Rating: ★★★★
Audience: Fantasy Romance
Length: 464 pages
Author: Julie Soto
Publisher: Forever
Release Date: July 8th, 2025
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

This beautiful DELUXE EDITION hardcover featuring gorgeous sprayed edges with stenciled art is only available for a limited first print run and while supplies last. This is a stunning special edition you will want to add to your collection.

YOUR NEXT ROMANTASY OBSESSION!

The war is over, the dark forces have won, and the hero who was supposed to save them is dead.

Captured as her castle is overrun by the enemy, Briony Rosewood knows that the world as she knows it is changed forever. The dark forces of Bomard have won and her people, the Eversuns, face imminent servitude, imprisonment or death. Her brother, fated to be heir twice over and unite the warring kingdoms, is dead.

Stripped of her Mind Magic and her freedom, Briony and the other survivors are quickly auctioned off to the highest bidders in an auction – and as the heir-apparent’s sister, she fetches the highest price.

After a fierce bidding war, she’s sold to none other than Toven a high ranking Bomardsun – and her long-time and ill-fated infatuation. Scion of a family known for their cruel control of Heart Magic, the Hearsts are ruthlessly ambitious, and Briony knows they will use her however they can to further their own interests.

Yet despite the horrors of her new world and the role she must learn to play within it, all is not lost. Help – and hope – may yet arise in the most unlikely of places…

CURIOUS ENOUGH TO CONTINUE.

This wasn’t originally on my radar until a friend recommended I give it a go, and you know what? I liked it! It’s definitely a dark atmosphere but those little touches of hope woven in make me curious to see the overall plot arc over the course of the series.

And I appreciated the slow burn between Briony and Toven. It was an ACTUAL slow burn with this increasing tension that was only catered to by the flashback moments. As someone who doesn’t like flashback chapters I can say that these seemed to continually add to the plot and backstory and made for even better world building.

I think there’s a lot of depth to these characters and even though the plot was repetitive in the middle I had an easy time wanting to pick this back up.

Overall audience notes:

• Fantasy Romance
• Language: strong
• Romance: 1ish open door
• Violence: high
• Content warnings: mentions of non-consensual sex, sexual assault, selling humans, forced sterilization, on page deaths

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