A review by fossilreads
The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

 I loved this story and can't wait to read the second part!

"This was not the stare of a panicked child who didn't know what she was doing. This was the stare of a creature who understood she was confronting death itself, and still chose to spit in its face."

The writing style was my cup of tea and kept me engaged throughout. This felt easy for me to read and I blasted through about 200 pages in a day. Usually, fantasy takes a bit for me to catch up on the world, but in this, I caught on immediately and the information about how the world works felt nicely spaced and was told when necessary.

I loved the inspiration from Hunger Games, while the trials had some familiarity (a bonus for me) it was still fresh and original!

The plot was intriguing and had me hooked from the beginning. I was worried the book would feel unnecessarily long, but everything in it felt important to include and I would have read even more! I loved the uncertainty, twists, secrets, surprises, and THE BETRAYAL! I had a few guesses of what would happen and some of them were correct, but I was shocked!

The slow burn enemies to lovers arc, YES PLEASE! This was so well written, and everything felt reasonable to me. The Spice was STEAMY. My only complaint is the one-time use of "wet folds", I despise that term.