pagesunbound 's review for:

Never the Roses by Jennifer K. Lambert

3.5

emotional slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Loveable characters: No

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 Initial Thoughts: Interesting, but a slow book. I think this is going to get positioned as a romantasy, but it's really not. In many ways, it's an interior book asking questions about what it means to be powerful but be bound to the whims of someone else, what it means to use your power for harm and whether you can be forgiven, etc. It's a look inside the mind of older, powerful magic workers who do not fully own their actions. It was a third of the way through the book before I was particularly invested, however. The start is slow and has a lot of world building that ultimately seems irrrelevant. There are three magical, legendary animals who are also mostly irrelevant, which is weird. I enjoyed the book overall, and it's a bit different, but I think many people will be confused that it's not the romantasy they were expecting.