This one is a difficult one for me to rate because I actually really enjoyed the general overarching storyline, but I think the execution left a lot to be desired. The first half had me thinking this could be a 3.5 to 4 star book, but then the second half dragged so much I had to drop the rating.

I think the book lost a lot of momentum at the tribe scenes about halfway through the book. I also think the reader was left in the dark too long with answers, given we had pieced together the "what" about halfway through but didn't get the "why" until the end of the book - and this is a 500+ page book! I felt like we went in circles a little bit towards the end.

I liked the original dynamic between Raeve and Kaan, but it sort of became bland the further we went on. I also don't really think he stood out a lot in the way of romantasy MMCs - he was tall, dark-haired, chiselled with a huge 🍆, and was very protective, almost veering possessive at times, over the FMC. At least he was genuinely nice for most of the story, though, and was a consent king (pun intended). Same character, different font. Raeve was a bit more interesting, as was her story, but I would have liked to see more character development throughout this book as she felt like she ended the book in the same place as at the start - stab first, ask questions later.

The writing started out pretty decent but the flowery prose got too over-the-top by the end and the word use got repetitive. How many times can one say "cleft" in a book? 36 times apparently. "Maw" also had it's fair share of page time, though it wasn't quite as obvious. I also don't understand the reasons why the names of some things were changed and not others. Why call it a "dae" when you can just say "day"?

I also would've liked more dragons.

Though I have said a lot of the negatives, I thought the premise of the story was interesting and I feel like if this and been shorter and more focused on the core storyline, it would've been far better. It just felt a little all over the place, with a lot going on but also not a lot. But I obviously seem to be in the minority with this opinion so take what you will from this review.