Kaitlyn Davis

This was a great read that had a lot of action, steamy moments, and wonderful characters. I loved Shade; he was a total alpha male that went through life as a one-night stand kind of guy but when he meets Sienna, she changes everything. Sienna has lived a hard life and does something spontaneous then later finds out her wild decision is Shade, her best friend’s brother. These two fight their attraction for as long as they can but inevitably they can’t. I loved all the side characters except Wren’s boyfriend. The things that Sienna has to go through were awful but her strong will helped her and Shade’s determination to get her back is relentless.

… (mais)

this book was really promising. I think if I was reading it, instead of listening to it I would have finished it. It is about a girl, who was 5 years old when a fantasy world grew from under Central Park new York. the fantasy world took over, most adults died, and the children were taken by the queen. Not it is 10 or so years later. There is no emotion in this fantasy kingdom, and our girl is now part of the night watch. She goes after the Queens son, when he is discovered around the city. She follows him to Ohio, where she is quarantined, (held Prison) so she can clear herself of the spell and feel again.

It was the quarantine that lost me. It was slow and lacked the charm of the rest of the book. I found my mind wondering and not caring what was happening. I DNFed. if I was reading and could have skimmed through this, i probably would have. But that was not really possible with the audiobook. I set it aside and never picked it back up.… (mais)

*I received this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions, ideas, and comments are my own.

I really enjoyed this fast-paced fantasy novel! The world concept is nothing I've ever read before and I really enjoyed every single bit of it. I was not expecting to like this book, but I was blown away at how much I enjoyed it.

Character:
Was there a character in this book I didn't like? There was one. The king below the mist. Without giving too much away he thinks he's doing the right thing, but he doesn't go about doing it in a very good way. What he does at the end of the book made me upset. Other than this king all the other characters were extremely likable. Even the overbearing mother of the raven prince. It was very easy to see bits of myself in each of them and that's what made me like them so much. Yes, they have wings, but I could relate to every single one of them.

World:
I have never read a book like this before. The concept of floating isles where the inhabitants fuse with birds is something else. It's an entirely original idea and I'm here for it.

Plot:
I wasn't sure entirely where the plot was going the whole time, but I try to read books without guessing the plot. I love letting the author lead me on the journey and experience everything at the same moment the character does. That being said, some of it was predictable for me, but not much. Much of the plot is disclosed throughout the book but the details are left out which makes it easy to read.

Writing Style:
I really enjoyed Kaitlyn's writing style. I loved all the life she gave the characters. It was so refreshing.

Enjoyment:
I enjoyed this book immensely and I can't wait for the next book in the series. I definitely recommend this book.

Rating:
I gave this book a 4.4/5 star rating based on my personal rating scale.… (mais)

This was a very quick read. Only lasting around 40 pages with the vast rest being a teaser of the first book of the official series, I breezed through it within an hour at the most.

We are introduced to Princess Leena who is one of 12 princesses of the vicious King Razzaq whose mother was presumably murdered at the time of her birth because (drumrolls) she was born female. Pretty much this is the same fate of the rest of her half-sisters and one of the reasons why she doesn't have much of a connection to them. Meanwhile, her youngest brother Prince Hayden is 5 years old and everyone gushes over him like he's the big tamale. To say this is a patriarchal society would be an understatement.

I like how the book gives us a few glimpses of Ourthuran society. Every freeborn has tattoos on their arms and it is apparently very expensive to get one so most low caste folk have a simple black ringlet. As a princess, her entire arms are etched with beautiful flower and jewel black tats which are both beautiful to look at while also another way to imprison her because it is difficult to cover them with paint. This is a society that became ruthless due to the misfortune of being located in islets filled with precious ore but the rocky terrain is unsuitable to grow crops, and so a lot of the cruel things Razzaq does has underlying meanings that we are sadly unable to glimpse.

And I really did like sweet bodyguard Mikzahooq. Selfless and kind, he knew getting too close to a pampered princess was dangerous, but ah, the hormones... This is definitely a teen love story viewed entirely by the POV of a sweet but very clueless rich girl whose only way to game the system that was rigged against her from the start was to flirt at myriads of guys at parties to make it harder to marry.

Maybe if I was a 17 year old like Leena, I would have felt more connected to her annoyance of living locked up under dad's rules. To a certain degree, I can't entirely hate her cluelessness because the society where she grew up in treats her like a walking baby oven. We are offered no hints that she knows how to read & write, and even though she has lived in the court and would be familiar with backstabbing nobles, it is a bit grating to see her wasting her time making snarling faces at her dad (big mistake) or pouting in her private pool instead of finding a solution to her problems. I would have enjoyed it if she had been more insistent in demanding her father to learn more about the laws of her kingdom. As just another one of endless middle siblings, her children weren't going to become important heirs to the throne anyways. If she had been smarter, she could have coerced her father into selecting a man from an island far away from the capital just for the sake of being far from his opression and tried to manipulate the guy (of course, while her handsome & dashing bodyguard was always two steps away as the likely future father of her children). Perhaps she didn't learn how to use the sword due to this rigid society, but women throught history have learned how to exert control in other ways... such as using poison.

Obviously the book is going for a tragic teenage first love story and the writing is pretty good, just that I would have wanted Leena to have been cleverer. I have not yet read the official series so I cannot comment whether this novella fully connects the dots, but rather than feeling it was a tragic love story, the ending felt too inevitable from the start and Leena never saw it coming because she was too fixiated in herself.

Oh, and seriously? What kind of 5 year old kid is strong enough to cut human tissue with a toy decorative sword? Wut?

3 stars!… (mais)