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lunelis 's review for:
Heart of the Fae
by Emma Hamm
Faerie stories that go back to their roots are delightful! I love the archaic feel to an old world where faeries are real. I think the setting for this story is amazing. I am, as you may know, mad for faeries.
Heart of the Fae is something of a Beauty and the Beast retelling, but honestly, outside of a some similar framework and circumstances there's a lot more originality to this particular retelling than most. The details that remain the same are things like: Sorcha is seen as odd/strange by her village, there's some rich man who wants to marry her (though he's not really important in this part of the story; he might be relevant later), her father is sick and needs help, there's a man in a castle seemingly cursed, Sorcha has a time limit to accomplish something... that's about it, really.
I think the writing is quite lovely and atmospheric; I felt a bit more immersed here than in the author's more recent story [b:Seas of Crimson Silk|42270486|Seas of Crimson Silk (Burning Empire #1)|Emma Hamm|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1539174377s/42270486.jpg|65893152]. I don't know if it's because the author has faerie lore and a prior story to fall back on, but I felt pretty informed about things except the reason for Eamonn's affliction. It wasn't established clearly if this is a curse or who cursed him or what the stakes of breaking the curse are. It's more like "this just happens and it's why I can't be king" so I'm hoping the other half of this duology explains this, otherwise it'll feel like a glossed over plot point.
Despite how much I wanted this to be my new favorite read, however, there are some things that just made the book less enjoyable to me personally. It's like a 3.5 for me total.
For example, Sorcha's personality and actions could get a bit grating. I don't know how to explain it. She's a good person but as I read about her, I decided I didn't particular like her as the heroine. I also didn't get much about Eamonn from his interactions besides the fact that he's sort of broody and generally noble sort of man. The sex scene also didn't really do much for me. I think maybe it's because the romance moved pretty quickly and didn't offer up the sort of sweet moments and emotional depth that I want from romances; like Sorcha immediately is attracted to him and Eamonn is immediately attracted to her and they talk a couple times and see each other a couple times and then they kiss and then they're having sex and going to stay together forever.
I think making the story longer to really hone in on the romance would've made this a much nicer book, though I believe the author had reasons for the length and what not due to being an indie author. I follow her on instagram and she's said a lot of things that make sense so I can't fault her for being aware of the business side of self publishing, but still, I do happen to be the sort of leader who'd rather read a long book that really develops and establishes a complex, emotional, realistic romance than anything else.
One of my GoodReads friends, Laura, wrote a review of this that stated "I did feel it lacked depth, everything that happened was plain sailing, there really was no suspense things just kind of trotted along" and I do say that I agree with that statement. (Also, you can read Laura's review here
I will probably read book #2 just to round off the story and the duology. I already own the little mermaid retelling from this series and am very interested in the story about Bran, the Unseelie Prince, so I'm not going to give up on The Otherworld series just yet and have high hopes that the author's quality writing will end up being matched up with more depth and development of things.
Heart of the Fae is something of a Beauty and the Beast retelling, but honestly, outside of a some similar framework and circumstances there's a lot more originality to this particular retelling than most. The details that remain the same are things like: Sorcha is seen as odd/strange by her village, there's some rich man who wants to marry her (though he's not really important in this part of the story; he might be relevant later), her father is sick and needs help, there's a man in a castle seemingly cursed, Sorcha has a time limit to accomplish something... that's about it, really.
I think the writing is quite lovely and atmospheric; I felt a bit more immersed here than in the author's more recent story [b:Seas of Crimson Silk|42270486|Seas of Crimson Silk (Burning Empire #1)|Emma Hamm|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1539174377s/42270486.jpg|65893152]. I don't know if it's because the author has faerie lore and a prior story to fall back on, but I felt pretty informed about things except the reason for Eamonn's affliction. It wasn't established clearly if this is a curse or who cursed him or what the stakes of breaking the curse are. It's more like "this just happens and it's why I can't be king" so I'm hoping the other half of this duology explains this, otherwise it'll feel like a glossed over plot point.
Despite how much I wanted this to be my new favorite read, however, there are some things that just made the book less enjoyable to me personally. It's like a 3.5 for me total.
For example, Sorcha's personality and actions could get a bit grating. I don't know how to explain it. She's a good person but as I read about her, I decided I didn't particular like her as the heroine. I also didn't get much about Eamonn from his interactions besides the fact that he's sort of broody and generally noble sort of man. The sex scene also didn't really do much for me. I think maybe it's because the romance moved pretty quickly and didn't offer up the sort of sweet moments and emotional depth that I want from romances; like Sorcha immediately is attracted to him and Eamonn is immediately attracted to her and they talk a couple times and see each other a couple times and then they kiss and then they're having sex and going to stay together forever.
I think making the story longer to really hone in on the romance would've made this a much nicer book, though I believe the author had reasons for the length and what not due to being an indie author. I follow her on instagram and she's said a lot of things that make sense so I can't fault her for being aware of the business side of self publishing, but still, I do happen to be the sort of leader who'd rather read a long book that really develops and establishes a complex, emotional, realistic romance than anything else.
One of my GoodReads friends, Laura, wrote a review of this that stated "I did feel it lacked depth, everything that happened was plain sailing, there really was no suspense things just kind of trotted along" and I do say that I agree with that statement. (Also, you can read Laura's review here
I will probably read book #2 just to round off the story and the duology. I already own the little mermaid retelling from this series and am very interested in the story about Bran, the Unseelie Prince, so I'm not going to give up on The Otherworld series just yet and have high hopes that the author's quality writing will end up being matched up with more depth and development of things.