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princessrobotiv 's review for:
Master of Crows
by Grace Draven
Master of Crows sounded like the perfect book for me, possessing as it did a shitty magician lord, an intriguing plot centered around the corrupting influence of limitless power (and its consequences), a heroine whose central conflict was rooted in physical and emotional autonomy, and a romance with uneven power dynamics.
Unfortunately, that's just about where my interest in the book ended: at the concept.
There was nothing offensive about the writing. There were a few more typos than I'm comfortable with ("alter" in place of "altar;" "shown" in place of "shone;" and a variety of missed quotation marks, especially at the end of a block of dialogue), but I’m pretty lenient about that in self-published works. I actually thought the smut was well-written without being overwhelming, and I was pleased with how long it took for the MCs to hop to it.
My biggest problem was with the romance, particularly Martise's character as it related to the romance. There was such opportunity in Martise's conflict (that of her enslavement), but I never felt that this was realized in text. In fact, Martise was so uniformly focused on Silhara--even before she knew of his struggle against the god Corruption's influence--that I plain forgot that she even had a conflict. I felt zero tension or empathy regarding Martise's situation because Martise herself seemed to feel very, very little about it, though she was ostensibly risking her life in order to achieve this highly-prized freedom.
I was, therefore, well removed from the relationship between Silhara and Martise. It was too one-sided. Additionally, my own personal tastes run contrary to the "man disparages woman's looks but falls in love with her despite his initial conceit" trope. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but the burn has to be supremely slow and the characters VERY well-developed before I can buy into it. This wasn't it, I’m afraid.
Nevertheless, I think that it may be that the characters weren't my cup of tea. I'm still interested in Draven's work and will likely pick up Radiance within the next year.
Unfortunately, that's just about where my interest in the book ended: at the concept.
There was nothing offensive about the writing. There were a few more typos than I'm comfortable with ("alter" in place of "altar;" "shown" in place of "shone;" and a variety of missed quotation marks, especially at the end of a block of dialogue), but I’m pretty lenient about that in self-published works. I actually thought the smut was well-written without being overwhelming, and I was pleased with how long it took for the MCs to hop to it.
My biggest problem was with the romance, particularly Martise's character as it related to the romance. There was such opportunity in Martise's conflict (that of her enslavement), but I never felt that this was realized in text. In fact, Martise was so uniformly focused on Silhara--even before she knew of his struggle against the god Corruption's influence--that I plain forgot that she even had a conflict. I felt zero tension or empathy regarding Martise's situation because Martise herself seemed to feel very, very little about it, though she was ostensibly risking her life in order to achieve this highly-prized freedom.
I was, therefore, well removed from the relationship between Silhara and Martise. It was too one-sided. Additionally, my own personal tastes run contrary to the "man disparages woman's looks but falls in love with her despite his initial conceit" trope. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but the burn has to be supremely slow and the characters VERY well-developed before I can buy into it. This wasn't it, I’m afraid.
Nevertheless, I think that it may be that the characters weren't my cup of tea. I'm still interested in Draven's work and will likely pick up Radiance within the next year.