Reviews with content warning for Torture - What Lurks Between the Fates

I can’t with this series anymore. I just can’t. Book two and three should have been one book. It was so needlessly long. So much repetitive bullshit that amounts to nothing.

Oh and don’t even get me started on Kaldris! He’s always “if you are ever uncomfortable tell me and I’ll stop” but then when Astrea specifically tells him to stop because she is uncomfortable he literally tells her “well you’re going to have to get used to it”.

Also Rape is a CONSTANT theme in this. The mc is constantly being threatened with it. We find out Kaldris has been raped on and off for centuries. It’s not handled tastefully at all, just thrown in for shock value.

I’ll give her a LITTLE grace for actually killing Kaldris’s rapist. That at least had a satisfying conclusion

You know I could get behind the “girl power, reclaiming your sexuality as a woman” movement this book has going on if the MC didn’t make the same preachy speech to herself everytime she gets. Like we GET IT! You like sex, have a voyerisum kink that you’re ashamed of, and like to kill people now. We have all accepted that. We have all moved on, can you please focus on the PLOT?!? can you maybe make ONE actual plan for how you are going to fix things?

The torture scenes were rather intense and surprisingly well written. That is apparently where all of the editing budget went.

That scene where asters has a strip of her skin slowly flayed off her back was so graphic! Like where did THAT come from? That was some grade A body horror! You had THAT in you the whole time
? Where has that quality been the entire series. We get scenes like THIS and then it’s right back to shock value deaths that have no emotional impact. Like the bit where she kill some of the human mates for force someone to swear loyalty to her and then that has zero impact on the plot and because we don’t know any of the people involved it just bushed over like “oh, that’s unfortunate”.

This book has the most random mythology sprinkled in it. Like it’s Greek, but also kinda Christian and Roman, with hints of Norse and first people folklore. But they aren’t likely well done representations of the myths. Like why is the Minotaur here and why is this bit just the plot of the Labyrinth?

I might give the next book a try if I’m bored after it comes out but I really had to force myself to finish this one (I only did cause I got it from the library and they have to pay for every download of their ebooks, and I’d feel bad for wasting that). Who knows.

I’ll probably give it a chance, only because the main couple is going to be separated for (hopefully) a significant amount of time so the author will be forced to focus on the plot rather than copy and paste another repetitive dub con smut scene

Edit: yall I genuinely keep forgetting that Mauve has an actual daughter. Like that plot line was so underused after so much time worrying about it in bk2. I genuinely forget she exists. Gun to my head is you asked me her name I’m dead. She is such a superfluous character at this point.

Content Warnings

letsgetlit's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

beckyyreadss's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I’m not going to lie; I have no clue why I decided to carry on with this series. Maybe I hoped it would get better, but it just didn’t. It was awful and nothing happened.

This book is still based on Estrella who we met in the first book. She has now chosen her mate instead of freedom. For weeks, she retraced her steps back to Mistfell and the lingering shadow of the Veil at the boundary between realms. Traveling through the kingdom, she denied the evidence in front of her, unable to fathom that she wasn’t the lost princess of Faerie. Instead, it is Fallon who must fear the consequences of her heritage. Which leaves her with a single, unanswered question. Then, she awoke, caged high above the throne of the Queen of Air & Darkness. Mab is the Queen who keeps all of Alfheimr held squirming within her clawed grasp. She uses the children of Faerie to sustain the magic granted to her by the cursed gem atop her crown, which has carved her from the girl she once was into a dark vessel, obsessed with power. She thrives on cruelty and wields Estrella’s love as an instrument for pain. Now, Estrella will play the games of the Fae. She is curious, her presence an enigma that was never foreseen. She may not be Mab’s daughter, yet she keeps her close, as she forges her into a weapon against humans and Fae alike. Mab may not own her yet, but she controls the life of the man she loves. There is nothing she won’t do to see him freed. Even if she must become the villain to do it.

I missed the tension between Holt and Imelda, and I cannot believe they weren’t in this book. I missed them. All the side characters in this book were the reason that this book is not being rated 1 star. I am still rooting for the villain and this book would be great if the whole fae species just died from like an explosion or poison or something.

I am just wondering, again, if someone could tell me where the plot is. This book was literally Caelum and Estrella arguing, fighting, having sex in private, having sex in public, pissing each other off, sleeping and then being tortured and going over the same shit. Caelum is disgusting, He has given me the ick and every time he opened his mouth, my eyes rolled. He is a headache. He doesn’t respect Estrella and he is pushing and pulling and confusing the crap out of me. He is a creep, the book would have been better if he died. I don’t feel sorry for him, and I couldn’t give a shit about. Estrella just needs to make her mind up about what she wants to do, I understand she is trying to understand this world, but we are three books deep, surely, she should understand what is going on. More fantasy and magic keeps being created and this far in the series, I hope this book will end on book four but with the way this book keeps going on and introducing new creatures and magical things, it’s not going to be.

Overall, this book was awful – the side characters saved this book otherwise it would have been a one-star rating. If I wasn’t reading multiple books, this would have put me in a reading slump. It was weird, over sexual and boring. It could have been 100 pages if you get rid of the sex in every chapter and the torture. If someone want to torture me found a Caelum lookalike and get him to read this book, I will surrender so quickly.

Content Warnings

taryngoehrig's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Content Warnings

svbvge's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

So far this series is just okay. I like it, however I find it quite repetitive. A lot of the inner and outer dialogue of the characters is repeated time and time again. A lot of the plot feels heavily inspired by other very popular romantasy books, which although not bad, just again feels like I’ve read it before just with different characters. I will likely read the next book in the series when it is released because I am interested to see how the story finishes.

Content Warnings

redwolf's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

0.25

Content Warnings

amanderz58's review

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

0.25

Content Warnings

cbtobin's review against another edition

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4.0

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