Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - Dark Rise

**Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.**

I so wanted to love this book. The concept was so intriguing and the book started out so strong! But there were just some things that didn't work for me alongside the things that did work. It took a little time and some conversations/reviews for me to be able to piece together all of my thoughts.

I do think the one thing this book did really well was keep you guessing and continually throwing curves and reveals at you. This was my first read by Pacat so I am not sure if that is common to their writing, or if that is a unique element to this book. But there were numerous moments when you think you might finally have something figured out, and then a reveal is thrown at you and it leaves you reeling trying to figure out where you are now and where things will go next. I can't get into much more detail about that though, because these should definitely not be spoiled!!
I will also say that I really liked the characters of Will, Violet, and James. I think they are well-done characters and I was intrigued to see where their stories were going, how they all weaved together. Especially for James - somehow he ended up being the more complex character!

Now, unfortunately, there were more things that didn't work for me than there were things that I liked.
The first is that I REALLY struggled with the pacing of this book... The beginning pulls you in so quickly and you are entirely caught up in what is going on, trying to figure things out and follow the characters. There is lots that happens at the onset of the story, and you can't help but be pulled along with the characters. HOWEVER, the entire middle of the book drags on sooooo slow. The best way that I can explain it is if it were like a roller coaster ride where there was a big exciting drop at the very beginning, and then the longest length of straight coasting track before a final ascent and a loop-de-loop at the very end... I think it was almost 200 pages of just slowness through the middle that seriously dragged for me - to the point where I ended up skim reading some sections closer to the end of the book because I had lost a lot of my interest. It was so disappointing.

I think a big part of that stems from the fact that while the beginning and the end have so many things happening TO the main characters, the entire middle of the book is seemingly events happening AROUND the main characters that they are often not involved in and do not understand. It just made things a lot slower. And while I liked the main characters, it was difficult to keep track of which side characters I was supposed to be paying attention to.

Characters that were quite developed and piqued my interest were suddenly killed off part way through, while characters that had little to no development were still around at the end of the book. It was a big odd and confusing. I completely understand that it is a fantasy novel and you cannot get too attached to characters (believe me, I know) - but it was a bit odd for which characters were developed and killed off, along with the majority of the characters, and the final characters that were left in as part of the continuing narrative.

Anyways. I think maybe if the pacing issues hadn't been there, I would have enjoyed this book so much more. I just wish that it had been paced a bit better... BUT if you are okay with a slower, slightly uneventful middle to a book, this one definitely has some great characters and unique concepts to get you through! Let me just say: magical sex slave collar... if you know, you know. HAHA.

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