Reviews with content warning for Torture - Court of Ice and Ash

Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Court of Ice and Ash by LJ Andrews

4 reviews

bzliz's review

adventurous dark fast-paced

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

4.25

This really picked up the pace from the first book. Plans, schemes, treachery- all flying off the page, one right after the other. Elise finds herself taking refuge with a clan of Ettans and Night Folk who have backed a new king in absence of the Night Prince. She proves herself to them time and time again including rescuing Halvar and leading to the vague imprisonment of Valen and his crew. Valen’s continued refusal to reveal his identity leaves him at the mercy of Ari- the new king- and he finally starts to see that keeping his distance will not keep Elise from danger.

The big plot twist at the end felt strongly foreshadowed throughout and it really goes to show that you can’t trust that the dead will remain so in this universe. No one is safe. Elise’s mother and two kidnapped guards show us the first few hints of humanity in any of the Timorans beyond Elise. The downright cruel nature some characters display really toes the line on cartoonishness but rarely crosses over. I’m excited to read the next and continue Elise and Valen’s story.

Content Warnings:
Blood, death, injury, murder, violence, war (on page):

There is so much war brewing here and the characters are prepared to pop off at any moment. No descriptions felt tremendously horrifying or gratuitous

Torture (off page):

there is discussion of the types of torture the Timoran royals will enact. Some mentions are made about how they treat their prisoners.

Kidnapping & confinement (on page):

A bunch of characters including Elise and Halvar are captured and taken to prison against their will.

Fire/fire injury (on page):

Tor is able to wield fire and does so to the deaths of many guards. Descriptions are brief and somewhat vague

Rape, sexual assault, sexual violence (off page): <spoilers>A captured female Raven is described as having had one of the Timoran captains force himself on her. Addition mentions made of these types of violence being committed against women.
Sexual content (on page):

Elise and Valen share a love scene. It is mildly spicy but not vulgar in any way.

Slavery (off page):

This world includes serfs which are in fact enslaved people.

Vomit (on page):

Multiple scenes where Elise is described as swallowing back her bile. Blunt descriptions of vomit when Valen & Co. have their magic suppression bracelets removed.

Content Warnings

marzreadz2's review against another edition

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challenging tense fast-paced

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

3.25

Content Warnings

geekoncaffeine's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious 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

4.0

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

I am not sure what the title means to the story as neither court really used Ice or Ash…but overall from a storyline perspective this sequel was better than the first book, but I’m a little underwhelmed and feel this is more a 3.5 than a solid 4 that book 1 was.

Slight spoilers from Curse of Shadows and Thorns

This book starts off almost exactly where book 1 ended. Valen (god I hate his real name, Legion Grey is just soooo much better) does not want to be the King the land has chosen and instead has his heart set on his quest for vengeance and revenge against the Timoran’s. Since Valen basically chose his revenge over Elise, they went there separate paths which leads to Elise and Siv needing to prove their trustworthiness to the Agitators. Through a stupid heist Halvar is captured and taken to the Fury Quarries. Meanwhile Ari, the head of the Agitators, a Fae who has proclaimed himself the rightful King, has use for the “Blood Wraith” (not knowing Legion Grey is also the Blood Wraith AND the Night Prince) and knows that Elise would be the key to persuade him to join the Agitators. So in order to get the Blood Wraith on their side the Agitator’s attempt to rescue Halvar and the fates of our two lovers are entwined again as Valen also has plans to rescue Halvar on the same night…

This book introduces a split POV for both Valen and Elise and while it does help give a little more character development for the two, I often found myself confused by whose internal monologue I was reading. Often the voice of the characters blended together a little two easily or weren’t as distinctly different that I had to think hard or reread sections to remember if this was from Valen or Elise’s POV.

What makes this book a little lacklustre is a few things.

The romance is lacklustre. Nothing happens between the characters for almost 50% of the book because they are both constantly wishy washy about what they want and feel and try to stay away. But one touch and then they kiss to go back to avoiding each other like the plague. It felt like they spent too long fighting what they felt for each other and then like a light bulb it just switched back on - in almost instalovie vibes that was a bit unbelievable. 🤢
The pace of the plot is strange, it goes from a really good pace that I was lapping up, to being incredibly slow and moving nowhere to again speeding through the end.
The plot remains too predictable even for my taste of reading the same tropes over and over, that it almost feels childish how predictable the “twist” was.
The plot also really doesn’t go anywhere, it’s almost like most of this could have just been added to book 1 (to make it longer than it was) and made this a duology, instead of have us suffer through a book with “middle book syndrome.”
Elise’s character feels flat and emotionless. Whist I understand that Valen betrayed her and broke her heart, she deals with this by feeling nothing. It ends up making her a very uninteresting character that I didn’t want to read her POV because it was constantly the same pity party in her head about how Valen didn’t chose her and how she couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to be King and how she had the emotions of a potato.
The soft attempt of a Love Triangle was almost there and as much as I don’t really like Love Triangles it would have added a little more angst to an already drawn out plot that might have given it that little extra thing it needed to not feel boring.
Valen’s Name… have I mentioned already how I don’t like the new one?

Overall slightly disappointed in this book, I still devoured it in a day so it’s a really easy read and I didn’t have as many frustrations in the writing as I had with book 1, so the editing seems a little more polished. I am going to give the last book a try but if it’s underwhelming as well I don’t think I’d continue with the story.

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