A review by kfriend
Crowned by Fate by Amo Jones
5.0
The only thing predictable about reading an Amo Jones novel is that she’s going to F your mind- she’s gonna F it hard. It’s the reading equivalent of letting Amo routinely bitch slap you in the face, but the shock and sting of it feels so energizing that you sit back and take another, and another, because it makes you feel more alive. (did this just get weird?)
Two years ago, Crowned by Hate rocked our world. We sprinted through another great Amo read full of hate-love tension, questionable motives, twisted characters, and with a classically Amo alphahole puppeteer anti-hero at the helm. Bright eyed and bushy tailed we enjoyed what we thought was a somewhat straightforward but darker enemies to lovers tale and BAM- we get to that last chapter and she basically lobotomized us with a shock that reshaped the whole story in one moment. How easily we forget that nothing is as it seems in an Amo Jones story. (#amobitchslap)
Finally, we have some answers for Bryant and Isa in Crowned by Fate- ERR scratch that, did you not read anything I just said? Nothing is as it seems, and even what we thought we knew we really don’t. Clever really- because many of our characters are confused and in the dark- and we get to experience it alongside them. I can’t say much about the plot here without giving too much away- and I want you to experience the bitch-slapping shocks in their entirety. So I’ll just say this- Bryant and Isa are in this story, things are messed up, things are confusing and disturbing, and our story addresses the big fat elephant that’s been in the room for the last 2 years- that final chapter. And, the game keeps changing.
We do have what we love about Bryant and Isa-Bryant is still controlling and calculating and oh so delicious. Isa is still a reckless pistol- lashing out with spunk and attitude to mask past hurt. She’s fiesty AF but still vulnerable. Their chemistry is still toxic and feral and romantic and magnetic all at once- like a bomb about to ignite.
What makes Amo Jones such a well loved dark romance author is all here and at its best- dark romantic chemistry (and plenty of angry steamy times), mystery and very flawed characters who do twisted things, betrayal and manipulation and distrus galore, a maze of suspicious characters and whiplash from twist after twist. Amo normally has a tour d’force approach to plot and pacing (much like the attitudes of her characters), but the passage of time here is much slower, which means we really get to play around in the minds of our characters and the tangled web we’re trying to unravel as we figure out just WHAT THE F is going on. We get dual POV which is great, and we get answers at a quick enough rate to keep us from ripping our hair out- Amo keeps us on our toes, but she keeps us moving, too. This is some of the tightest, most strategic prose I’ve seen from Amo. She really is like the dark romance manifestation of Edgar Allan Poe- she’s a virtuoso of tone and darkness, using a gothic sensibility to heighten both the drama and emotional impact. My ONLY gripe is that the final twist (was that shock 9808?) has a bit of a scooby-do ending feel to it- slightly abrupt and a little too easy after such a well paced and sisyphean journey this was for our characters to get there.
As I said before, this book has more twists than a pack of twizzlers, and then it has some more. No one is reliable, no one’s motives are clear- and that really is the central theme of this second installment- TRUST. Can you love someone without trust? Can you trust someone when they’ve knowingly misled you or hurt you in the past? Can you trust yourself when your brain and instincts are at odds? How do you trust when you don’t know what is real? How do you, and we as readers, recover when everything seems like a lie? Is deception ever love? In this story, love isn’t easy- trust isn’t easy. It’s a battle. It's war. But, oh, what a journey.
Two years ago, Crowned by Hate rocked our world. We sprinted through another great Amo read full of hate-love tension, questionable motives, twisted characters, and with a classically Amo alphahole puppeteer anti-hero at the helm. Bright eyed and bushy tailed we enjoyed what we thought was a somewhat straightforward but darker enemies to lovers tale and BAM- we get to that last chapter and she basically lobotomized us with a shock that reshaped the whole story in one moment. How easily we forget that nothing is as it seems in an Amo Jones story. (#amobitchslap)
Finally, we have some answers for Bryant and Isa in Crowned by Fate- ERR scratch that, did you not read anything I just said? Nothing is as it seems, and even what we thought we knew we really don’t. Clever really- because many of our characters are confused and in the dark- and we get to experience it alongside them. I can’t say much about the plot here without giving too much away- and I want you to experience the bitch-slapping shocks in their entirety. So I’ll just say this- Bryant and Isa are in this story, things are messed up, things are confusing and disturbing, and our story addresses the big fat elephant that’s been in the room for the last 2 years- that final chapter. And, the game keeps changing.
We do have what we love about Bryant and Isa-Bryant is still controlling and calculating and oh so delicious. Isa is still a reckless pistol- lashing out with spunk and attitude to mask past hurt. She’s fiesty AF but still vulnerable. Their chemistry is still toxic and feral and romantic and magnetic all at once- like a bomb about to ignite.
What makes Amo Jones such a well loved dark romance author is all here and at its best- dark romantic chemistry (and plenty of angry steamy times), mystery and very flawed characters who do twisted things, betrayal and manipulation and distrus galore, a maze of suspicious characters and whiplash from twist after twist. Amo normally has a tour d’force approach to plot and pacing (much like the attitudes of her characters), but the passage of time here is much slower, which means we really get to play around in the minds of our characters and the tangled web we’re trying to unravel as we figure out just WHAT THE F is going on. We get dual POV which is great, and we get answers at a quick enough rate to keep us from ripping our hair out- Amo keeps us on our toes, but she keeps us moving, too. This is some of the tightest, most strategic prose I’ve seen from Amo. She really is like the dark romance manifestation of Edgar Allan Poe- she’s a virtuoso of tone and darkness, using a gothic sensibility to heighten both the drama and emotional impact. My ONLY gripe is that the final twist (was that shock 9808?) has a bit of a scooby-do ending feel to it- slightly abrupt and a little too easy after such a well paced and sisyphean journey this was for our characters to get there.
As I said before, this book has more twists than a pack of twizzlers, and then it has some more. No one is reliable, no one’s motives are clear- and that really is the central theme of this second installment- TRUST. Can you love someone without trust? Can you trust someone when they’ve knowingly misled you or hurt you in the past? Can you trust yourself when your brain and instincts are at odds? How do you trust when you don’t know what is real? How do you, and we as readers, recover when everything seems like a lie? Is deception ever love? In this story, love isn’t easy- trust isn’t easy. It’s a battle. It's war. But, oh, what a journey.