I wanted to love this book so bad, y'all. I'm a HUGE fan of Claire Legrand's! The Empirium Trilogy is literally one of my all time favorite fantasy trilogies and I regularly find myself itching to re-read the series again to relive that amazing story. Of course when I had the chance to read an arc of her upcoming adult fantasy debut I jumped at the opportunity and was so excited to start! I did like the book, but I didn't fall in love with it like I hoped I would.

First things first, Claire's prose is fantastic (as usual!). You are transported into the lush language and the author's keen ability to describe the surroundings in stunning clarity. The world building is light in the beginning and the information you need to understand the mist and Gallinor is slowly introduced. I appreciated that! And the romance? It was easily my favorite part of this book. The attraction between Talan and Gemma was apparent from their first gaze and they tumbled hopelessly in love thereafter. The spicy scenes were also written beautifully. I want to mention that this is a very sex positive book despite the fact that it's a regency era! 

However- I thought the plot was a little too all over the place. It's hard to put into words and I hope I'm making sense here: how the book starts and finishes, it feels like it's two different novels. I think it's primarily due to the characters, since this is one of the more character driven plots I've read. For example, Gemma's objectives were constantly changing. It seemed never ending! What did she want, truly? I probably have a better grasp of it now that I finished the book, but throughout the reading journey I couldn't say for sure. It's not a development arc I'm fond of, it made me dislike Gemma just a little truth be told. 

This book is also missing something that I've generally come to associate with Claire Legrand's work: diversity. I'm pretty sure there was only one character of color in this book! I was disappointed in that regard and I hope that by providing this in my review, this can be amended for future books in this series. I also want to mention that Gemma is bi-sexual and is disabled (chronic pain and anxiety), so that was great representation! 

While I didn't love this book, I think I can say I like it just fine. It's an okay adventure with a really great romance. I wanted this to be a high stakes, fast paced plot to keep me on the edge of my seat- again, similar to what I experienced reading The Empirium Trilogy. I would still be interested in reading the rest of the books in this series as they come out though, perhaps now that I understand the vibe of this book I can appreciate the rest. I'll go ahead and pre-order this book anyway and maybe I'll re-read it upon release to see if my feelings change. Either way, I can confidently recommend this book to a specific sort of reader. Just because it wasn't my favorite doesn't mean it can't be yours!