Rating: ★★★
Audience: Fantasy Romance
Length: 500 pages
Author: Geneva Lee
Publisher: Red Tower
Release Date: September 22nd, 2026
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Arden Icaros was never supposed to matter. From the poorest of five noble bloodlines, she prefers life on the family farm with dirt under her nails over the fine dresses at court. She just needs to get through one boring ceremony, inherit her earth magic, and return home.

Instead, she’s handed a dagger and with it, an impossible choice.

Now Arden is branded an omen of war, half the nobility wants her dead, and assassins are tracking her every move.

Her only chance of survival lies with the most feared man in Antares.

They call him Bishop. No one remembers the name he had before he dedicated his life to his order. Empowered to execute first and question later, Bishop is ruthless, terrifying, and utterly loyal to the kingdom that wants Arden dead.

He should kill her.

Instead, he offers her sanctuary.

But the longer Arden stays under Bishop’s protection, the more dangerous he becomes. Because Bishop has secrets powerful enough to topple kingdoms…and a need for Arden that could ruin them both.

Thank you Red Tower / Entangled for the gifted ARC.

SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN.

I eyeball read this one which may have been part of the downfall. As it takes me longer to physically read a book I sometimes notice a lot more, and in this case, the world building has left me questioning way too much. I am fully aware I might not need all of the information in the first book, that’s FINE. But what I do expect is to have some good basic understanding of what’s happening and why it’s happening in the confines of the system.

Instead I was trying to figure out what a scion is, why the bad guy was doing the bad guy things, where this random character came from that’s apparently evil, why is the FMC making obviously stupid decisions, will the love interest tell her anything, why is war coming, wait a second I thought you were dead. AND SO ON AND SO FORTH.

I’ll give it points for not really being spice forward. There’s an attempt at a plot and storyline even if it doesn’t make total sense and is filled with long chapters of training montages.

Will I read book two? I don’t know. Might wait for reviews. Would definitely only do it on audio. This was another case of the ending being the most interesting part of the book.

Overall audience notes:

• Fantasy Romance
• Language: moderate+
• Romance: 2-3ish open door
• Violence: moderate – high
• Content warnings: loss of life, murder, weapons violence

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