pantsreadsbooks's reviews
1034 reviews

This one took me a minute because of being sick and because the pacing is dead slow— it’s wildly improved from the first one, this one was just slow as opposed to all over the place. (But I’m excited for book 3 to be an improvement on that🤞. I definitely recommend the audio on these.) I liked it better than the first one, but the pairing was still a bit overly instalove for my tastes. This one wasn’t even so much the timing on them falling in love, but I didn’t really get why they were so into each other? Particularly Manuela is all in love after Cora’s just been squiring her around to boring functions. Manuela’s issues with her parents seemed like they were given greater weight than Cora’s also, where Cora was focused rightfully on protecting her kid. And again the end gets crazy… without the proper bananas follow through.

First of all, I really need to listen to myself when things are just not my kink, and as much as I love a polyromance with werewolves, the fact that they are all brothers is just… well, not for me. (It’s not incestual, but it’s closer than I’m ok with— which is to say, at all.) But my bigger issues with this book stem entirely from the FMC who I understand is dealing with a lot of verbal abuse and gaslighting, but still just comes across as outright stupid. Her boss was shady from the get go and when he

starts having her signing things outside her jurisdiction or COOKING THE BOOKS

, that should have been the minorest of signs that she needed to get out of there. And four guys was one too many here, as often happens in this scenario. Leon’s entire personality was alpha leader and Jace started out strong and then basically disappeared for half the book. Riley’s writing is strong and she’s sold me on kinktomatos before, but this one just wasn’t for me.

This was super fun. Been a while since I’ve read anything categorized as romantasy, and the combo of fantasy, adventure and romance here worked wonderfully. Did I have almost no idea what was going on for half the book? Absolutely. Did it all come together in a way that made sense? Mostly! The beginning plays out as if the ball in Cinderella turned into the Hunger Games and I’m wildly here for it, but things continue to go off the rails after that.

Suraya is a compelling protagonist and her romance with Roshan plays out gorgeously, my one quibble being that I saw most of the “twists” about him coming from a mile away and honestly it was almost silly for her to be surprised.

The audio of this is wonderfully done, Anais Inara Chase is a compelling narrator who I’ll look out for in the future. Her male voices aren’t my favorite, but didn’t take away from the experience in any way. Ramiz Monsef comes in to briefly growl out his interludes, but it works.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperAudio for the ALC of this book to review!