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jneverland's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Confinement, War, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Toxic friendship, Sexual content, Gaslighting, Gore, Toxic relationship, Terminal illness, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Abandonment, Child abuse, Murder, Violence, and Torture
Moderate: Genocide
mrshays's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Kidnapping, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Child death, Physical abuse, Blood, Violence, Body horror, Terminal illness, Trafficking, and Death
Minor: Vomit and Death of parent
kimduindam's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
Loved it!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Violence, Blood, Gore, Terminal illness, Sexual content, and Suicide
Moderate: Vomit, Kidnapping, and Grief
Minor: Death of parent
fanboyriot's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Read For:
🖤 Dark Romance
💘 Forced Proximity
😘 Enemies to Lovers
🧚♂️ Fantasy (Fae and Vampires)
🥀 Hades and Persephone Vibes
Absolutely such a cute book. I love the characters, the plot, and the world building. It was all so good.
Usually I struggled to read high fantasy but this was such an easy and entertaining read I read this in two days. It was such an enjoyable book.
Grumpy touch starved fae that kills everything he touches (literally) meets a dying human who is able to get away with touching death himself. Faenir was such a lovely character, Arlo was his perfect match for sure. Their dynamic was written so perfectly.
Release Date: 26, March 2024
Release Date: 26, March 2024
POV: Switching, First Person
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Rep: LGBTQIA+ Characters
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Blood, Cursing, Kidnapping, Sexual content, Terminal illness, and Violence
Moderate: Chronic illness and Murder
Minor: Child abuse, Grief, and Death of parent
gale_bruckner's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I love the concept of this book. The emotional, physical, and psychological stakes at play for each character are dynamic and powerful. I started this book thinking it would be an easy four stars and maybe climb up to 5. I'm ranking it so low because there are challenges in execution that take me out of the story. At 1 point early on, a character is touched. Who is specifically never supposed to be touched. And I still don't know if they were safe to be touched because it wasn't skin to skin contact. Having read the entire book I think that is the case, but the fact that I had to question it for so long made it hard to trust the world building. The kidnapping that takes place sets the stage for an almost enemies to lovers, or at least combatants to lovers. I was disappointed with how some of the major emotiono moments were revealed. Arlo's compassion is eventually evoked, But the switch from angry to besotted was too quick. It would have been more believable if Arlo had moments where ompassion ward with his anger, making him of doubt his belief that Faenir is evil. Instead of a journey it felt more like a light switch. The main villain felt almost comically committed to their hatred. If, for example, Faenir had grown into his power instead of being instantly born with it, I wouldn't wonder how he grew in his mother's womb at all. Plus then he could experience the unique horror of being the destruction of people he loved dearly while being and old enough to remember. It says something about the bones of this story. That's although I am ranking this two stars, I still enjoyed it. I wish it could have bloomed into everything it was capable of being, but it is still a memorable story. There is some really nice foreshadowing for what becomes of Arlo. The pomegranate scene is fantastic. I also love that Arlo's sister is such a strong character even though she doesn't have much time on the page.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Child death and Child abuse
20sidedbi's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Child abuse, Blood, Chronic illness, Death, Kidnapping, Murder, Sexual content, Terminal illness, and Violence
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Alcohol, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit
azrieldds's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
I was hoping the ending would be more
Concrete
Like this series is good as a duology fr
I don't know if I'd like another part
But other than the vague ending
I was pretty happy to see that Marius and Jack met Faenir and Arlo
Also damn Oriel is such a badass???
Girlboss fr
Love her
Concrete
Like this series is good as a duology fr
I don't know if I'd like another part
But other than the vague ending
I was pretty happy to see that Marius and Jack met Faenir and Arlo
Also damn Oriel is such a badass???
Girlboss fr
Love her
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Blood, and Violence
Minor: Torture
mallorypen's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Just, no.
The narration was AWFUL. Same inflection for every single sentence, weird pauses, strange choices for character voices … awful.
Even had the narrator been fabulous, though, the book itself was a hot mess. The premise was so promising - queer, fae retelling of Hades and Persephone? Hell yes! Main human character fighting a terminal illness by drinking vampire blood? Hardcore! And yet, this book was all over the place.
I couldn’t figure out Arlo’s character. He starts as over-protective and desperate (makes sense given the circumstances) but then doesn’t spend any time at home with his sister, the object of his desperate protection, because he’s having a situationship with a man who he doesn’t care for and who doesn’t care for him, either.
Then, he actively hates/plots against/attempts to assassinate the person who kidnaps him AFTER killing three people in front of him without remorse … which again, makes sense … until all of a sudden he’s like “but he’s hot and the sex is good” and then all seems forgiven. Arlo goes from swearing to never touching Faenir and denying him the one thing Faenir wants most, to having him over every surface in the span of a chapter. I think the author tried to have the sister give the tragic backstory to be the point where Arlo changes his mind about Faenir, but it was all tell and no show.
Faenir’s motivations also oscillate wildly, though not as badly as Arlo does. But the trope of only being able to touch one person and that person being the one you fall in love with can be well done, but it just felt yucky in this case.
The family dynamics were tired; there was never an explanation of how the other humans were compelled to kill Arlo; and there was no payoff or repercussion for Arlo keeping his illness a secret from Faenir. Faenir’s sudden ability to touch living things safely after assuming the throne - a significant change, given the entire plot leading up to it - was brushed over as an afterthought.
All in all - good concept, horrible execution. This felt like sloppy writing with poor characterization and low narrative payoff. The weird narration did nothing to help the quality of the story.
The narration was AWFUL. Same inflection for every single sentence, weird pauses, strange choices for character voices … awful.
Even had the narrator been fabulous, though, the book itself was a hot mess. The premise was so promising - queer, fae retelling of Hades and Persephone? Hell yes! Main human character fighting a terminal illness by drinking vampire blood? Hardcore! And yet, this book was all over the place.
I couldn’t figure out Arlo’s character. He starts as over-protective and desperate (makes sense given the circumstances) but then doesn’t spend any time at home with his sister, the object of his desperate protection, because he’s having a situationship with a man who he doesn’t care for and who doesn’t care for him, either.
Then, he actively hates/plots against/attempts to assassinate the person who kidnaps him AFTER killing three people in front of him without remorse … which again, makes sense … until all of a sudden he’s like “but he’s hot and the sex is good” and then all seems forgiven. Arlo goes from swearing to never touching Faenir and denying him the one thing Faenir wants most, to having him over every surface in the span of a chapter. I think the author tried to have the sister give the tragic backstory to be the point where Arlo changes his mind about Faenir, but it was all tell and no show.
Faenir’s motivations also oscillate wildly, though not as badly as Arlo does. But the trope of only being able to touch one person and that person being the one you fall in love with can be well done, but it just felt yucky in this case.
The family dynamics were tired; there was never an explanation of how the other humans were compelled to kill Arlo; and there was no payoff or repercussion for Arlo keeping his illness a secret from Faenir. Faenir’s sudden ability to touch living things safely after assuming the throne - a significant change, given the entire plot leading up to it - was brushed over as an afterthought.
All in all - good concept, horrible execution. This felt like sloppy writing with poor characterization and low narrative payoff. The weird narration did nothing to help the quality of the story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Gore
Moderate: Terminal illness and Murder
lamoralibrary's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I read this while having covid and then suffering the aftereffects and can confirm a gay fae romance DOES in fact help with feeling better!
A strong and super dramatic entry into the Darkmourn verse, I just have to love how intense everything gets towards the end.
A strong and super dramatic entry into the Darkmourn verse, I just have to love how intense everything gets towards the end.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Blood, and Violence
lady_moon's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Rep: gay MC, achillean love interest
Ugh 😬😬
So, let's start with the actual constructive criticism. Some things in this book just didn't make sense. In the very first two paragraphs in this book Arlo is smiling as he kills a vampire. But a few pages laters he feels guilty about killing this same vampire because it's a young one?? Also, Faenir would basically jump away from the servants at his mansion from fear he would touch them accidentally. Yet, earlier in the book he mercly kills Tom's whole family. And for what? To test three whole times if the whole city is immune to his power? To catch Arlo's attention? What?
And the pace was... odd. I can't wrap my finger around it but there was something that was bugging me.
Now, just me being nasty and pointing stuff I hated:
Arlo was unnecessary angsty. Like, I get that he's dying and this would fuck up with anyone. For the most part it was understandable. But after losing the vampire blood he was just "I'm so tragic, I just have to suffer". It was all thinking about death and how "my lies are eating me inside''. THEN STOP LYING YOU STUPID FUCK!! Tell your man about it!!! Geeze, he was insufferable! He was denying the comfort and even the possible solution to the problem for some dumbass reasons (especially considering he DID told another person)
When I reached 60% I started to debate what rate I should give this book. Because I realized I actually haven't enjoyed myself that much. What I have had read was not necessarily bad but it was just. Meh. It was a meh kind of okay, if this make sense. It didn't live up to my expectations. Like, god, I was so freaking excited about this book. One for the author, two for the cool idea, three for being same-gender Hades and Persephone retelling and four for this amazing, beautiful, AWESOME cover.
Some time towards the end things started to get pretty interesting. I started to lean towards 4 starts instead of 3. There were some plot twists that made me gasp for real. And it kept being interesting for 85-94% of the book, a little less maybe. Because of course, freaking of course, Arlo (view spoiler). OF COURSE.
I wasn't surprised by that ending. Not really. I had hopes it would turn out differently somehow but it was a theory from the very beginning, considering he literally had been drinking vampire blood for years. I still didn't like it.
And let's come clean - the writing just... wasn't it. The book was trying so desperately to make me care for them and their pain and their drama. I just didn't. I shed a few tears for the little girl May but that's it. But I just didn't give a shit about Arlo's "death is hovering over me" crisis. I didn't care when Faerin embraced his dark side and was like (view spoiler). Like. No one, NO ONE, is more disappointed about my indifference towards this particular thing than me. I usually adore this concept. I eat it up. But here it was just... flat. It was badly written. It felt underdeveloped.
All this trying to do proper world building while every emotional climax being underwhelming, doesn't work well.
To be honest, I think this is a level below Lord of Eternal Night. I believe I would have enjoyed King more if I hadn't read Lord because I would have been a little more surprised. There's WAY too many similarities in both, in a bad, repetitive way. And the MCs of both books have annoyingly similar voices. Similar to the point I dare say Arlo and Jak are the same character but in different settings. Which just led me to thinking, do they end up the same way? (Spoiler: yes, yes, they do. )
You know what? Actually every book by this author I have read has basically the same MC but in a different setting. And I have read, like, three and dnf-ed one. Which is not looking good.
I admit, I hate the ending of Lord. It was the reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 at the time (at least this is what my review says). The ending of King wasn't that bad but only because I already knew what would happen (well, not the last chapter 35 obviously). But I already have seen the pattern and couldn't help but notice it in King too.
Like, when I read the very last sentence of King and completely finished the book, I did brust out laughing. Because,*what* did I just read?? Like, I'm sorry but. I just couldn't lmao. There was nothing funny about it, it was just my brain's way of comprehending what I happened. I was very disturbed by how they decided to "solve" the problem with the vampires drinking blood... This was fucked up and twisted in a way it shouldn't have been and left me disgusted with the characters.
Just, everything involving too much fantasy plot was bad in this book. It should have been a little less pointless descriptions and trying too hard to be a legit fantasy and more of improving the building of the emotional climaxes and the quality of the sex scenes (I'm usually not looking into that much but since I'm at it, why not mention this too).
I would give this cover one million and five stars if I could, but since I'm rating a book and not its cover, I'm giving it 3 stars, as the real one is a half less.
*sigh* And when I think this was one of my most anticipated releases of the year... I was so excited, damn it
If the third book that will be a Red hood reimagining ALSO have its MC turn into a vampire i'm fucking ditching this series
Ugh 😬😬
So, let's start with the actual constructive criticism. Some things in this book just didn't make sense. In the very first two paragraphs in this book Arlo is smiling as he kills a vampire. But a few pages laters he feels guilty about killing this same vampire because it's a young one?? Also, Faenir would basically jump away from the servants at his mansion from fear he would touch them accidentally. Yet, earlier in the book he mercly kills Tom's whole family. And for what? To test three whole times if the whole city is immune to his power? To catch Arlo's attention? What?
And the pace was... odd. I can't wrap my finger around it but there was something that was bugging me.
Now, just me being nasty and pointing stuff I hated:
Arlo was unnecessary angsty. Like, I get that he's dying and this would fuck up with anyone. For the most part it was understandable. But after losing the vampire blood he was just "I'm so tragic, I just have to suffer". It was all thinking about death and how "my lies are eating me inside''. THEN STOP LYING YOU STUPID FUCK!! Tell your man about it!!! Geeze, he was insufferable! He was denying the comfort and even the possible solution to the problem for some dumbass reasons (especially considering he DID told another person)
When I reached 60% I started to debate what rate I should give this book. Because I realized I actually haven't enjoyed myself that much. What I have had read was not necessarily bad but it was just. Meh. It was a meh kind of okay, if this make sense. It didn't live up to my expectations. Like, god, I was so freaking excited about this book. One for the author, two for the cool idea, three for being same-gender Hades and Persephone retelling and four for this amazing, beautiful, AWESOME cover.
Some time towards the end things started to get pretty interesting. I started to lean towards 4 starts instead of 3. There were some plot twists that made me gasp for real. And it kept being interesting for 85-94% of the book, a little less maybe. Because of course, freaking of course, Arlo (view spoiler). OF COURSE.
I wasn't surprised by that ending. Not really. I had hopes it would turn out differently somehow but it was a theory from the very beginning, considering he literally had been drinking vampire blood for years. I still didn't like it.
And let's come clean - the writing just... wasn't it. The book was trying so desperately to make me care for them and their pain and their drama. I just didn't. I shed a few tears for the little girl May but that's it. But I just didn't give a shit about Arlo's "death is hovering over me" crisis. I didn't care when Faerin embraced his dark side and was like (view spoiler). Like. No one, NO ONE, is more disappointed about my indifference towards this particular thing than me. I usually adore this concept. I eat it up. But here it was just... flat. It was badly written. It felt underdeveloped.
All this trying to do proper world building while every emotional climax being underwhelming, doesn't work well.
To be honest, I think this is a level below Lord of Eternal Night. I believe I would have enjoyed King more if I hadn't read Lord because I would have been a little more surprised. There's WAY too many similarities in both, in a bad, repetitive way. And the MCs of both books have annoyingly similar voices. Similar to the point I dare say Arlo and Jak are the same character but in different settings. Which just led me to thinking, do they end up the same way? (Spoiler: yes, yes, they do. )
You know what? Actually every book by this author I have read has basically the same MC but in a different setting. And I have read, like, three and dnf-ed one. Which is not looking good.
I admit, I hate the ending of Lord. It was the reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 at the time (at least this is what my review says). The ending of King wasn't that bad but only because I already knew what would happen (well, not the last chapter 35 obviously). But I already have seen the pattern and couldn't help but notice it in King too.
Like, when I read the very last sentence of King and completely finished the book, I did brust out laughing. Because,*what* did I just read?? Like, I'm sorry but. I just couldn't lmao. There was nothing funny about it, it was just my brain's way of comprehending what I happened. I was very disturbed by how they decided to "solve" the problem with the vampires drinking blood... This was fucked up and twisted in a way it shouldn't have been and left me disgusted with the characters.
Just, everything involving too much fantasy plot was bad in this book. It should have been a little less pointless descriptions and trying too hard to be a legit fantasy and more of improving the building of the emotional climaxes and the quality of the sex scenes (I'm usually not looking into that much but since I'm at it, why not mention this too).
I would give this cover one million and five stars if I could, but since I'm rating a book and not its cover, I'm giving it 3 stars, as the real one is a half less.
*sigh* And when I think this was one of my most anticipated releases of the year... I was so excited, damn it
If the third book that will be a Red hood reimagining ALSO have its MC turn into a vampire i'm fucking ditching this series
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Death, Kidnapping, Child death, Sexual content, and Gore
Moderate: Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Cursing, Death of parent, and Murder
Minor: Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic relationship, Slavery, and War