First of all, look at that cover. I know right, it’a beautiful!! Or like Monique Heart likes to say “ STUNNING” !

When I saw this book on Netgalley I just knew I had to read it. Especially cause it said “A Court of Thorns and Roses meets a new adult twisted fantasy “ and wow. They couldn’t not have been more on point.

Acotar and New adult had a baby. And this is the baby. I’m really excited to see if there is going to be a second book!

My thoughts, I did think it went a bit to fast in the beginning, but after reading a while, the story slowed down and I appreciated it way more. There is some good fantasy world building in it, and I liked the characters. And some characters I did not like at all, but that’s because cause they’re evil, and no, not the cute evil.

Overall, I really really enjoyed this one! I'll be posting my review on my bookstagram the day the book will get out, so on the 27th of April.
You can find my review then, here :
https://www.instagram.com/ted_and_her_books/

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publishers for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 Stars

In this book, the main Character, Vien, wanders into an alternative dimension filled with magic and danger. Even stranger: the King here expect her to be able to save them and bring the failing and fading magic back. The issue? Vien can't remember anything about the past life they say she lived or the magic she's supposed to have.

First things first: I LOVE the concept of this book. The storyline is interesting and while not generally unique, fresh in the way it is told and spun. Especially the second half of the story kept me wanting more and hanging on to every word. The Characters felt diverse (Yay LGBTQ rep!) and multi-dimensional, with thought through histories and mindsets.

Due to the way the story is told (which is part of what makes it fresh and left me breathless) the first around 20 Percent of the book where very confusing. Things just sort of happened around Vien, with no real participation or motivation on her part. She made decisions that seemed sudden and inexplicable. This has a reason and is purposeful, which honestly left me in awe. I am, however, afraid this might deter a reader that decides wether or not to continue reading very early on. It was somewhat of a struggle to keep on reading at that point. Even later, Vien sometimes reverts back to the curt way of storytelling from the beginning. I wished more of Vien's inner monologue had been displayed here, as it would have given hints at the goings-on, thus making it easier to understand and removing the feeling of "WHAT? WHY?" without spoiling the plot-twist.

The Worldbuilding is interesting, if a little late in the story. This does have a reason though, and while I do still have questions (it would be rather boring if I didn't, wouldn't it?), a lot of the initial ones were answered by the end of the book.

I do wish there had been Trigger Warnings for sexual assault, coerced sex, torture, abuse and suicide at the beginning of the story. I have to say that I didn't feel like any of this was romanticised. If it couldn't be criticised by the character experiencing it themselves, it was criticised by an outside perspective. I thought this was generally well done. Still, the scenes depicting this spare no detail, so if any of this may hurt you, I'd recommend skipping this one.

All in all I think there are a few things that would have improved my reading experience, but I did really enjoy the read and am keeping my fingers crossed for part 2.

This review and a photo will appear on my Instagram @/flybybooks later today.

Talk about some STEAM, holy cow.

This was something I was not expecting to like, especially since many of the steamy romance fantasies I read have little to no queer characters. But this... this is something else.

This is what I've been looking for, especially as someone who love the Blood and Ash and also ACOTAR books. This felt up to par if not passing the quality of those books, and I am dying to get a physical copy of this. I loved it so much.

Book Review for An Imposter in Warriors Clothing
Full review for this title will be posted at: @cattleboobooks on Instagram!

#AIIWC #NetGalley
I've had the pleasure of reading this book by Elle Mae as well as her other novel, Contract Bound. I quite enjoy her writing and I do believe that this book is very good.

I would recommend you guys to read this book :-)

First of all, I received this as an ARC from NetGalley. Thank you to victory editing for providing me with this book, in exchange for an honest review!

I was very intrigued by the cover of this book! It’s so stunning! After my fascination with the cover died down I went ahead and read the description and that wowed me as well! The big eye catch for me was “A court of thorns and roses meets a new adult twisted fantasy...” because how awesome does that sound? ACOTAR is so far my top read of 2021, and I’ve been on the lookout for similar ones, so I was automatically drawn to this book! Then I got reading....

I didn’t make it very far. I was aware of the disclaimer made that editing was still being made, as it was not the published version. This is something I’m willing to overlook since I have the opportunity to read it before it’s published.
So that was not my issue.

My issue was that the book was all over the place. The first few chapters were so rushed. From chapter 1-3, we went from Vien coming home because she had an altercation with a coworker which lead to her being fired, to her all of a sudden bolting out the house to chase after “...something glowing” to being placed in the middle of a battle?! I think that there should have have been more time taken to ensure the scenes were laid out well to establish some sort of basis for the character and her environment.

Thank you for the opportunity to have been able to read this in advanced but I am not able to continue this book. I have DNF’d at chapter 10. I do hope to revisit it once again in the future because as previously mentioned, the idea of this book is fascinating to me and it helps that the cover is beautiful!

REVIEW WILL BE POSTED ON GOODREADS AND PERSONAL BOOK INSTAGRAM

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

*heavy sigh* where to even begin with this one....

An Imposter in a Warrior’s Clothing is a high fantasy book about a woman transported to another realm that discovers she’s the reincarnation of a previously killed famous warrior/savior of the realm. Her powers are needed to fix the dying magic of the realm so they need to awaken her powers. But who is helping her awaken her powers are not to be trusted and not everything is as it seems.

Can’t explain more of the plot without giving away spoilers so that small summary should suffice.

It was a quick read for me because overall it was ENTERTAINING and I really like the cover.... but that’s where the positives of this review end.

I know this is an ARC so it’s not a finished copy, but I’ve never read one so clearly unedited before. And I’ve read a lot of ARCs from Netgalley and Edelweiss. Incorrect spellings, the wrong words used (example: heard when the author meant hard), missing apostrophes, etc. It just seemed like it hadn’t been edited at all, which I don’t think is usually the case when publishers send out digital arcs. It was pretty bad, honestly.

The writing style was also really hard to read. Once I started reading more I had to purposefully try my best to ignore it, for the sake of trying to finish this book. The only other reviewer on goodreads DNF-ed for these reasons, so I did this for you guys. You’re welcome. The writing style felt VERY passive, things just happened to the MC, and also very jumpy and erratic in general. It was overall very unpleasant to read and it was the whole book.

This book also deals with some VERY heavy topics, such as literal torture, abuse, suicide, rape (coercion used for consent), violence, death, etc. It’s very much new adult, this is not a book for teenagers.

While I was interested in the story being told, the romance was all over the place. The MC had multiple potential love interests and it ended up not being relevant towards the end.

Can’t say I really liked the main character or any of the side characters all that much (aside from Spiris, I would die for you) either.

I think the first part of the book took up too much of the narrative, and then the shift towards the end should have come earlier so we could actually become familiar with the new characters that were introduced, but there wasn’t much time until the end and I just finished like 10 minutes ago and frankly I couldn’t tell you who those characters were.

And the ending just left me with a big question mark. I don’t even know what to make of it. The ending itself wasn’t bad but it was extremely abrupt and I don’t know how I feel about it other than “meh”

This review is all over the place because the book was all over the place and it’s 6 am and I’ve stayed up all night. I don’t know what else to include in my review other than the premise and story being told were interesting and had a lot of potential, but this book really should be completely rewritten, and also edited, heavily. Cannot say I’d recommend this book because of how many issues there were, minor or major.

3.5 stars. I liked this book plot wise and I’m actually excited for the possibility of book 2.

Vien is powerful and has a lot of people looking for the reincarnation of her. Eventually Baecos finds her and uses her- soon she finds out it’s all a manipulation and then we’re introduced to other characters who even though they claim to care about her also seem to want to use her which to me was the frustrating aspect of this book, Vien did not catch a freaking break and I hoped that it would’ve been with Cruor. But no Cruor was also just a slack lead.

Now my problem with this book is plot development, character development and grammatical structure.

Plot development- it was way too fast. Vien seemingly accepted everything way too fast and I guess you could say that was her subconscious speaking to her about what she knew was familiar but even then the story was rushed.

Character development- there’s supposed to be this change in Vien as she starts getting her memory back but instead she’s just the same old Vien. Along with that the author failed to build any character in anyone except Baecos. Part of be hopes that if the story does get a book 2 this changes- series tend to leave room for character development.

Among that was also the relationships between the characters, it all times felt forced and tense. Why did she have more chemistry with Spiris than she did with Cruor?

Now grammatical structure, was a bit awkward at times and in my opinion first person point of view isn’t the best type for stories like these. The stream of consciousness of Vien was choppy at times.

Now regardless of these points I still give the book a rather higher rating than I would because not only did I like the plot but I realized that Ella Mae is rather new to this whole scene so she’s still getting the hang of it and this was a good try and this could have the potential for being an amazing series.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publishers in exchanged for an honest review

DNF @ 25%

I wanted to like this, truly. The cover is gorgeous, the premise is intriguing, and it hints at new adult fantasy romance themes which are on the rise in 2021. Unfortunately, the beginning is nothing short of haphazard. I could not make heads or tails of the storyline, the setting or the context of any sort of plot development until about 20% in. There is just whiplash inducing confusion for a good chunk of this story until the heroine Vien stumbles upon a magical world and learns that she has a magical past that she can't remember. She encounters a prince and his court who all know of her legacy and try to hone her magical skill. Unfortunately, the relationships all feel very robotic and inorganic. I could not get connected to the story or its characters and could therefore not make it to the end on this one.

Thank you to netgalley for providing a digital copy in exchange for an honest review.