Unortunately I forgot to download my e-arc before it was archived and so I wasn’t able to read the book. I saw on GR that it was now expected to be published in 2025 so if that’s true, I’m definitely planning on getting a printed copy by then and will leave a review for it on my social media platforms and Goodreads account. I’m so sorry to the published that I never got around to it on time, due to life getting in the way. I’m still very grateful for the gift of the e-arc back in 2021. Thank you!

First thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an arc of this book.

For to long, they're been a war going on between the vampires and the angels. When she was only a child, Logan was separated from her father taken from vampires away from her brother and herself. Then, her sibling was also taken away by the foster system. Her entire life, she spend her time researching everything and anything she could about the vampires who taken her dad, hoping to find him one day.

On the day she find a mute boy, on search of the vamp base, she know it might be her only chance. But this boy, is not a normal human. He's an Izel, a race that have supposed to have been eradicated four years ago,. An hybrid, half-vampire, half-angel. As Logan and Cade travels together, she begins to really care for him despite his vampire heritage and begin to trust him.

I have really like this book.

I did not enjoy this book, I had trouble finishing it. It was all over the place and the story lines didn't make sense. I wasn't able to get attached to any of the characters and honestly just didn't care about them in the end. This book had potential but missed the mark

Such a great book! I enjoyed reading this one so much! I highly recommend this book. Side note: the cover!!!!

Found this book easy to get into.
Was great read. I would recommend it i really like the characters.
I received this book from net gallery in exchange for a honest review.

this is a really enjoyable story, I loved the way Clare Carter writes. It had an interesting premise and great characters.

I really wanted to love this book but there is so much going on. The story jumps around between different povs and timelines that I had a hard time staying on track. The ending felt like it was too rushed and trying to tie everything together in a giant, tangled knot. This story just fell flat overall.

Thanks so much to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with the e-Arc! My rating is in star form and will be included with this review. I may go back to more extensive reviews in the future, but while I am catching up on everything, they will continue to be stars only. Thank you so much!

I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Ace of Swords has a gorgeous cover if I'm being completely honest here. It also introduces you to a magical world filled with vampires, angels and such. So, yeah, I was a sucker for all of this and didn't hesitate one bit to jump into this.

After meeting Logan and Cade, well, it's safe to say that I was here for their relationship. I mean the action, kidnapping, and everything else definitely kept this a page turner as well. But I was here for the romance because Logan and Cade were freaking adorable. They were so easy to fall in love with.

Then there's December, who just frustrated the hell out of me. Even though I love winter and I was born in that month... I loathed the guy. Other than that, I enjoyed everyone else. Each person was different but they all meshed together pretty well. With each point of view, and representation, just made this book so much easier to devour. Especially with all the twists and turns.

In the end, I couldn't put the book down. Even once I reached the very last page. I kept hoping for one more chapter. One more something. I'm honestly so glad that I got the chance to dive into this and fall in love with most of the characters.

I received an eARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I found the idea of vampires and angels in an age old war to be an interesting concept. Throw in some angel/vampire hybrids and humans just trying to survive a dystopian world - and I was really intrigued.

Unfortunately for me, I felt that the book needed more work. I wanted to know more about the world, I wish there had been more depth to it and the characters as well. Some of them were interesting and had aspects that were great, however, I felt that for the most part they were just surface characters. This could have been in part due to the fact that the book flicks between time periods and between characters. So you really do have to pay attention to the character and what year it says it is, so you know whether or not you're going backwards or forwards with their character development.

I think it had some really good potential, just needed more polish to make it a book that is a page turner. It's format would suit an onscreen adaptation though.

Thank you so much for allowing me to read and review your titles.
I do appreciate it and continue to review books that I get the chance to read.
Thanks again!

Oh my gosh!
This book was awesome!

The well written time swaps, the changing POV, all handled amazingly and felt natural. I love the supernatural elements in the post apocalyptic world. I didn’t realise it was a supernatural book until after the first chapter but it blended seamlessly in to the story.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND

Thanks NetGalley (keep an eye on my Insta for an updated post!

Rating: 2.5/5 stars
TW: Blood/gore, toxic relationships, racism

I received this book as an ARC through NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Ace of Swords follows many different perspectives, but its main character is Logan, a girl who has been in and out of orphanages ever since her father was killed by vampires. As she nears the age to be kicked out of the orphan home, she becomes more desperate to find her brother Eli and her father in a world ravaged by a war between vampires and angels. Then everything changes when she meets Cade, an Izel from vampire and angel bloodlines, a species supposedly extinct.

This world supposedly takes place in a 1980s-1990s dystopian America, which was interesting. However, there were so many different aspects that never felt like they went together well. There was the war between vampires and angels, which we never find out the root cause for. There are werewolves, but they get like maybe 20-30 pages of screen time, if that. Then there are these different leaders called The Swords, and that felt completely all over the place and never completely fleshed out. One of the characters becomes the Fool card, but that's never explained. It was like someone took two different worlds and attempted to mash them together in an apocalyptic mess, and it didn't read well. I did like the powers that each species had, like illusions and lightning manipulation.

The book was also broken up into several POVs that consistently jumped to different points in the timeline of the story, from pre-destruction of Izels to the current timeline, and it made the story a bit messy. On top of that, we kept getting POVs that I felt like were a bit unnecessary, such as the POV of Logan's father or even December for that matter. They just felt like filler and kind of ruined the big plot twist in the long run.

I wasn't really attached to any of the characters. The only person I really felt sympathy for was Amber, who had a great development arc for getting out of a toxic relationship and opening her eyes to the bigger picture. But there were so many characters with names kind of similar to one another that it became a giant cluster of characters to keep track of.

The ending was extremely messy in that it felt like it was too rushed and trying to tie everything together in a giant, tangled knot. The whole reunion at the end was so out of place. I have no idea how specific things happened or why. It just left me with more questions than answers.

Ace of Swords felt like a decent concept with a messy execution, and not something I would truly recommend.

Despite the intriguing premise and the presence of a mute character using ASL (one of the aspects that drawn my attention), this book did not work for me.
I found it a bit confusing. Moreover, since I couldn't connect with the characters, I didn't really care much about the story itself, losing interest pretty soon.
Overall, I think that this story had potential but it fell flat in execution.

Definitely solid read - good one. Some can think books contains humans, angels, vampires etc are nothing new, all was written already, etc etc...
Wrong! This book shows our imagination really has no limits.
I like the way it was written, jumping back and forward in time giving the reader chance to find out why characters behave and do things the way they do.
Plot and characters are very interesting. I like Clare's writing style - story is easy to follow, which is huge plus (for me as English is my second language).
Hope she will write sequel for this story, cause defo I want to know what will happen next to Logan and Cade and other characters from this book.

When i read the description about this book I feel quickly trapped with it. Angels and vampires, two things I love in one book, can’t ask for more.
In this story you will find a dystopian world, where angels and vampires been in war for years. Logan lost her family, her father was taken by a vampire and also lost contact with her brother once he left the foster system. But even with her fear she will keep looking for her father until one day she meets Cade a mute Izel ( half-vampire half-angel) that will help her find the vampire’s base and well you can imagine the next... this two will start working together and slowly she will stop seeing him as the enemy.

Now getting into my opinion, loved Cade so much, actually more then Logan. This is my first time reading a book where the main character is mute, it was really curious and find really cute how Logan learns to communicate with him.

The world building was great, when you start getting into the political and historical side and learn about the war and what’s behind.... wow everything gets a great connection ,the author did a great job with that side.
Sometimes I read books where never give us the actual reason of the problems and leave with questions and make you feel off, but no worries you will discover the problem too and actually even understand the reason I’m this one. Well I should stop before I spoil anything, I hope I read more from this author in the future! Great job Clare <3 this was a great read!
Thanks for the beautiful chance to read it!!!

SPOILERS AHEAD

So where do I start? I didn’t come into reading this book with any preconceptions but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I thoroughly enjoyed this book!

Anything with vampires, angels or werewolves is totally up my alley, and the fact that this book has them all has just made my life!

The only qualms I’ve had was that sometimes I forgot who Eli was, he wasn’t a huge part of the story for me, but I do love Ben so 🤷‍♀️

Also, when I got to 97% and she still hadn’t found her dad I was a little worried, their meeting felt slightly rushed and could maybe have had a larger part in the end since she’d spent the whole book wanting to find him. It felt a little anticlimactic.

However, I did really enjoy this book! And can I just say...

LOGAN AND CADE 😍

Vampires? Angels? Yeah, I am definitely interested! Ace of Shadows follows Logan, a human, and Cade, a mute half angel, half vampire (are you interested enough, yet? because Cade is my favorite part of this story). They work together to save Cade's friend (an angel) and Logan's father - oh... did I forget to mention that Logan's father was taken by vampires when she was a child.

This book does feature multiple POVs that are constantly shifting and can contribute to a bit of a confusing story to follow and leads to lacking character development that I really wish had developed further. The plot is definitely intriguing and really held my attention well. The one wish I had was that the time jumps happened less frequently, as I found myself lost a few times.

Cade was the star of this and I really enjoyed his character - and I loved that a mute character was included. Definitely a really good read if you love supernatural fantasy!

Thank you to Netgalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

This story really had potential but it fell flat in execution.

There are a lot of moving parts to this story. We follow multiple characters and each chapter is a different time and narrator. I tend to not enjoy books like this because the flow just doesn't work. I lost track of when things were occurring and then toward the end everything just tied up suddenly and I felt it ended too quickly and neatly.

Logan, the main character is trying to find her father and her brother. Her father was bit by a vampire at the beginning of the book. Logan and her brother Eli escaped to an orphanage. Eli is six years older than Logan and when he aged out of the orphanage they lost track of each other.

One day Logan is at the border between human land and vampire land when she meets an Izel-half vampire, half angel- named Cade. Cade is trying to find two friends of his. They agree to team up to find their missing loved ones.

Logan irritated me. Her character lacked depth and I felt like everything with her was very surface. I never had a good feel for her personality. She was just bland.

Cade is my favorite character in this book. He is funny and he teaches Logan a lot about the world and her prejudices about vampires and angels.

There are underlying themes of racism in this book that I think are so important so I'm so disappointed in how flat the story fell.

I see a potential for a sequel due to a few things that took place at the end of the book but there is no cliff hanger. I probably would skip a sequel at this point regardless.

I was really excited for a new vampire book, but this one was a tough read. There was a lot of characters thrown in at once without any history given, which caused some confusion. I had to go back and reread parts just to try and make sense of things.