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challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Ich habe ein Rezensionsexemplar vom Verlag, Aufbau Digital, über Netgalley Deutschland erhalten. Diese Rezension ist unbezahlt und alle Meinungen sind meine eigenen.
Eigentliches Rating: 2.5
Ich mochte die Cameos von Ophie und Salem zum Ende des Buches.
Genevieve ist eine richtig nervige weibliche Hauptfigur, und zu ihrem marriage of convenience Ehemann Rowin hat sie trotz expliziter sexueller Eskapaden ziemlich wenig Anziehungskraft.
Man merkt, dass sich Smith sehr stark von Ready or Not (2019) hat inspirieren lassen, und während Fans dieses Filmes hier vielleicht auf ihre Kosten kommen mögen, ist die Handlung der Jagd im Vergleich zu den Spielen in Phantasma doch recht zahm.
Dazu ist das Buch am Anfang sehr in die Länge gezogen, und mann muss mindestens durch 1/3 unnötige Infos durch, bevor die Jagd, und damit die eigentliche Handlung des Buches, beginnt.
Ebenso sollte man das Buch nicht als enemies to lovers beschreiben (wie es die Autorin selbst tut), da Rowin Und Vivi zu keinem Zeitpunkt wirklich befeindet wahren. Sie treten immerhin als Ehepaar und damit als Team bei der Jagd an.
Eine andere Trope, die Leser*innen stören dürfte, ist die memory loss trope, verbunden mit einem finalen Plottwist, der nicht gerade sehr zufriedenstellend war.
Ich würde das Buch nicht empfehlen.
Meiner Meinung nach sind die Figuren kaum auszuhalten und die Handlung ist langweilig — bei weitem nicht so voll mit Blut, Tod und Nervenkitzel wie Phantasma; ein Buch, was wahrscheinlich besser als alleinstehendes Buch funktioniert hätte.
Eigentliches Rating: 2.5
Ich mochte die Cameos von Ophie und Salem zum Ende des Buches.
Genevieve ist eine richtig nervige weibliche Hauptfigur, und zu ihrem marriage of convenience Ehemann Rowin hat sie trotz expliziter sexueller Eskapaden ziemlich wenig Anziehungskraft.
Man merkt, dass sich Smith sehr stark von Ready or Not (2019) hat inspirieren lassen, und während Fans dieses Filmes hier vielleicht auf ihre Kosten kommen mögen, ist die Handlung der Jagd im Vergleich zu den Spielen in Phantasma doch recht zahm.
Dazu ist das Buch am Anfang sehr in die Länge gezogen, und mann muss mindestens durch 1/3 unnötige Infos durch, bevor die Jagd, und damit die eigentliche Handlung des Buches, beginnt.
Ebenso sollte man das Buch nicht als enemies to lovers beschreiben (wie es die Autorin selbst tut), da Rowin Und Vivi zu keinem Zeitpunkt wirklich befeindet wahren. Sie treten immerhin als Ehepaar und damit als Team bei der Jagd an.
Eine andere Trope, die Leser*innen stören dürfte, ist die memory loss trope, verbunden mit einem finalen Plottwist, der nicht gerade sehr zufriedenstellend war.
Ich würde das Buch nicht empfehlen.
Meiner Meinung nach sind die Figuren kaum auszuhalten und die Handlung ist langweilig — bei weitem nicht so voll mit Blut, Tod und Nervenkitzel wie Phantasma; ein Buch, was wahrscheinlich besser als alleinstehendes Buch funktioniert hätte.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Sexual content, Blood, Grief, Murder, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Terminal illness, Death of parent
magical aphrodisiac/sexual coercion, harassment
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This one was a gorgeous read. I fell in love with Kaylie Smith after reading the absolute gem that is Phantasma, however its little sister didn't click with me as much as its predecessor did.
This review may contain light spoilers.
Transparently, Phantasma was a five-star read for me (which is not overly common). This meant that this book was going to be unavoidably compared to Phantasma and for this reason its minor short fallings were all the more apparent to me. As such, take my review with this in mind.
I would like to start with Genevieve. I really loved her in Phantasma and enjoyed seeing her character being fleshed out in this book. Loved some confident plus-size FMC representation and thought she was such a gorgeous character. However, I did take issue with some of her stubbornness. It is a personal pet peeve of mine when it comes to FMCs and at about the half-way mark it got a bit much for me. It made Genevieve decently less likeable than her older sister, admittedly.
I loved seeing Genevieve's perspective on the Grimm family affair. I was absolutely in love with the way Ophelia's bittersweet resentment to her family that she processed throughout her novel was portrayed, and I was not disappointed at all by Genevieve doing something similar, but from a different positionality. Absolute chefs kiss with this here and found Genevieve's inner conflict here all the more compelling coming straight off the back of Phantasma. However, even independent from the previous book, those themes of feeling like an afterthought and being the daughter undeserving of legacy and (tough) love was heart-wrenching and wonderfully written.
Now, our dark, gorgeous Rowan. One of the reasons I loved Blackwell so much was because he was not the conventional 'shadow daddy' that seems to oversaturate this genre. Although Rowan fits perfectly into this stereotype, I thought Smith wrote him relatively well. Love a possessive, morally-grey man and really ended up loving him despite some of his irrational, 'alpha wolf' tendencies. Although he isn't anything ground-breaking, he is certainly one of the better MMCs out there within the genre. The best thing about Rowan honestly were his tattoos and PIERCINGS (as a self-proclaimed lover of alternative men) gosh they were unbelievably sexy!!!
Rowan and Genevieve had a great dynamic. Admittedly, marriages of convenience are amongst some of my least favourite romance tropes. However I actually quite enjoyed this one. I love an angsty enemies-to-lovers number and the arrangement accompanied it quite beautifully. The denial of feelings and attraction to one another was so sexy and they were truly an explosive duo. The spice was also delicious, though it didn't feel as passionate as it did with Ophelia and Blackwell (there's my Phantasma bias creeping back in again) though I guess this was the point at times given their whole 'no feelings' thing they had going on for a whole two seconds.
The side characters really impressed me! I loved all of the siblings and their unique personalities - Sevin was certainly a favourite of mine. Although, their full names were God awful and I am so glad that the book was self-aware of this fact (it was quite funny seeing them all listed out there on the page, actually).
Now for a bit on the plot. I was quite impressed with the way the book still had that trial-style action without being a carbon copy of Phantasma. I thought it was actually quite unique and the personal nature of the conflict was incredibly memorable. However, I was not incredibly invested in the subplot regarding Rowan's mother and the crimson rot. I also thought Knox was not as foreboding of a villain as I thought he could have been. The ending also was not as impactful as I would have liked it and I found myself losing interest slightly by the last couple of chapters.
In sum, although Phantasma was tough to follow, this book did not disappoint. If you are a lover of the dark romance genre, you'd be doing a disservice to yourself by not picking this one up.
This review may contain light spoilers.
Transparently, Phantasma was a five-star read for me (which is not overly common). This meant that this book was going to be unavoidably compared to Phantasma and for this reason its minor short fallings were all the more apparent to me. As such, take my review with this in mind.
I would like to start with Genevieve. I really loved her in Phantasma and enjoyed seeing her character being fleshed out in this book. Loved some confident plus-size FMC representation and thought she was such a gorgeous character. However, I did take issue with some of her stubbornness. It is a personal pet peeve of mine when it comes to FMCs and at about the half-way mark it got a bit much for me. It made Genevieve decently less likeable than her older sister, admittedly.
I loved seeing Genevieve's perspective on the Grimm family affair. I was absolutely in love with the way Ophelia's bittersweet resentment to her family that she processed throughout her novel was portrayed, and I was not disappointed at all by Genevieve doing something similar, but from a different positionality. Absolute chefs kiss with this here and found Genevieve's inner conflict here all the more compelling coming straight off the back of Phantasma. However, even independent from the previous book, those themes of feeling like an afterthought and being the daughter undeserving of legacy and (tough) love was heart-wrenching and wonderfully written.
Now, our dark, gorgeous Rowan. One of the reasons I loved Blackwell so much was because he was not the conventional 'shadow daddy' that seems to oversaturate this genre. Although Rowan fits perfectly into this stereotype, I thought Smith wrote him relatively well. Love a possessive, morally-grey man and really ended up loving him despite some of his irrational, 'alpha wolf' tendencies. Although he isn't anything ground-breaking, he is certainly one of the better MMCs out there within the genre. The best thing about Rowan honestly were his tattoos and PIERCINGS (as a self-proclaimed lover of alternative men) gosh they were unbelievably sexy!!!
Rowan and Genevieve had a great dynamic. Admittedly, marriages of convenience are amongst some of my least favourite romance tropes. However I actually quite enjoyed this one. I love an angsty enemies-to-lovers number and the arrangement accompanied it quite beautifully. The denial of feelings and attraction to one another was so sexy and they were truly an explosive duo. The spice was also delicious, though it didn't feel as passionate as it did with Ophelia and Blackwell (there's my Phantasma bias creeping back in again) though I guess this was the point at times given their whole 'no feelings' thing they had going on for a whole two seconds.
The side characters really impressed me! I loved all of the siblings and their unique personalities - Sevin was certainly a favourite of mine. Although, their full names were God awful and I am so glad that the book was self-aware of this fact (it was quite funny seeing them all listed out there on the page, actually).
Now for a bit on the plot. I was quite impressed with the way the book still had that trial-style action without being a carbon copy of Phantasma. I thought it was actually quite unique and the personal nature of the conflict was incredibly memorable. However, I was not incredibly invested in the subplot regarding Rowan's mother and the crimson rot. I also thought Knox was not as foreboding of a villain as I thought he could have been. The ending also was not as impactful as I would have liked it and I found myself losing interest slightly by the last couple of chapters.
In sum, although Phantasma was tough to follow, this book did not disappoint. If you are a lover of the dark romance genre, you'd be doing a disservice to yourself by not picking this one up.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
I didn’t know what to think after Phantasma. But whatever I couldn’t put my finger on that was missing there, was not missing in Enchantra. I still had some problem with placing this in time , but it bothered me less. I’ll definitely keep reading this series.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Violence, Murder
Minor: Terminal illness
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Not as much fun as the first one. Genevieve's goals seem ill-defined compared to Ophelia's in Phantasma and Rowin is just....boilerplate brooding male lead.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gore, Sexual content, Blood, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse
Minor: Chronic illness, Terminal illness, Death of parent
dark
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Violence, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol
Minor: Sexual harassment
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Murder
Moderate: Terminal illness
Minor: Alcohol
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-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:
Yes
Okay, where to begin. To preface, Phantasma was one of my favorite books I read last year. I was SO excited for this installment. Unfortunately, this was just…meh. I have several questions/concerns/opinions.
First question, why was this set in Italy? We are in a manor the entire book. The location played no role. I feel like if you’re writing a book about a specific location, it’s to be expected that things from that location/culture/language would be tied into the book, but it was not…like at all. This could have been set in Siberia and I wouldn’t have known the difference.
Second, Genevieve was pretty insufferable the entire book. I feel like I remember liking her in the first book, so I’m not sure what happened. She was just so melodramatic about her ex, but maybe I just didn’t read into the “seriousness” of that relationship. It felt more like a years long situationship from the way she described it. And hey, situationships are trauma inducing, I’ll give her that, but I was just like girl get over it. To say that she felt unloved and misunderstood or like no one knew who she really was while simultaneously having multiple friends and loved ones just made no sense.
Third, this unfortunately felt HEAVILY like instalove. I just couldn’t buy them “falling for each other” or knowing each other to their core or where this deep care for one another even came from. Because of that, even the smut didn’t hit. And while we’re on that topic, it was low key kinda cringey to read. I love a bad boy situation but idk, the light BDSM and exhibitionism just kinda came outta nowhere and didn’t make sense for either character. I really wish we got more dialogue to build their relationship, not just incessant games of two truths and a lie.
Fourth, this book was heavily inspired by Ready or Not (which I happen to love btw), but I just feel like The Hunt wasn’t explained well whatsoever. It ultimately amounted to a several days long game of hide and seek, even though the “games” had different names for some reason? I wish there would have been more effort and/or creativity put into this major plot point.
Lastly, (and positively), I loved the rest of the characters. Everyone had a distinct personality that made them distinguishable. And above all, I LOVED the familiars and especially Umbra, the fox. I’m a sucker for a pet bestie.
I thought this would just be a duology, but it sounds like we’re in for a third book (if not more), which I will happily read. Kaylie Smith is a good writer, but this one missed the mark for me for whatever reason. Still had fun, but nowhere near as good as Phantasma was.
First question, why was this set in Italy? We are in a manor the entire book. The location played no role. I feel like if you’re writing a book about a specific location, it’s to be expected that things from that location/culture/language would be tied into the book, but it was not…like at all. This could have been set in Siberia and I wouldn’t have known the difference.
Second, Genevieve was pretty insufferable the entire book. I feel like I remember liking her in the first book, so I’m not sure what happened. She was just so melodramatic about her ex, but maybe I just didn’t read into the “seriousness” of that relationship. It felt more like a years long situationship from the way she described it. And hey, situationships are trauma inducing, I’ll give her that, but I was just like girl get over it. To say that she felt unloved and misunderstood or like no one knew who she really was while simultaneously having multiple friends and loved ones just made no sense.
Third, this unfortunately felt HEAVILY like instalove. I just couldn’t buy them “falling for each other” or knowing each other to their core or where this deep care for one another even came from. Because of that, even the smut didn’t hit. And while we’re on that topic, it was low key kinda cringey to read. I love a bad boy situation but idk, the light BDSM and exhibitionism just kinda came outta nowhere and didn’t make sense for either character. I really wish we got more dialogue to build their relationship, not just incessant games of two truths and a lie.
Fourth, this book was heavily inspired by Ready or Not (which I happen to love btw), but I just feel like The Hunt wasn’t explained well whatsoever. It ultimately amounted to a several days long game of hide and seek, even though the “games” had different names for some reason? I wish there would have been more effort and/or creativity put into this major plot point.
Lastly, (and positively), I loved the rest of the characters. Everyone had a distinct personality that made them distinguishable. And above all, I LOVED the familiars and especially Umbra, the fox. I’m a sucker for a pet bestie.
I thought this would just be a duology, but it sounds like we’re in for a third book (if not more), which I will happily read. Kaylie Smith is a good writer, but this one missed the mark for me for whatever reason. Still had fun, but nowhere near as good as Phantasma was.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Drug use, Terminal illness
Minor: Cursing, Death, Self harm, Torture, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Death of parent
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Death, Gore, Terminal illness, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Sexual content, Violence, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Terminal illness
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Violence, Murder, Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Infidelity, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Death of parent