A review by booksabrewin
Forged by Fate by Reese Monroe

2.0

I received an e-copy of this book from the publishers at NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have not had a lot of experience with Entangled's imprint, Embrace, so when a few of them popped up on NetGalley I was intrigued. Especially once I saw the beautiful purple cover of Forged by Fate and laid eyes on the handsome man adorning the cover. I have been traipsing into the demon vs. angel or good vs. evil type of reading material lately. Perhaps with the holidays approaching I am giving more thought to that sort of thing. We all know that Santa does not look kindly on to evil individuals (or demons I would imagine). So, fun little Christmas time read, I imagined. And a new author to explore to boot!

Monroe's debut novel starts with Theo discovering his destined Mate started her transformation after 900 years of waiting. Theo has kept his mind and body focused only on her and his job as Gatekeeper to Hades. No other woman even registered in his mind except her. To say he is a little nervous to introduce her to his world and finally seal their connection, is an understatement. But he feels the draw of her before he even lays eyes on her. He had hoped to draw his Mate into her role as such slowly with lots of time for her to adjust to the idea of being with him for eternity, but it would seem the demon hordes have other ideas. One demon in particular, one that Theo has vanquished before, seems to have his sights firmly set on his Mate and it is up to Theo to protect her at all costs.

Sadie was not prepared to meet Theo. She was not prepared to feel drawn to him in a completely scary, yet undeniable, way. She was eighteen, finishing her finals, and starting a six-figure salary job. That was her reality. Fighting off demons and learning that she is stuck to this dangerously handsome man is enough to drive her into a white jacket and padded room. Sadie must learn who she is and where she came from in order to full embrace her new life with Theo and the rest of the Shomrei warriors.

Theo and Sadie may be destined for each other but are they ready to accept their destiny in order to stop evil from taking over the world?

This is the part I don't particularly like. The part where I have to point out areas in the book that I just didn't like. The writing was a bit choppy. Something pertinent would happen and it would be described in one or two sentences rather chaotically and when I continued reading I would have a "wait, what?" moment and have to go back and reread. I had to do that on several occasions.

The love scenes were forced. I understand that being a virgin, Sadie may have... reservations about giving that up so quickly. But the parts where they WEREN'T having sex were confusing. They'd get half naked and I assume they'd do some heavy petting and yet they always had this intense euphoria afterwards like they had just done the deed. There was no sexual frustration that you would think those sort of situations would produce. I think if the author wanted to keep her characters from having sex the reason for them staling should have been a bit better. What man gets blissed out with no release?

This is the first novel written by the author so there are going to be issues. There are going to be tricks of the trade to learn and steps to be taken to make the story better. Overall, the structure of the story and the character development was good. It was just scenarios in the story that didn't work and writing issues. I think with some tweaks the story could be even better.

Forged by Fate features romance, mystery, and the ultimate battle of good vs. evil.