Reviews

This series has gotten better with each book. In the beginning, Auren was so enmeshed with Midas, oblivious to the fact that her cage was more than she realized. She was a prisoner to the man who manipulated her life to require him for her survival. Who held her back from being truly herself. Who used her to reach his own heights of power. And even as she fell in with Rip/Slade and started finding acceptance and understanding, Midas still held onto her strings. He literally cut away her ribbons, severing a limb that she had just been able to start learning to control and accept.

The themes of abuse under the guise of help by her captor, of trying to gain freedom and control and autonomy, they are heavy in these books.

I loved Osrik and the others in Rip's camp and kingdom. I loved Rissa's journey of her own after leaving the harem of Midas. I love Rip and Auren and how he literally tore a hole between worlds to save her. This series is fantasy and the darkness in humanity, magic used for good and bad, and a desperate search for love and acceptance and freedom and self.

calliescoffeecafe's review against another edition

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1.0

This book SUCKS.

And I’m not trying to be rude but it’s true. This whole trope where a king is willing to basically trade his entire kingdom for some girl? Unrealistic. All the self - hate on his part. Like he’s all moody cause she’s silent and then he says stuff like “You are powerful and I will do whatever you need, and we can take however much time you need” and “I’m angry at myself for not being able to protect you!” And then she says “I’m glad you didn’t cause I needed to do it myself” GET OVER YOURSELF. Every woman wants love.

10 pages of rambling to get to the point aka “I finally feel alive”. Oh my word. This book could have been like two chapters.

Almost every page was garbage or had garbage on it.

The only reason I read it was because I wanted to know the conclusion to the story and this 700 page book didn’t even give me an ending. Oh shocking, she gets captured again and oh what now? She gets spirited away to the fae lands without Slade so of course - she’s gotta do it herself.

Also the whole bit with Queen kalia? Cut that too.

If the author wanted to write a self help book she should have done that instead.

ziyah's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective 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

wonderwomannz's review against another edition

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4.0

Dam, I have a love hate relationship with this series. I have thought long and hard about why this is. I am some what hooked as I keep coming back to it, I mean I am still listening right. I think the storyline and characters are intriguing but the books are too long. What I don’t like is the detail, scenes seem to go too long as they are over detailed and that is when I get bored, but then it ends and moves on and I get excited again. I was so close to DNFing because of this. The audiobook is about 23hrs and it wasn’t until half way that I really wanted to carry on and finish it. One thing I found I was disappointed in was not hearing more about was Rissa and Osrick, I found him funny and intriguing and I hope we get to hear more about him.
If you have listened to the other books then I guess you are hooked in a small way like me. Ends in a cliffhanger. Spice lvl is there and the scenes are detailed.

dkgreads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Not gonna lie, most of this book felt like filler. I think it was necessary filler, though; Slade’s backstory and Auren’s healing journey—physically and emotionally. It did drag a bit until the last , like, 5% then: BOOM! Everything happens real quick and in a hurry. Kinda not looking forward to all of the angst I predict Book 5 will bring, but also excited to see what happens next.

Content Warnings

emilyj13's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny hopeful tense slow-paced

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

3.75

reads_by_moonlight's review against another edition

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I got ridiculously bored of this series.

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