Firstly, thank you to Becky for gifting me this as a Christmas present. I am so pleased I managed to get to it quickly (for reference I still have gifts from the late 2010s sitting on my shelves so reading this as book 3 of the year is incredibly impressive). 

It’s taken me a few days to write this review as I’ve been struggling a bit with what I want to say. 

I was a real fan of the concept of this book. I admittedly haven’t read a lot of fae fantasy romance but this felt quite fresh to me in comparison to other books I’ve read, and I was really intrigued by the world’s history and Saeris’ part in what was going on. I do feel like the worldbuilding could have been slightly more fleshed out at the start. We are learning alongside Saeris so it’s great that there’s no big info dump but it did feel like she was kept in the dark about some things, which meant we as the reader were also in the dark. While I really appreciated us being thrown straight into the action (generally, I am much more plot-driven than character-driven as a reader), I did feel that the first 40% or so of the book was quite complex because I didn’t have the full picture. Despite being action-filled, that first 40% also felt quite slow pacing-wise for this reason as it didn’t really feel like things were progressing at the speed I’d have liked. 

I really liked Saeris as a character. I think we get a real sense of her doing what she can to survive but I also felt that throughout we got her softer side, particularly in relation to her brother, Hayden, and mentor, Elroy. In contrast, I didn’t really feel the love for Fisher straight away. He definitely had dark and broody down, but he was also quite brash at times I felt. I softened towards him much more as the story progressed – we learn why he is the way he is and I think as the relationship between Saeris and Fisher developed, I gained a deeper appreciation for him as a character. I enjoyed the relationship between the two – I liked the banter and the fact that Saeris didn’t just defer to Fisher, she challenged him and I think he needed that. 

Generally, the relationships were a highlight of the book for me. Not just between Saeris and Fisher, but also the other relationships we are witness to: the impression we get of Saeris’ relationship with Hayden and Elroy from the way she speaks about them, the development of her relationship with Carrion, the brotherhood between Fisher, Ren and Lorreth. I think the found family element of this was done really well and I’m looking forward to seeing how this plays out in the next book. 

This has firmly established it as a solid 4-star for me and I am very intrigued to see where it goes next, particularly as I could see this having worked as a standalone with a few tweaks. The pacing at the start did make it feel like quite long for a first book in a series so it will be interesting to see how things play out in book two now I’m more firmly entrenched in the world.