Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - The Book of Azrael

3⭐️ 2🌶️

Badass/morally grey FMC
Enemies to lovers
Slow burn
Forced proximity
One bed
Quest
Forbidden romance
Fight scenes
Dragons
🏳️‍🌈 rep
Cliffhanger

Seems to be dual POV. The beginning started off with interesting world building and introduced us to the FMC. The magic is interesting. I have to admit that I’m still confused about quite a bit, but I’m thankful that the magic doesn’t look like every other romantasy out there. I think it was a little clogged in its delivery.

A god with PTSD…Liam/Samkiel a different kind of male main character. I applaud even if his character does feel like Thor after Endgame. He was fully flushed and by far the character holding the book together.

The slowest burn. Goodness gracious. They go from enemies-to-pretty much lovers, but not quite.

I didn’t enjoy how often things were repeated. Prose and stories told, in full, more than once. I found myself going, “yeah, yeah, yeah… I’ve heard this before.” It was really annoying. Then to just have to go through it again in the other POV. Yikes. The dialogue was also cringeworthy. Some of the general conversations were just not at all realistic in the way character spoke to each other and word choices.

The nature of Dianna was so immature when she wasn’t fighting. She is supposed to be almost a thousand years old? She acted like her emotional growth stopped in her early 20’s. She was written very YA. I wanted her to fight more so I didn’t have to deal with her immaturity.

The stakes felt high, until you read the line, “weeks later”… multiple times. Then you start wondering what the hell people are doing for those weeks! Nothing helpful or plot moving. Just twiddling their thumbs? I don’t want to be in the same PoV and suddenly have a plot blackout for weeks!

Content Warnings

koistyfishy's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

This book has me at a literal FEELINGS crossroads as it took me 50% before I was into it. This wouldn't normally be a problem as it can be expected in some books there could be a need to build up the plot and characters before that hook drives itself completely in! The only problem is 50% of this book was OVER 400 PAGES!

The story follows the dual POV of Dianna and (Samkiel) Liam. Dianna is what the world thinks is a villain. One thousand years ago she sacrificed her life to save her dying sister Gaby. Dianna is turned into an Ig'Morruthen (evil monster basically) after making a deal with basically the Devil, Kaden. Kaden is awful and continuously threatens the safety of Gaby if Dianna doesn't do his atrocious bidding. Now Kaden is after the Book of Azrael and he has tasked Dianna with finding it.

The world-building in this super, it is really good for a debut novel and is pretty fleshed out and complex whilst still being easy to wrap your head around. There were unique aspects I had not seen done before and I have read quite a bit of fantasy recently. I was intrigued by the power system possessed by the Gods and Monsters. I loved how the different worlds were spun together and the history of the universe carried a weight that actually added to aspects that had brought our characters to this point in history. There were a few info dumps (often disguised as "blood dreams") but it didn't feel over-saturated with these, so they were manageable.

Dianna was an interesting character. She is morally grey and Amber Nicole does not shy away from aspects that would make her a villain in this story, but she doesn't fully encompass true darkness. Dianna has brutally killed and harmed people before and has anger issues very similar to the Hulk. She is also very badass, sassy and powerful but is not unbreakable. The one thing that makes her extremely likable though is she has not fully lost sight of her moral compass. She is only bad and evil because Kaden makes her so, but through actions is VERY self-sacrificing - (this almost becomes nauseatingly repetitive how often it happens though since IT HAPPENS A LOT IN THE BOOK).

Liam is emo, suffering pretty badly from PTSD and depression, and is very cold at the start. His POV does feel a little lacking and bland but these seem to evolve over time as he learns about the customs of the world and starts spending more and more time with Dianna. In the end he did change into a real wholesome person, and it is understandable why he is as broken and almost void of emotion at the start given everything he has gone through to earn his name World Ender.

I did like the Banter between the two, and the slow burn mortal enemies-to-lovers was done really well! This relationship took time to develop and didn't feel rushed or forced. There were things they each had to work through as both Dianna and Liam are a little bit broken but both ended up helping one another battle their internal demons. They really do encompass "stronger together than alone."

The one bad thing about this book however is its writing. It is very sloppy at times and could have really used another round of editing. There are typos and missing words. The spacing on the ebook also drove me INSANE at the start as everything was paragraphed with spacing, which made the flow of the book really difficult as I had to deal with unnecessary pauses the whole time. There were also words and terms thrown in that the reader was just expected to understand and know what they meant without a clear explanation. Often Action scenes or descriptions of places felt muddled and weren't fully clear what was going on so there were numerous times I had to reread sentences or go back a few lines to understand what was happening. I also felt a few plot holes slipped in and aspects were not always explained clearly. I am hoping these holes are plugged and explained in book two and not forgotten. I also started growing increasingly annoyed at the word iridescent, as this seems to be the only way colour was described. IT APPEARS 9 TIMES IN TOTAL PEOPLE!

The other aspect of the writing that bothered me was the characterization in general. This is meant to be a NEW ADULT. These characters are all WAY WAY over 1000 years old. BUT THEN why does it feel like every one of these characters is still a teenager? The characters' actions and behavior at times were extremely immature and childish and for beings who have lived as long as they have, this shouldn't be the case. This immaturity is mostly seen in Dianna, but it also slips in with the way Logan acts and Gaby speaks, and how Liam interprets situations.

Overall I did like the concept and if I miraculously knew the first 50% of the book and only rated this on the last half, then this would have been 5 Stars. Based on this I cannot wait for the second book to come out so that I can see where this story and the world go.

Overall I would recommend this book if you like the following:
▹Mortal Enemies to Lovers
▹Captor/Captive Romances (slightly)
▹Slow Burn
▹Only one bed
▹Morally Grey Characters

Content Warnings

steffandbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Amber, what have you done 😭 THE ENDING!! I can’t 😭😭 when is book two coming out?
I can’t even imagine how this story is supposed to entail five books overall, Dianna and Liam already went through so much in this book, what else are they supposed to endure? I can’t, I literally can’t…
I love how Liam is such a big teddybear and open with his feelings and so on and I really liked how he and Dianna went from enemies to more. They were literally enemies in the beginning. Both are not heroes in this story. Both already committed atrocities to save those they loved. I liked how Amber was portraying them as not being “good” guys.
The story and world as such is really complex, which took me a moment to get into, but I like reading a book where not everything is explained in the beginning. Gives me that tense feeling, you know.
I need more of Dianna and Liam, like right now.

Please don’t keep them apart for long in the second book, okay.

Content Warnings

ambenicole418's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I’d given Vincent the title because, out of all the members of the Hand, I’d known he wanted it. It was one of many reasons I’d selected him, another being that I did not want it.

Now I don’t know if I just got a bad copy or if all the books are like this, but I paid $33 for a hardcover edition of this book from Barnes & Noble, and the printing and editing of this book was just TERRIBLE. Some of the larger font words was very pixelated (especially on the title page in the book), the map of the world was off center with the page and half of it was missing in between the binding, and the grammar was horrendous at times. I’m not usually one to gripe about grammar, as long as it doesn’t happen often and it’s minor mistakes that my brain can easily fill in I’m good. But there was a handful of times where the grammar was so bad that I almost had a stroke just trying to guess what the author was trying to say. Overall, this book read like the test copy of the first draft and for that reason I’ll probably be returning it. I just can’t justify paying that high a price for a book that heavily needs another round of editing and printing.

Plot
I really wanted to like this book, but I almost DNF’d it a few times. Almost the entire first half of this book is just world building, and the way it’s written is very monotone and info dumpy. And the constant long and drawn out flashbacks in Liam’s chapters in the first half of the book was getting on my nerves. When it came to Liam’s POV chapters about half the pages in each of his chapters were flashbacks, and most of them were way longer than necessary. It got to a point where I was wondering if the author would’ve just been better off writing a prequel novel or at least a prologue about the gods and the God’s War. The plot of the book doesn’t actually take off until ~200 pages in where we finally get to see Liam and Diana’s dynamic and see them go on this road trip to find the book. And once the plot finally kicked off I did get really invested in the story, specifically I was invested in Liam and Diana’s dynamic and budding romance. One of my gripes with the book is that the side characters just weren’t interesting. The only side character I cared about was Gabby, and it wasn’t even that I cared about her I was just concerned for her safety cause of how much she meant to Diana. I also hated how under developed Kaden was as a villain. He’s about to be responsible for the end of the world and yet he still didn’t feel like a threat to me, mostly because we’re told virtually nothing about him and his motivations. He didn’t feel like this world ending, evil villainous threat. He just felt like a narcissistic, abusive, asshole. I just wish the author actually took the time to develop him and make him feel like he actually is the all powerful threat that we’re supposed too just believe he is because Diana said so. Also why is it that every time Diana is frustrated or annoyed (which is like all the time) it is always prefaced by “She threw her hands up in the air”. It’s almost as if the author doesn’t know any other way to physically show that a woman is upset. Which is odd considering the author is a woman. I swear that line was repeated almost as often as the phrase “My inner goddess” was used in Fifty Shades lol.

Final Thoughts
Overall, this book wasn’t bad. After another round of editing and printing, I could see myself maybe bumping this book up a star. I also think that this series has a lot of potential, especially with the way it ended. My only concern is that the author failed to make me care about anything besides the romance between Liam and Diana, and considering the ending I imagine they’re gonna be apart or at odds with each other for most of the sequel. So I’m afraid there isn’t going to be much that holds my interest in book two, especially if Kaden and the side characters remain bland and uninteresting.

Content Warnings

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