I had high hopes for this book due to the authors other series so I really wanted to like this book more. It had a great start and I thought it was going to keep going with the good, but it just crashed and burned. There were some good parts here and there but as a whole it just did not work together. I feel like more planning could have gone in to structure the story a bit better because the story itself has the potential for a great series, it just didn't work well in book 1.

A Crown of Ivy and Glass is a captivating novel that boasts high stakes and intricate worldbuilding, complete with fascinating mythology. This lush and sweeping fantasy romance series starter is sure to leave readers spellbound. With its richly detailed world and steamy romance, A Crown of Ivy and Glass is a must-read for fans of the fantasy genre.

I have always loved Claire Legrand ever since I found her books, and I will continue to love what she writes! This book just proves it! This goes back to the amazing fantasy that she wrote and built with the Empirium trilogy, and I CANNOT wait for the next installment!

I'm so very appreciative of getting the early reader access!

To say I am a massive fan of Legrand's previous fantasy Furyborn series is an understatement. I actually wrote her a letter after finishing Kingsbane because I was so wrecked. This was one of my most anticipated books of the year based on Furyborn and also the way it was pitched which sounded right up my street as a fan of ACOTAR and Bridgerton.

Unfortunately, this is probably my biggest disappointment of the year so far. I think the issue is that the parts are better than the whole. There are some truly beautiful and powerful individual scenes that are well written but ultimately they don't fit together coherently.

Gemma is the youngest of three sisters and I am guessing that each book in the trilogy will focus on a different sister and ultimately I question starting with Gemma, the least interesting of the sisters. The three sisters are A LOT like the Archeron sisters (and I guess the King Lear sisters if we want to be trite) and Gemma is basically like, what if Elaine was really selfish and thought only about herself. Gemma does grow as the book goes on and I really appreciated the focus on her chronic pain which is prevalent in the book and as far as I can tell, not magically healed at the end.

The relationship between Gemma and Talan is very insta love which doesn't really bother me but the way it is done here removes all of the tension from the story. One of them betrays the other sort of and they immediately they are back in each other's arms.

The pacing of this story is not very good, unfortunately. The main antagonist (I think?) isn't really introduced until 75% (!) of the way through and I'm still unsure of their motivations. Personally, I believe the key to a good fantasy story is a good villain otherwise what is the point?

This book is way too long. There is a very long scene where Gemma gets kidnapped and that entire plot should have been removed as it adds nothing to the story and we could easily get to the end of the book in the same exact place without it.

Despite my critiques and overall disappointment, I will say that I am absolutely FERAL for more of Farrin (the Nesta sister). She is super interesting and I need to learn everything about her and whatever is going on with her and Ryder. I hope that this is the next book because I will devour it. Too bad that wasn't the first book because I feel like a lot of people aren't going to make it to a second book.

I am still very interested to see what Legrand writes next, but this was a bit of a slog for me, unfortunately.

Thank you SO much to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read an E-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is pitched as Bridgerton meets ACOTAR and while I wouldn’t disagree, I also want to be clear that this marketing has already caused confusion and disappointment in readers.

The first half of the book does have balls and gowns and social contracts and using relationships to gain advantages, much like Daphne and Simon in the first Bridgerton book/season, but the second half of the book quickly shifts time away from this storyline and it can feel a bit jarring.

The second half is ACOTAR adjacent, in that it is romantacy with romance first and foremost. It drives the plot and the love of sisters is very much at the center. But it did read someone young adult and because of that, I think it may fall flat for some readers. I would say it’s more in the vein of From Blood and Ash. I would even say it leans a bit if Game of Thrones meets Crimson Peak at bit towards the end.

The ending was rushed a bit but left me excited to see where this series goes. I truly hope we get to see Farrin and Ryder play out because I’m really shipping that.

Overall I enjoyed it and read it quickly, but am hoping that the rest of the series reads a bit more adult and has clearer world building. Definitely wasn’t bad, but it has so much potential and I’m terrified if will fall prey to bad marketing.

Lady Gemma Ashbourne's family was Anointed by the gods and given abilities, but she's been sad ever since her sister Mara was taken to the Middlemist to guard against treacherous magic and her mother abandoned the family. Her father and eldest sister are feuding with the Bask family and often forget she exists. On top of all that, she has no magic and her body rejects it. When she meets Talan d'Astier, the only survivor of his family's destruction by a demon, Gemma strikes a bargain: She'll help Talan navigate high society if he helps her destroy the Basks. According to popular legend, a demon called The Man With the Three-Eyed Crown is behind the families' blood feud—slay the demon, end the feud. It sounds simple, but attacks on the Middlemist worsen and the plot against the Basks gets out of control. Gemma also seems to be developing some kind of power, which could destroy her or show her who she's meant to be.

A Crown of Ivy and Glass is the first book of the Middlemist Trilogy. In this world, the death of Gods scattered magic into the world. Some were chosen for gifts and were Anointed, and some accidentally came upon fragments of magic and passed along that gift to their descendants. The Mist in the middle of the continent was a place creatures slipped through from another dimension, and the Roses are the girls taken from families to transform into partly avian creatures to fight them. The fae and demons also exist, but mostly as stories from the Old Country and as tales of what lay beyond the Mist. Gemma was too sick by magic and too prone to devastating panic attacks to fight as was traditional, so her sister was taken. Gemma grew up a protected socialite, subject to her father's cutting remarks and being used to further his feud. There's the undercurrent of secrets everyone else carries, but she can't get it out of them. My heart went out to her early on, especially when her father makes thoughtless comments to her that are almost designed to wound, however unintentional he says them. She is told early on that she has no magic, that isn't good for anything but the social whirl, and she internalized that along with her panic attacks and the tendency to dig her nails into her leg hard enough to draw blood.

At first, the story seems to be a simple exchange between Gemma and Talan. There's the first (literal) whiff of oddness when Gemma is told that Talan smells like something rotten by her perfumier best friend, and the sense of wrongness in the world slowly becomes more amplified from there. By the time the book hits the halfway mark, a whole new plot thread emerges that forces Gemma to consider the wider country of Edyn and the problems with the Mist. Not everything was as it seemed, with more secrets coming about who she is and what it could mean being explained more toward the end. I very much had the feeling of "But wait! There's more!" at that point, because a whole other plot arc for Gemma started that wasn't linked back to her first arc until later, then that triggered another sequence of events. All of those nested threads more or less get tied off, with some lingering questions to be answered in the next book.

I really enjoyed the world-building and the implications of the magic gone rogue, then the later discussion about the nature of the gods' offspring. The book was very much a fun read that I kept going back to, though some characters seemed a bit flat in spots. With so much going on, it's not too much of a surprise; I'm sure we'll see more of them in the next book. I already have guesses as to why some characters behave the way they do, but I don't want to spoil it for the rest of you.

I know lots of people love Claire Legrand's other titles, but this one just didn't work for me. I only made it about 35% of the way through before deciding to move on. The writing felt bogged down by details, giving the plot no real momentum. I felt like I was always waiting for something to happen only for nothing to occur. Even the romance provided little to no tension.

I'm sure this will work for other readers, but I'm sorry to say it didn't for me.

I will not be finishing this title after getting through roughly 25%, but I did want to give some feedback.

To start off, this is the first work of Legrand I have read so I cannot say with any certainty how strong of a writer she is, but this book felt very weak and riddled with overly descriptive "prose" that served very little purpose. Even if it was to show what kind of person Gemma was or was forced to be because of her illness, every description went on for longer than necessary. The physical descriptions of each and every character was also overkill and bordered on toxic. Gemma is obviously a girl very concerned with her appearance, and I can imagine there is some transformation or change that happens to her later in the story, but its so heavy handed up front that it grated on my nerves.

I understand this is the first adult novel for Legrand and I have to say, I wouldn't have guessed that by the main character. She is written like a young, vapid YA heroine, and that is doing a disservice to YA heroines because I have seen this character written better and stronger time and time again. But in this story, there is nothing redeemable about Gemma, nor anything about the story that makes you, the reader, want to FIND that redeemable quality.

I love fantasy and the description of this book sounded so promising, so I am disappointed in the fact that I cannot muscle through it to the end.

I had a hard time getting into this book. I appreciate that many people will love this story, but unfortunately, I found Gemma and Talan a bit bland. I stopped reading 40% in, but I encourage everyone to check it out yourselves. The things that didn't work for me might not be a problem for others. I give what I read 3/5 stars. Not poorly written, but not for me.

This sounded like such a good premise, especially when compared to ACOTAR and Bridgerton, but it wound up being a DNF @ 25% for me.

Let me start with what I liked about the story, because I loved the fact that there was chronic pain and anxiety representation in the story. The chronic pain and illness representation was done really well, and Gemma's anxiety was portrayed wonderfully. Both of these disorders impact her life in numerous ways, but she fights against it, often choosing to struggle through the pain to attend important events, like many people with chronic pain have to do. There's a part of the story where there is an influence exerted that removes Gemma's pain enough to let her function normally, much like painkillers do in our world, yet she chooses not to have that influence used on her, so that she doesn't become reliant on it.

However, I didn't like much of Gemma's character. She's selfish, vain, impulsive, shallow, and incredibly self-absorbed. I don't mind when an author takes some time to hone in on a character's negative character traits, preventing them from seeming too perfect, but in this case, Legrand did that a bit too much - there weren't really any positive characteristics in Gemma, making it basically impossible to like her even a little bit. She's the kind of character that's impossible to connect with, and I struggled to get invested in her story.

I was hoping it would get better once she met Talan, but rather than having them form a genuine connection, we get insta... something. It wasn't necessarily insta-love, but it was definitely lust and some kind of connection that just didn't feel very believable. They enter into an agreement very quickly, and he seemed shady. There's a lot we don't know about him, and there's definitely things that threw up some red flags for me. Simply the fact that they had that strange connection immediately made me have difficulty rooting for the two of them. Finally, he seemed kind of flat. He didn't have much of a personality that I was able to see - maybe this was developed further in the book, but by 25% he was still relatively flat.

There was a lot going on in this story, even a quarter of the way in. We have the strange connection between Gemma and Talan, the issue with the mist, the family feud going on, the demon, and the strange issue going on with Gemma herself - and all this was still relatively early in the book. I got the feeling that later in the book, there would be so many more plot threads going on, and it would be difficult to follow everything, especially since it was so difficult to follow as it was.

Finally, while this is marketed as an adult book, the writing felt very YA. I get that it's hard to crossover from YA into adult, but this book fell short. Overall, the premise sounded promising, but didn't quite come through in execution, at least to the point that I read.

Marking this as read, but DNF at 59%. I just couldn't continue.

This is supposed to be adult, but the main character acted like a young teenager. The most intriguing characters to me were side characters. I'd say of the 59% I read I truly enjoyed maybe 3 chapters.

All the scenes that were interesting and I actually liked felt rushed while there were long moments of reading about Gemma pining after Talan. The spicy scenes I read just came out of nowhere and always seemed poorly placed.

I would've loved to understand the magic system more, read more world building, etc. I would've also loved a multi POV of Farrin and Mara at the very least.

Dnf @ 17%
This book has an interesting premise, but I had to dnf it, because I’m not at all connected to the story or the characters, I couldn’t care less about them. The writing is so juvenile, which bothered me, considering this is an adult book. The main character is very annoying, she’s always talking about how beautiful she is and she comes off as a spoiled brat. It also seems like there’s an insta love trope and that’s something I don’t like. All in all, I’m just bored and I don’t want to hate this book, so I’m choosing to dnf it.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an e-arc for the book.

I normally try to push through books to give a better feedback. But I ended up DNFing at 33%. I think its rather off-putting to read 33% of a book and have nothing particularly significant happen. The plot moved painfully slow and in all I read I think only 2 significant events occurred. Besides that, it was all about Gemma describing her pain and lusting over Talan.

The chronic pain rep and anxiety were well written though. As someone who suffers from anxiety it's refreshing to have a female lead who has to struggle with the same suffocating feelings I sometimes go through. It was well described and explained. However, I felt there was an over dependence of this as means to prolong narration or the progression of a chapter. Yes we know she lives in constant pain and its horrible. Yes I love how Talan immediately came to her aid to ease her pain. But this happens in every chapter all the time and it ended up becoming repetitive. As if, the chapters needed this to make them long enough.

That said, the writing was probably my biggest disappointment. This an adult book. I even had that old-English type of dialogue that I was enjoying. The narrative overall has that adult feeling. But the characters felt so incredibly YA. Not to mention the insta-love trope which I hate and this didn't make it any more tolerable. I really wanted to like this book and see if it got better, but it doesn't seem like it will.

I'm afraid this title wasn't for me.
I've read the first 3 chapters and strongly disliked the main character. The worldbuilding and writing style didn't really appeal to me either.
Thank you for the opportunity.

I did not finish this book. I made it about 120 pages in and I couldn't do it anymore. The main character is not well fleshed out. I think she's meant to be calculating but it just comes off as vain and manipulative.
Her romance with Talan also started out of nowhere. Obviously, I knew there would be romance, but it started incredibly early and their whole relationship (at least as far as I got) was a little forced. They also went back and forth between really tender, heartfelt dialogue to bickering? And not in a cute enemies to lovers kind of way, it just seemed like they didn't like each other at points.
Also everyone was hot? Like too hot. Every person is described as beautiful or handsome or chiseled or something. Give us some interesting, weird looking characters! Give people flaws!
I might give this book another go when it's actually released, but as of right now, I really could not get into it.

DNF... I’m trying but I just don’t find this to be romance (which I was expected Fantasy Romance more so than Romantic Fantasy) so I feel I’m wasting my time! I like that Gemma is an unlikeable character - she’s vain and selfish. Content warnings (and representation) for chronic pain/illness and self harm. There’s a romance there between her and Talan but I don’t feel it’s the main plot. Often we go pages on pags without seeing Talan. I don’t always understand Talan’s motivations and am hoping he’s a villain in disguise (I skimmed ahead and they do get a HEA) who she loves anyway. But he’s just not a supportive enough partner consistently to Gemma. He’ll imply he’d do just about anything for her and then disappear when her monstrous side comes out. I also don’t understand a lot of the other characters’ motivations. The Basks don’t get along with Gemma’s family, but why is the way to resolve the conflict between them that they think a demon might have caused to continue the drama between them? Setting them up for humiliation just seems petty and like something that the two families already do to one another. Every time there’s an idea that interests me - let’s introduce Talan to society, let’s go on escapades in disguise and pretend we are married - it’s just glossed over. I’m bored. I keep dedicating so much time to this book and falling into it only to get bored or be let down by an underwhelming plot point.

DNF after two chapters.

I was really excited about this one, as I have really loved some of the author's other work. Unfortunately, this did not work for me. I found the writing to be too juvenile for an adult novel, the FMC to be immature and vain, and struggled to take the audiobook narrator's masculine voice seriously.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review,

Perhaps one of more unlikable characters I have met in the fantasy genre, the FMC really is quite insufferable. She also bounces around from being "I am the best thing since sliced bread, my life is fabulous, and everyone wants to be me" to "Woe is me, I have the worst life, and no one cares about me." I really could not get behind such a character, and unfortunately, this was a DNF for me. I think perhaps another round of editing would be in order for this book.

DNF at 12%

The main character is unbearably annoying and vain. She’s either feeling sorry for herself or describing how beautiful she is and I can’t take any more of it. I’m really bummed because I loved Furyborn, but this is completely different.

I DNF'ed this book at 16%

I had seen the ratings going into this book and was trying to keep my mind clear of expectations because oftentimes I will like books that others do not, but I could not make myself read any more than 16%. I wasn't invested at all in either the story or the characters. To be quite honest, I really didn't even like the main character. I dipped out of this very early so I didn't get the chance to see any potential growth, but she feels pretty childish to me, and this book is marketed as adult.

That being said, I thought the world and the magic were very interesting and unique! We had a mix of different powers depending on how much magic a person had, and this was weaved into a historical society of parties, fashion, and gossip. I can definitely see where the Bridgerton comparison came from. Despite not loving the main character, I actually quite liked how we are thrown into Gemma and her family's complicated dynamics. I got a good feeling for them and their background very early on. Gemma also suffers from panic attacks and chronic pain, which was written with a lot of care and thought. It was wonderful representation and I loved to see it.

Lastly, even in the first 16% of the book, the pacing was really off to me. Some moments dragged but then suddenly some of the other moments felt rushed when I thought they were actually quite important.

Despite these issues, I thought the writing was solid and I would still read another CL book, this one just wasn't for me!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!