A review by intermvndos
Bell of Truth by Alex Lidell

4.5

I was genuinely wowed by this series over and over again. When I initially came across it as a rec on r/RomanceBooks, I was kind of meh and wasn’t super sold on it but oh my was I wrong! There was such a lovely depth to these characters that you don’t typically get to see in reverse harem stories, and normally I’d balk at a 7 book romantasy series, but Alex Liddell pulled it off. I’ve seen people argue that the story could/should have ended with book four, but with the

amnesia plotline, you basically got to see them fall in love all over again with all the delicious angst

, so I disagree! I think the plot overall was very well paced, if maybe a touch rushed sometimes. There’s definitely two distinct story arcs in the series but I think it worked well once the series was over. Look at it like books 1-4 are season 1 and books 5-7 are season 2! All the same characters you loved from season 1 but just up to new hijinks. 

Lera is such a strong person because I personally would have curled up into a ball and sobbed a number of different times that she just brushed the dirt off her shoulders and moved forward. There was no confusing the men with each other (another common problem with reverse harem imo) because they were actually fully formed characters! And genuinely acted differently from each other with their own motivations and feelings! And we love that! Plus their love for each other felt so genuine even outside of their love for Lera. 

My rough handful of grievances that kept this from being a 5 star series (and honestly that may change in the future) were relatively small things like what happened to

Mors

? Is that just like…not a concern anymore? I would’ve liked more with that personally. I was expecting a point where the story would lead them into

going there and Coal would be forced to face his fears in a much more literal way like Lera had to

. I suppose it leaves it open for more books? I certainly wouldn’t complain, especially if it meant we got to see more of

Lera’s pregnancy! I want to see the twins! Did they have two boys, two girls, one of each? What powers did they have?

TELLL MEEEEEE give me like 100 pages of epilogue 😭 but that’s pretty much it, I had a great time with this series and read it all in like three days lmao