A review by myhandmadehell
Heartsong by S.E. Wendel

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Solid 4 stars for this book. Honestly, it almost lost me in the first half. Anna was a tough FMC for me to get behind. She has a looooot of baggage and the whole first 50% is her hiding behind that baggage over and over again. She and Frey, her gargoyle “heartsong” (fated mate) do an awful lot of fighting early on, and it became pretty cyclical and repetitive after a bit. There was just enough of a thread of mystery about wtf is going on to keep me interested, but even that was tough. These two characters were *not* at the center of the mystery, and had no real reason to know anything for sure, so it soon felt like it was going to devolve into a loose collection of story threads that didn’t make any sense. 

But when the story takes off, it takes *off*. The second half of the book sees both Anna and Frey getting their shit together, figuring out what they want to be to each other, and inadvertently landing in the dead center of the overall story. And that story is fucking dope. 

I did not read the first book in this series, which may have hurt me a bit, but it also ends up explaining itself pretty well, which is nice. 

Spice is 3 peppers out of 5; perhaps not quite as spicy as Halfling, but definitely a good amount of detailed spice to be had here!