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gretalinners 's review for:
Enchantra
by Kaylie Smith
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This one was a gorgeous read. I fell in love with Kaylie Smith after reading the absolute gem that is Phantasma, however its little sister didn't click with me as much as its predecessor did.
This review may contain light spoilers.
Transparently, Phantasma was a five-star read for me (which is not overly common). This meant that this book was going to be unavoidably compared to Phantasma and for this reason its minor short fallings were all the more apparent to me. As such, take my review with this in mind.
I would like to start with Genevieve. I really loved her in Phantasma and enjoyed seeing her character being fleshed out in this book. Loved some confident plus-size FMC representation and thought she was such a gorgeous character. However, I did take issue with some of her stubbornness. It is a personal pet peeve of mine when it comes to FMCs and at about the half-way mark it got a bit much for me. It made Genevieve decently less likeable than her older sister, admittedly.
I loved seeing Genevieve's perspective on the Grimm family affair. I was absolutely in love with the way Ophelia's bittersweet resentment to her family that she processed throughout her novel was portrayed, and I was not disappointed at all by Genevieve doing something similar, but from a different positionality. Absolute chefs kiss with this here and found Genevieve's inner conflict here all the more compelling coming straight off the back of Phantasma. However, even independent from the previous book, those themes of feeling like an afterthought and being the daughter undeserving of legacy and (tough) love was heart-wrenching and wonderfully written.
Now, our dark, gorgeous Rowan. One of the reasons I loved Blackwell so much was because he was not the conventional 'shadow daddy' that seems to oversaturate this genre. Although Rowan fits perfectly into this stereotype, I thought Smith wrote him relatively well. Love a possessive, morally-grey man and really ended up loving him despite some of his irrational, 'alpha wolf' tendencies. Although he isn't anything ground-breaking, he is certainly one of the better MMCs out there within the genre. The best thing about Rowan honestly were his tattoos and PIERCINGS (as a self-proclaimed lover of alternative men) gosh they were unbelievably sexy!!!
Rowan and Genevieve had a great dynamic. Admittedly, marriages of convenience are amongst some of my least favourite romance tropes. However I actually quite enjoyed this one. I love an angsty enemies-to-lovers number and the arrangement accompanied it quite beautifully. The denial of feelings and attraction to one another was so sexy and they were truly an explosive duo. The spice was also delicious, though it didn't feel as passionate as it did with Ophelia and Blackwell (there's my Phantasma bias creeping back in again) though I guess this was the point at times given their whole 'no feelings' thing they had going on for a whole two seconds.
The side characters really impressed me! I loved all of the siblings and their unique personalities - Sevin was certainly a favourite of mine. Although, their full names were God awful and I am so glad that the book was self-aware of this fact (it was quite funny seeing them all listed out there on the page, actually).
Now for a bit on the plot. I was quite impressed with the way the book still had that trial-style action without being a carbon copy of Phantasma. I thought it was actually quite unique and the personal nature of the conflict was incredibly memorable. However, I was not incredibly invested in the subplot regarding Rowan's mother and the crimson rot. I also thought Knox was not as foreboding of a villain as I thought he could have been. The ending also was not as impactful as I would have liked it and I found myself losing interest slightly by the last couple of chapters.
In sum, although Phantasma was tough to follow, this book did not disappoint. If you are a lover of the dark romance genre, you'd be doing a disservice to yourself by not picking this one up.
This review may contain light spoilers.
Transparently, Phantasma was a five-star read for me (which is not overly common). This meant that this book was going to be unavoidably compared to Phantasma and for this reason its minor short fallings were all the more apparent to me. As such, take my review with this in mind.
I would like to start with Genevieve. I really loved her in Phantasma and enjoyed seeing her character being fleshed out in this book. Loved some confident plus-size FMC representation and thought she was such a gorgeous character. However, I did take issue with some of her stubbornness. It is a personal pet peeve of mine when it comes to FMCs and at about the half-way mark it got a bit much for me. It made Genevieve decently less likeable than her older sister, admittedly.
I loved seeing Genevieve's perspective on the Grimm family affair. I was absolutely in love with the way Ophelia's bittersweet resentment to her family that she processed throughout her novel was portrayed, and I was not disappointed at all by Genevieve doing something similar, but from a different positionality. Absolute chefs kiss with this here and found Genevieve's inner conflict here all the more compelling coming straight off the back of Phantasma. However, even independent from the previous book, those themes of feeling like an afterthought and being the daughter undeserving of legacy and (tough) love was heart-wrenching and wonderfully written.
Now, our dark, gorgeous Rowan. One of the reasons I loved Blackwell so much was because he was not the conventional 'shadow daddy' that seems to oversaturate this genre. Although Rowan fits perfectly into this stereotype, I thought Smith wrote him relatively well. Love a possessive, morally-grey man and really ended up loving him despite some of his irrational, 'alpha wolf' tendencies. Although he isn't anything ground-breaking, he is certainly one of the better MMCs out there within the genre. The best thing about Rowan honestly were his tattoos and PIERCINGS (as a self-proclaimed lover of alternative men) gosh they were unbelievably sexy!!!
Rowan and Genevieve had a great dynamic. Admittedly, marriages of convenience are amongst some of my least favourite romance tropes. However I actually quite enjoyed this one. I love an angsty enemies-to-lovers number and the arrangement accompanied it quite beautifully. The denial of feelings and attraction to one another was so sexy and they were truly an explosive duo. The spice was also delicious, though it didn't feel as passionate as it did with Ophelia and Blackwell (there's my Phantasma bias creeping back in again) though I guess this was the point at times given their whole 'no feelings' thing they had going on for a whole two seconds.
The side characters really impressed me! I loved all of the siblings and their unique personalities - Sevin was certainly a favourite of mine. Although, their full names were God awful and I am so glad that the book was self-aware of this fact (it was quite funny seeing them all listed out there on the page, actually).
Now for a bit on the plot. I was quite impressed with the way the book still had that trial-style action without being a carbon copy of Phantasma. I thought it was actually quite unique and the personal nature of the conflict was incredibly memorable. However, I was not incredibly invested in the subplot regarding Rowan's mother and the crimson rot. I also thought Knox was not as foreboding of a villain as I thought he could have been. The ending also was not as impactful as I would have liked it and I found myself losing interest slightly by the last couple of chapters.
In sum, although Phantasma was tough to follow, this book did not disappoint. If you are a lover of the dark romance genre, you'd be doing a disservice to yourself by not picking this one up.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail