping your toes into so many different genres and continuing to be one of my favorites!

Content Warnings

whenimreading's review against another edition

1.0

What in the Handmaid’s Tale, Stockholm syndrome, sexist crap is this?! This is so tone deaf with current events. Today women all around the world are at a higher risk for sexual abuse along with having their human rights taken away. The amount of blatant sexual harassment, disgusting and repulsive behavior towards women in this book is astounding. I had to quit at 60% for my own sanity. I’m all for reading whatever you want but I cannot believe this is being published, especially targeting a younger demographic. Glorifying incel ideas about women as property/slaves and dressing it up as enemies to lovers is low.

The world building was underdeveloped and magic system not explained clearly. There were a lot of characters and an attempt at creating political intrigue, but it was too difficult to keep track of - all tell, no show. So much fluff, using a lot of words to say a whole lot of nothing. Name inspirations courtesy of r/tradgedeigh and characters were killed off early on and no one grieved anyone or showed any emotion. The FMC was flat and robotic, there was no chemistry between her and the MMC, it was an abusive master/slave situation. I’m just so confused about the plot and how a woman came to be in power, yet all the men abuse women they see as inferior like it’s the norm.

A lot of questionable writing used to fly back in the day with fanfiction, it’s 2025 and time to retire these ideas for good. Also it’s weird that at some point these characters were modeled after children’s books…

The audiobook production was good, the narrator has a British accent but has a very juvenile sounding voice, it just made the whole book feel YA but the themes were dark and violent.

Disappointing - I cannot, in good conscience, recommend this book to anyone.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the review copies.

Content Warnings

booksalacarte's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

4.5⭐️2.5🌶️

Dark Romantasy

Non-linear timeline

Flashbacks

Magical schools

Rival kingdoms

War

Political intrigue

Dragons

Failed prophecy

Enemies to lovers

Secrets

Rebellion

Slow burn

Forced proximity

High stakes

Tw: grief, war, SA, human trafficking, murder, enslavement, forced sterility, forced termination of pregnancy (off page), non-consensual relationships, misogyny, gore

*note- trigger warnings are not reflected in spice rating. Read responsibly.

I love Julie Soto’s highly bingeable writing style, and as a fan of her contemporary romances, I was thrilled to be approved for the audiobook galley on NetGalley!

Many readers will recognize her from AO3, where she’s widely respected for her fanfiction. While those familiar with the source material may notice a few parallels, the story here stands firmly on its own. The changes are creative and distinct. You’d never know it was a reimagining unless you were looking for it.

The audiobook was fantastic! The narrator’s pacing, inflection, and melodic tone were spot-on, and each character had a clearly defined voice. Even at 1.75x speed, the narration felt perfectly paced and immersive.

The magical system and historical elements felt fresh and well-developed. Some aspects of the world were repeated a bit more than necessary, but not enough to pull me out of the story.

The plot was compelling and the tension, especially the romantic tension, was absolutely top-tier. There’s just something about a character quietly pining for someone they shouldn’t that always lands. While I’m not usually a fan of flashbacks, the ones to their school days were effective. Scenes occasionally replayed from different POVs or slightly altered timelines, which added depth, though the repetition was noticeable.

This is a dark fantasy romance, and the themes are heavy, particularly around human trafficking. It’s handled with care, but definitely worth noting.

This is a very slow burn. At times I wondered if any spice between the main characters would happen at all in this book… but the tension was so deliciously drawn out that I didn’t mind one bit.

Briony and Toven are wonderfully developed, and I loved seeing the slow reveal of Toven’s parents. However, most of the other characters felt less fleshed out—likely due to the story’s secluded setting. I especially wished for more development in Briony’s relationship with her twin brother, which felt underexplored.

I really enjoyed this and can’t wait to explore more of the characters, world, and magic in future books. A strong start to what promises to be a gripping series!

Content Warnings

dmeiners's review against another edition

3.25

dark medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I have a very simple rule: If Julie Soto writes it, I’m going to read it.

Perhaps it’s because this is a rework of a previous story she wrote, but it reads far clunkier than her more recent novels and lacks the heart and depth I’ve grown used to from her. This is by far her darkest novel, but the plot armor is so thick on our FMC I never felt the tension like I should have. There were moments that grabbed my attention, but it never quite held me.

I think I would have benefitted from reading the physical novel. The narration was far too delicate and failed to convey the horror, urgency and despair throughout the novel.

I will read the next in the series because in Julie I trust. Thank you to NetGalley and Hachette for the ALC in exchange for a honest review!

Content Warnings

spellbindingtomes's review against another edition

4.25

dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

rbenjamim's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

hxlleann's review against another edition

3.5

dark tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book!!!

3.5 stars.

This was a highly anticipated read for me and I was so happy to get an early copy…

I feel like I went through multiple phases with this book. The beginning hooked me pretty quickly and I felt like I had an easy time getting pulled into the story. I feel like the world building was relatively easy to understand and I was able to imagine the world pretty well based on the writing. I do think the politics and succession was kind of confusing and there were a lot of characters to remember, but it felt pretty well thought out. I appreciated the tension between the two main characters and felt that the flashbacks really helped to give more context to their relationship and set the scene for a sort of enemies to lovers situation.

Some complaints…

After finishing this book, I just kept thinking that it felt incomplete. I know it is meant to be the start of a series, so I expected it to leave us with a conflict that will need to be completed in the other books, but I just felt like we were lacking when it came to a lot of things. The ending felt rushed, and really lacked any sort of wrapping up of ANY parts of the plot. The relationship between the main characters felt like it reset completely back to where it was at the beginning of the book and we lost all progress. I also feel like, honestly, not that much actually happened in this book. I know sometimes first books in a series can be like that as they are providing a lot of setup… but this book felt like so much filler and borderline repetition that didn’t advance the plot as much as I wanted. Also, if you love a slow-burn then THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU. There was tension, there was like… suggestive dialogue and longing and dreaming of each other……. but they did not even so much as KISS until 95% into the book. I like a slow burn but it was hard to wait that long for any sort of progress.

Overall there were things I enjoyed and things that I did not. I’m honestly unsure at the moment if this will be a series I continue or not.

Content Warnings

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