The slow pace of this one really tested my patience. Not sure if it's just me, but man, it felt like things were dragging on forever.

As for the female main character, I'm kinda on the fence about her. I mean, I'm not a fan of those stubborn types who go all out sacrificing themselves for a world that's given them nothing but suffering. Maybe she'll grow on me in the next book if she shows some positive changes.

Oh, and let's talk about Valroy. Can I just admit that I'm already smitten with this guy? I couldn't care less about the people he offed. They had it coming, except for that one kid.

Kingsley knows how to deliver a male main character who's unapologetically himself. It's freaking fantastic, and I'm absolutely loving it.

God I don’t know how this book was such an incredible train wreck. Like, the beginning? So good! Loved the scorned wife dynamic she had going. And then I really couldn’t understand the pace or the story of this book. Nothing made sense. The timeline was so horribly horribly off. There was a chunk in the middle that was just so bad that I stopped reading for like 4 months. The ending??? Pisses me off. But only because there’s a second book and honestly I would have liked it if that was the end honestly. Read those triggers because holy shit.

So I genuinely hated everything about this book. Aside from the FMC, who was just generally unremarkable and unmemorable.
The start of the book was basically the same as the end of the book. There was no character growth or plot progression. It genuinely felt like I had just completely wasted my time reading through the book.

The MMC had no redeemable or likable qualities. He spends much of the story sexually harassing and assaulting the FMC, or putting her life in mortal danger while he goes off to take a nap. His whole plan is to use her to further his own goals—which will require him killing her—but wants to make sure he can use her for sex fist.
When he's not sexually harassing the FMC, he's enjoying the hell out of himself by killing. Everyone. Indiscriminately. In the most brutal ways possible. One scene in particular, he tortures and skins alive a 10-year-old boy before turning him into a monster, and he's having such a good time while he does it.

The FMC goes through one life threatening situation after another in this story, is constantly injured and hurt, and is forced throughout the entire story to go through extreme mental and emotional torment. She's treated as nothing but a playing by the MMC and a pawn by almost everyone else in the story, and because of the MMC she is always being target by someone or something trying to kill her. Or in one case, rape her and then kill her.

I picked this book up because the cover was beautiful, and it was listed as a fantasy romance. This story is not a romance. Nothing romantic, loving, or even consensually sexual happens between the MCs in this book. They lust after each other, and that's it.
The focus of the story is the MMC's aspirations for power, and the FMC trying to find a way out of the world of the fae. Ultimately neither of their plans come to fruition, and at the end of the book

the FMC commits suicide by walking into a field of carnivorous flowers and allowing them to burrow their vines into her body and consume her from the inside out

, which is something I wasn't expecting and really wished I could have avoided reading about.

God help me, what is up with all these fae authors? Why do they love writing their romantic interests as raging assholes? I don't get it. Seriously, why do people, specially women, since that is the primary audience for this genre, why do they love to read about women being abused with no resolution? Because that is all this was. Abuse. Horrible abuse.
It actually had a promising start, I think I would have liked this book a lot more had it just been about her living in her cabin, being the only witch in town.
The guy was an actual monster,

he kidnapped her, molested her incessantly, killed her ex (even if he abandoned her, it's still wrong), he killed a child, he inflicted so much psychological abuse on her, and physical too, he just didin't outright hit her, he is forcing her to marry him, and he is going to slaughter humanity and most of the fae, and that is not even all of it

; in summary, trash.
I don't understand how I was supposed to like it. All in all it was hot garbage, but at least I wasn't terribly bored. A few more things. It was supposed to be spicy, but they don't even home run, actually, they don't even 3rd base. Also, she cried a lot, not enough in my opinion, honestly, but he would always be like: why are you crying?! Seriously...
Also, she was always mentioning how much taller than her he was, first she said he was two feet taller than her, then she said he was three times her size, then she said he was four times her size! Then she went back to three. I mean, consistency, also, sounds like she is a child. Ew.