Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

Queen of Roses by Briar Boleyn

13 reviews

strawberryymoonlight's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Grief, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Alcohol and War

Minor: Slavery

mj_86's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Violence, and Death of parent

Moderate: Child death, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Animal death, Physical abuse, and Slavery

dxmxus's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.25

While this is definitely a slower paced book, primarily focusing on world building and plot development, the characters are easy to connect with. Definitely a difficult book to put down, however, there are moments where the main character seems almost too naive. Readers see through much of the foreshadowing well before the character realizes the warning signs. 

I fully plan on finishing the series, however, I hope the next books focus more on character development as the MC feels somewhat flat and unwilling to learn unless absolutely forced into it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Murder, and Sexual harassment

rsmurphy22's review

2.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Torture and Sexual harassment

madelinel's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark sad 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

2.0

Waaayyy too violent for me. The only character I liked was Lancelet and she was barely in the story. Would not classify as a romance.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, and Sexual harassment

irenemayblack's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Sexual harassment

cakins28's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

 

The first in the Blood of a Fae series by Briar Boleyn, this novel follows Morgan Pendragon, sister to King Arthur, as she discovers her true identity and the power that comes with it. Morgan, first born child of King Uther, is stripped of her right to inherit the throne of Camelot when her younger half-brother, Arthur, is born. Despite this fact, she never holds any ill-will toward her brother. She grows up alongside him, loving him and trying to protect him from their drunk, power mad, abusive father. In the end, though, it’s not enough to stop Arthur from becoming a bigger tyrant than even their father was. 

Narcissistic, power mad, Arthur is paranoid of everyone and everything around him, including his older sister. But this is more than a simple sibling rivalry - Morgan is part-Fae, making her a social and political outcast, even in her own family. When food in Camelot becomes scarce, and the civilians begin to get restless, Arthur decides that he has to rely on his sister to retrieve the legendary sword, Excalibur. 

Embarking on a quest, in the middle of the night, with the captain of the Royal Guard, Kairos Draven and a rather detestable mercenary named Whitehorn, Morgan steps into the great unknown and will discover her true power and identity. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars based on the following: 

1. The world building was exceptional. While the geographical and political terrain of the kingdom aren’t terribly complicated, the world of Queen of Roses is just complicated enough to hold interest. Each area within the kingdom has it’s own distinct features. The fact that the world is much larger than Morgan originally believes it to be is an important detail that makes the political aspects of the book much more intriguing.
2. The characterization in the first half of the book is excellent, and the characters act exactly within their characterizations throughout. There is never a moment when I thought “I can’t believe that character did that!” The choices made by each character fit precisely within the boundaries of how you expect the characters to act.
3. Despite the fact that it is a romance novel, the adventure and fantasy were much stronger than the romance was. Of course, there’s romantic, and even sexual, tension between Morgan and Draven, but it isn’t such a huge part of the story that it detracts from the rest of the plot. The love triangle is short-lived, which makes it much more bearable. Morgan’s naivety makes the love-triangle and subsequent betrayal much more believable.
4. The fact that the twists were predictable does take away from the story somewhat. I do enjoy being right when my predictions come true, but I would still like some surprises to remain surprises.
   I predicted Arthur turning on another nation very early on. I predicted the reality of who Draven was, I predicted that Morgan was more powerful than anyone realized, I predicted that the medicine she was taking was actually meant to subdue her power. All of those “twists” were glaringly obvious from the outset of the novel.
5. F-boy (whose name I genuinely can’t remember) got his comeuppance too quickly. I genuinely hated him, and assumed that he would be going with Draven and Morgan on their quest. His death came to early in the book. He definitely deserved what he got, but we had just been introduced to the stakes of Morgan’s success/failure. Removing him from the equation before she set out for her quest removes some of her personal interest in the success of the quest.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Sexual violence, and Death of parent

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Homophobia, Sexism, Sexual content, Blood, Sexual harassment, War, and Classism

mileapo's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Sexual harassment

viselik's review against another edition

fast-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I found the book quite enjoyable, and it was a quick read. I read it in about 4ish hours. I found the retelling of the story of Excalibur and King Arthur an excellent spin on the story, filled with fae and a believable world! I'm pretty interested to see where this story will go and the story of Morgan (who I totally did not call Morgana more than once).

The relationship between Morgan and Darven was interesting. Still, I did not see a spark of romantic tension between them, which was fine as I got so interested in the world and the story of the fae I forgot this was a romantasy (romance fantasy) book. 

Without going into spoiler territory, I enjoyed how Arthur was in this! I loved seeing his arc and change throughout the book, which also helped me like Darven as an excellent comparison.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Homophobia, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Kidnapping

soniajoy98's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Alcohol

Moderate: Drug use, Misogyny, Sexism, Torture, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Bullying, Infidelity, Slavery, Kidnapping, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic