Take a photo of a barcode or cover
viksmirn 's review for:
Drewid : De la pluie sur les cendres
by Laurence Chevallier
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
RATING:
⭐️⭐️⭐️: Okay, I see the vision. Some moments were enjoyable, but the book didn't get a VIP spot in my heart or on my bookshelf
Why I Picked This Book:
So, I saw this book on Amazon and there was a big discount for the Kindle format, so I thought, why not buy it? Plus, the cover looked pretty (I know, I know, 1 shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I am just a girl and I love pretty things). Also, I was already reading a book about Celtic myths, and when I saw this one-dark romance fantasy with some Celtic elements-I thought it was meant to be,
GENRE:
Dark Romantasy
TROPES:
Enemies to lovers
Amnesia
Arranged marriage
Fantasy & mythology
Forbidden love
Power struggles & political intrigue
Dual POV
REVIEW:
We're following the journey of Nova and Tristan. They come from different clans. Nova's clan is the most powerful one (she's a princess), and Tristan's clan is the second most powerful. They have an arranged marriage, and from the beginning, you can tell that Tristan hates Nova, but she doesn't know why.
Something happens during the wedding ceremony-Nova forgets everything and disappears from the magical world to our world (humans).
I'm not usually a fan of the amnesia trope because things tend to get dragged on and repetitive. And we're hit with it in this book right from the start. But... interestingly enough, I loved the first 100 pages. Nova was a great character, and I was really rooting for her.
During that time, we were reading from her POV, so you get attached to her. Plus, her adoptive mothers, Rose and Ginny, were amazing! I was super excited to find a book that has Celtic/druid mythology written as a fantasy book. Around page 110ish, there was a huge moment. I genuinely thought of buying the second tome immediately because I was so captivated by the story. And then... things went downhill.
It got sooooooooo repetitive and sadly, boring Tristan (the MMC) and Nova (the FMC) get reunited.
So, we start reading in a dual POV. We know from the beginning that it is an enemies to lovers book. But from page 110ish to over page 200, the plot doesn't move.
Almost every single chapter, Tristan is saying that he hates Nova, that he has to hate her, and that if she were to know what happened during the wedding ceremony, she would hate him for sure. Nova is as confused as we (the readers) are. What was annoying was that she used the crime she committed by accident as an excuse to the horrible way Tristan was treating her. We don't know why he hates her and what happened that fatal day. This drags on for so many chapters, making it feel like we're stuck in the Bermuda Triangle and can't get out.
As soon as I think we're getting out of it, we're dragged down again. We finally learn why he hates Nova (and it actually made a lot of sense) around page 300ish, and we finally enter the "lovers" part. I read some other reviews where people felt like Tristan fell in love with Nova out of nowhere, and I disagree a bit. I can see why people felt that way because you just couldn't relate to Tristan. In his POV, we only saw his hatred and didn't know the reason. We could relate to his feelings of hate and disgust, so of course when it changed, we were left confused.
Things get interesting but then stay quite flat because the plot doesn't move! It feels like the "romance" part was dragged on because the author didn't know how or when to deliver the information that Nova forgot at the beginning of the book. The last 100 pages (the book is actually 370ish pages at least on my Kindle, not 332) get super interesting again because we finally learn what happened that night when everything went wrong . I think the way Nova regains her memory wasn't the most interesting way, but I'll take it after being left in the dark for 90% of the book.
. After learning
everything, I honestly didn't see how Nova and Tristan would ever become lovers. I was sitting there thinking if I should buy the second book or not. And then I read the epilogue, and it was so good. It had so much mystery and so many secrets that it made me want to buy the second book. So, I will keep reading the series :). Hopefully, the writing style for the plot and romance will be different and (better)