rosiwosi's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
maleesha's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
3.0
It has been a long time since I read this series, and I like it way less than I did before. It has some good moments but that didn’t make it more than a 3 star for me. It’s kind of problematic in a few ways. Also the worldbuilding is a little vague, I have no idea where anything is, it’s not a good mixture. But it’s so well written and the bones of it are so interesting it will keep you reading. Also really heinous people get what’s coming to them and it’s gratifying.
janedoelish's review against another edition
1.0
The "Black Jewel"-trilogy nearly destroyed my interest in the fantasy genre altogether. If this was the best that non-generic fantasy novels could aspire to, then I clearly wanted no part of it.
It was only due to my discovery of "Game of Thrones" (then a relatively obscure book that wouldn't ne adapted to the screen for almost another decade) that I recovered from the frustration this trilogy caused me
It was only due to my discovery of "Game of Thrones" (then a relatively obscure book that wouldn't ne adapted to the screen for almost another decade) that I recovered from the frustration this trilogy caused me
lyrrael's review against another edition
4.0
I got sucked so hard into this series that I ended up reading books two and three in an afternoon. I think that says something on its own. I gave up a whole day to this, rather than the hour or two I like to devote to reading.
It's funny, too, because the style of the series really annoys the heck out of me. I love the darkness of it -- and I don't mean that it's set in hell with demons and witches and whatever. The author really does deal with some incredibly dark issues, and that tends to fascinate me. Add into that the fact that the author is alarmingly good at making me laugh out loud at silly things.
I think the thing that gets me about things is how completely off-the-scale everything ends up being. I mean, the author sets her own scale and immediately broke it. And then broke it again. And then broke the broken break. And the time-spans involved! The author doesn't have anything against having someone be alive 50,000 years ago, or something happening 1,700 years ago, or whatever. It's unreal. I honestly wish she had taken a zero off of everything, just to make it a little more palatable.
Magic seems absolutely limitless; it really doesn't feel like there's any rules at all to Jaenelle's magic, like she's capable of absolutely anything.
The characters lack depth: the villains have nothing to redeem themselves, and there are hundreds if not thousands of people that fall into the category of totally, purely evil. The good guys are purely good, sometimes bumbling, often opinionated and full of knowing looks. I really think the only two characters that were fully developed were Jaenelle and Daemon, though by the end of book three I could add in Karla and Surreal.
And, and. Naming conventions. Really. Gah. Ugh. It's a truly amazing horde of hokey names: Saetan, Daemon, Lucivar, Cassandra, SaDiablo, Hayll, Hepsabah, Hekatah... the list goes on... and the rings of obedience? The hokey was nearly overpowering.
Yet, despite all that, I did enjoy this quite a bit. Your mileage may vary.
It's funny, too, because the style of the series really annoys the heck out of me. I love the darkness of it -- and I don't mean that it's set in hell with demons and witches and whatever. The author really does deal with some incredibly dark issues, and that tends to fascinate me. Add into that the fact that the author is alarmingly good at making me laugh out loud at silly things.
I think the thing that gets me about things is how completely off-the-scale everything ends up being. I mean, the author sets her own scale and immediately broke it. And then broke it again. And then broke the broken break. And the time-spans involved! The author doesn't have anything against having someone be alive 50,000 years ago, or something happening 1,700 years ago, or whatever. It's unreal. I honestly wish she had taken a zero off of everything, just to make it a little more palatable.
Magic seems absolutely limitless; it really doesn't feel like there's any rules at all to Jaenelle's magic, like she's capable of absolutely anything.
The characters lack depth: the villains have nothing to redeem themselves, and there are hundreds if not thousands of people that fall into the category of totally, purely evil. The good guys are purely good, sometimes bumbling, often opinionated and full of knowing looks. I really think the only two characters that were fully developed were Jaenelle and Daemon, though by the end of book three I could add in Karla and Surreal.
And, and. Naming conventions. Really. Gah. Ugh. It's a truly amazing horde of hokey names: Saetan, Daemon, Lucivar, Cassandra, SaDiablo, Hayll, Hepsabah, Hekatah... the list goes on... and the rings of obedience? The hokey was nearly overpowering.
Yet, despite all that, I did enjoy this quite a bit. Your mileage may vary.
thepurplebookwyrm's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Thoughts on the trilogy as a whole:
Premise: The Black Jewels follows a set of characters centred on a long-awaited, female Chosen One™ (called Witch) and all living in three adjacent or overlapping realms – I’m still not quite clear on the geography involved – two of which are Living Realms, one of which is essentially the Underworld. The people of these realms are divided into regular humans and non-human animals, and magic folks and non-human animals. Then there are different races of humans, and humanoids called the Eyrien – which have wings sprouting from their backs, because reasons. There are also different castes of magic users, seers and the like, and a magic system that is both tied to sex and channelled through gemstones you get by birth, but can then upgrade once you come of age. Ultimately though, you never really get solid background information on any of this.
Thoughts: The world-building (or lack thereof ahem) bugged me a tad in book one, and I’m happy to say this improved a little in book two specifically – especially given a dragon was involved – but I mean... I mostly stayed on for the vibes to be honest. The plot, for its part, revolves around a long-awaited, female Chosen One™ (called Witch), and gendered power dynamics are also, somewhat, played around with in this trilogy, in a way that could’ve been very cringe... but surprisingly wasn't actually, so yay!
The characters were sufficiently enjoyable, but I am disappointed the Chosen One figure never had her own point of view chapters or paragraphs. I certainly liked the gradual addition of magical non-human animals, and never tired of the witchy, spidery, mildly edgy imagery. I’ll even give a point to the author for the way she handled sexual violence and trauma in her story – unlike any number of other authors whose works I've perused... ahem.
This trilogy – which remained fantasy romance, not erotica, throughout – wasn’t anything to write home about, really, outside of its... "aesthetics" or "vibes", shall we say, but I enjoyed those well enough and just… had fun with it overall, honestly.
Premise: The Black Jewels follows a set of characters centred on a long-awaited, female Chosen One™ (called Witch) and all living in three adjacent or overlapping realms – I’m still not quite clear on the geography involved – two of which are Living Realms, one of which is essentially the Underworld. The people of these realms are divided into regular humans and non-human animals, and magic folks and non-human animals. Then there are different races of humans, and humanoids called the Eyrien – which have wings sprouting from their backs, because reasons. There are also different castes of magic users, seers and the like, and a magic system that is both tied to sex and channelled through gemstones you get by birth, but can then upgrade once you come of age. Ultimately though, you never really get solid background information on any of this.
Thoughts: The world-building (or lack thereof ahem) bugged me a tad in book one, and I’m happy to say this improved a little in book two specifically – especially given a dragon was involved – but I mean... I mostly stayed on for the vibes to be honest. The plot, for its part, revolves around a long-awaited, female Chosen One™ (called Witch), and gendered power dynamics are also, somewhat, played around with in this trilogy, in a way that could’ve been very cringe... but surprisingly wasn't actually, so yay!
The characters were sufficiently enjoyable, but I am disappointed the Chosen One figure never had her own point of view chapters or paragraphs. I certainly liked the gradual addition of magical non-human animals, and never tired of the witchy, spidery, mildly edgy imagery. I’ll even give a point to the author for the way she handled sexual violence and trauma in her story – unlike any number of other authors whose works I've perused... ahem.
This trilogy – which remained fantasy romance, not erotica, throughout – wasn’t anything to write home about, really, outside of its... "aesthetics" or "vibes", shall we say, but I enjoyed those well enough and just… had fun with it overall, honestly.
jj7twin's review against another edition
5.0
Probably on re-read number 12 at this point so my opinion is obviously gonna be high for this book. I love the series as a whole and this story is somewhat of a coming of age story for Witch. She has healed and grown into a young adult with her adopted family and friends by her side. In the end she does what she must to save her love and her extended friends from the taint spreading through the Realms. Read the next book immediately after.
nimirra's review against another edition
5.0
Heir to the Shadows is just as good as the first!
Here things start coming together. Jaenelle is safe. Oh wait no she isn't! Hekatah is still scheming is really no one is safe while she's still alive (err undead), the Dark Council is trying to get their claws in her, and Jaenelle is even a danger to herself now in more ways than one.
One great thing about this sequel is that we finally get to know Lucivar. He was in the first one of course, but he never got much screen time. I knew I liked him, but I wasn't sure why. Now I know: He's a snarky, overprotective, sneaky, prick (as Daemon calls him) and I wouldn't have him any other way. He steps in and serves the big brother role to our heroine perfectly and his interactions with Saetan are not to be missed.
But we pay for the enjoyment of getting to know this Eyrien Prince. We pay by not getting any of his brother! Sure Daemon makes a couple sporadic appearances throughout the novel, but he's not the Daemon we have all come to know and love. He's too far lost in the Twisted Kingdom. Which does give other characters a chance to shine, like I said, but lets just say I can't wait to see him back to his old self in book three.
Also in this book we get to know some of the people Jaenelle had been sneaking off to meet in book one when she wasn't at home or with Saetan. Her friends prove to be a very interesting bunch. Some of them I loved to the point where I wish they had their own series to play in. They really help to flesh-out this Daemon-less sequel.
Despite all my whining about the lack of a certain character- I can't deny that this book delivered. More actually happened than I expected... things that I was sure would be stalled until the third book. Lucivar finally escapes the cruel queen that enslaved him. He meets with Jaenelle once again and adjusts to living in the radically different shadow realm, Kaeleer. Jaenelle makes her offering to the Darkness and returns with surprising results. I won't lie and say I wasn't disappointed that they didn't show that scene on-screen, but I guess it's good not to have all your answers; let the book keep some sense of mystery. An even bigger deal is that Jaenelle finally relents to starting her own court- and does it.
I thought it might be more exciting for the author to leave some of these big (expected) happenings for the final book in the trilogy- but somehow with them happening beforehand I'm left even more desperate to read the next book!
Here things start coming together. Jaenelle is safe. Oh wait no she isn't! Hekatah is still scheming is really no one is safe while she's still alive (err undead), the Dark Council is trying to get their claws in her, and Jaenelle is even a danger to herself now in more ways than one.
One great thing about this sequel is that we finally get to know Lucivar. He was in the first one of course, but he never got much screen time. I knew I liked him, but I wasn't sure why. Now I know: He's a snarky, overprotective, sneaky, prick (as Daemon calls him) and I wouldn't have him any other way. He steps in and serves the big brother role to our heroine perfectly and his interactions with Saetan are not to be missed.
But we pay for the enjoyment of getting to know this Eyrien Prince. We pay by not getting any of his brother! Sure Daemon makes a couple sporadic appearances throughout the novel, but he's not the Daemon we have all come to know and love. He's too far lost in the Twisted Kingdom. Which does give other characters a chance to shine, like I said, but lets just say I can't wait to see him back to his old self in book three.
Also in this book we get to know some of the people Jaenelle had been sneaking off to meet in book one when she wasn't at home or with Saetan. Her friends prove to be a very interesting bunch. Some of them I loved to the point where I wish they had their own series to play in. They really help to flesh-out this Daemon-less sequel.
Despite all my whining about the lack of a certain character- I can't deny that this book delivered. More actually happened than I expected... things that I was sure would be stalled until the third book. Lucivar finally escapes the cruel queen that enslaved him. He meets with Jaenelle once again and adjusts to living in the radically different shadow realm, Kaeleer. Jaenelle makes her offering to the Darkness and returns with surprising results. I won't lie and say I wasn't disappointed that they didn't show that scene on-screen, but I guess it's good not to have all your answers; let the book keep some sense of mystery. An even bigger deal is that Jaenelle finally relents to starting her own court- and does it.
I thought it might be more exciting for the author to leave some of these big (expected) happenings for the final book in the trilogy- but somehow with them happening beforehand I'm left even more desperate to read the next book!