Rating: ★★★☆
Audience: Fantasy Romance
Length: 532 pages
Author: Stacia Stark
Publisher: Self published
Release Date: March 24th, 2023
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

For years, when I fell asleep, I dreamed of a man with blazing green eyes and a cruel smile.

The day I meet him, the ruthless mercenary leaves me for dead.

Just hours after humans are born, the gods take what little power we have. In return, they protect our borders from the vicious, merciless fae.

The humans who manage to keep their power are known as the corrupt.
And they are burned.

When my forbidden power is discovered, I’m forced to flee my tiny village and the life I adore.

To survive, I make a desperate bargain with the mercenary who abandoned me at my weakest.

Our deal is simple: I’ll help him and his mysterious friends sneak into the city. And he’ll help me learn to wield the strange, dark power I’ve always kept hidden. The power that may just be the key to my survival.

But the ruthless mercenary is hiding secrets of his own. Secrets that threaten the safety of everyone I love. Secrets that could tear this kingdom—and perhaps even this world—apart.

Thank you Dreamscape Media for the audiobook.

THE BONES WERE GOOD.

I wanted to love this more than I did but a few things kept holding me back. What it does have is a really good general fantasy romance set-up. I love hidden identities, some enemies to lovers and warring lands. I just wish the execution was a bit less…repetitive. The same ideas kept continually rotating through the story, they kind of kept doing the same things over and over and even the romance lost some steam too.

I didn’t mind Lorian and Prisca as main characters. They were perfectly fine. I liked the banter that they had and wanted to see them together more often to really feel that chemistry igniting. I did love that it was dual POV and that I saw both sides of the story.

There’s some good plot lines but I am on the fence about continuing the series. Might do the audiobook route again.

Overall audience notes:

• Fantasy Romance
• Language: some strong
• Romance: 2-3 open door
• Violence: high
• Trigger/Content Warnings: loss of life/loved ones, attempted murder, executions

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