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A review by icedpinecones
A Veil of Truth and Trickery by Analeigh Ford
2.0
This book is bad because you can see so clearly how it could have been good. This book objectively is not bad, but with the rampant advertising all over booktok and bookstagram of a book that this is clearly not it's easy to see why the reviews for this book are so low.
The author online promises a very spicy reverse harem, with morally grey characters, a strong main character and dark romance aspects. This wasn't delivered upon, and it's a shame because this book doesn't suck but it's just not what is advertised so everyone reading it doesn't enjoy it.
The spice was 2 or 3 lewd thoughts, 1 actual sex scene and maybe 2 or 3 tension scenes. These 'scenes' and 'thoughts' usually span a few paragraphs at most. Furthermore, the MC only has romantic intent towards one of them, and one only reciprocates directly so it isn't really a harem. The characters aren't morally grey, they're barely characters altogether. The men of this book are bland with barely a personality between them, and maybe have about two sentences vaguely describing how they look so there isn't even space to imagine what they look like. Finally, the main character didn't feel developed, she had strong aspects but it was made flimsy by the sudden shoehorning in of lewd thoughts with no build-up and it makes her feel very one dimensional.
The story has promise. This could have been a pretty decent book had more time been put into developing the world and magic system, unfortunately, I know barely anything about the magic system and maybe three locations of which are too vaguely described to imagine. It was supposed to be an immersive world, however, I found myself dragging myself through the 300 pages of this book, only really having a solid reading binge for maybe the last 30 or so pages.
I really feel for this author, because this book isn't terrible. I'd maybe put it on par with the cruel prince, the false advertising of a book that doesn't exist lets it down because we all came for one thing and that wasn't delivered.
The author online promises a very spicy reverse harem, with morally grey characters, a strong main character and dark romance aspects. This wasn't delivered upon, and it's a shame because this book doesn't suck but it's just not what is advertised so everyone reading it doesn't enjoy it.
The spice was 2 or 3 lewd thoughts, 1 actual sex scene and maybe 2 or 3 tension scenes. These 'scenes' and 'thoughts' usually span a few paragraphs at most. Furthermore, the MC only has romantic intent towards one of them, and one only reciprocates directly so it isn't really a harem. The characters aren't morally grey, they're barely characters altogether. The men of this book are bland with barely a personality between them, and maybe have about two sentences vaguely describing how they look so there isn't even space to imagine what they look like. Finally, the main character didn't feel developed, she had strong aspects but it was made flimsy by the sudden shoehorning in of lewd thoughts with no build-up and it makes her feel very one dimensional.
The story has promise. This could have been a pretty decent book had more time been put into developing the world and magic system, unfortunately, I know barely anything about the magic system and maybe three locations of which are too vaguely described to imagine. It was supposed to be an immersive world, however, I found myself dragging myself through the 300 pages of this book, only really having a solid reading binge for maybe the last 30 or so pages.
I really feel for this author, because this book isn't terrible. I'd maybe put it on par with the cruel prince, the false advertising of a book that doesn't exist lets it down because we all came for one thing and that wasn't delivered.