Beautiful story!
I loved it so much!
I loved the warrior midwife and it was amazing to return to this amazing world and learn a new story.
The characters are great and I'm excited for the next books!

Rating: 5 / 5 Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and E.P. Bali for sending an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was my first of a E.P Bali’s books and wow am I blown away! Definitely one of my new favorite authors. I enjoyed this book through and through and was binge reading it so quickly. This is definitely one of my favorite reads of all time. The writing style is immaculate.

3.5/5

This book is fantastically written. I love a book with strong female characters and it is refreshing that there wasn't any rivalry between them, they all just wanted to help each other. I also liked how sexually positive this book was. Altara liked sex and she wasn't afraid to enjoy it. I also enjoyed how there was a diverse group of characters. One of her friends is engaged to a women and no one was shamed for their preference.

The world that Bali created was wonderful to dive into and learn about. There were so many aspects that I enjoyed reading about and I'm excited to learn more about it in the next two books.

There were a few areas that bothered me which is the reason I gave it a 3.5. The first is I wish we had gotten more of a backstory of Altara's life to understand how cruel her stepmother was. I just felt like a piece was missing for me. It left me with more questions, even if it was scenes where she was looking back at her life with her sister I think would have helped. I have also heard there is a whole series about Saraya after I finished reading this book so maybe that would have answered questions and if so i wish she had recommended that we read that first.

The second was how Altara was written for the first half of the book, she was so obnoxious. All she cared about was getting laid she didn't listen to any one when they told her of the danger she just thought she knew best. Through out the book I did start to like her more but she still irked me.

Thank you Netgalley and E. P. Bali for the advanced copy of this book. This is my honest thoughts and review.

Coming into this book, I didn't really know what to expect and whether I'd vibe with it or not. The first 20% of the book was slow but caught my attention easily, and the rest of it was history. I am very picky when it comes to fantasy books, and I can say with a happy heart that I can't wait for the rest of this series to be published because I will be eating it up. Altara's personality and fire was unrelenting throughout the entire book, but I do wish her character progression was a little more prevalent in the writing. You can tell it's there, but I think it only skims the surface after everything she has gone through thus far. I didn't quite understand Zale at first, with the writing being very emotionless when he is first introduced, but as the story plays out and we understand why, I feel for him. And as a reader, seeing even those small changes towards the end of the book made my heart flutter. I do wish there was some spice in this first book, but I'm excited to see where it goes in the second and I will definitely be reading more from this author!

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this novel.

This book was a binge read for me, I read the entire thing in one day and honestly would have binge read the next two if they were out. It was entertaining and surprisingly funny at times. The main characters were well developed and the world building was extensive without ever feeling unnecessary. I highly recommend this book if you’re looking for an enemies to lovers slow burn, with well developed female friendships and a prevalent use of magic.

Thank you so much Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC!

The world building in this book is as fabulous as the cover. It contains magic, demons, Goddesses, handsome, brooding male lead whose heart can only be unlocked by fated lover and whatnot! I requested it the moment I saw it had enemies-to-lovers trope and I wasn't disappointed. I love the characters; they are fun, charismatic and courageous. In the middle of the book, something really strange happens that left me speechless. It was equally awkward and hilarious and I had a great laugh with my friends while discussing it. Looking forward to the next book. Recommended!

This book began slow, but DEAR GOD, it got so good!
I loved it! I wasn't expecting it to get so good. It's slow, but this is one of those few books I'd recommend. This book and the way the story develops are worth it.
Altara escapes to the Ellythian Isles and ends up stuck in a similar situation to what she ran away from. Zale is an extraordinary character, BUT FOR ONCE, I mean this in a GOOD way. This is one of those 1/1000 books that benefit from the dual POV, and Zale's perspectives are used sparingly and beautifully even though the author HAD every excuse to write Zale as an insane animal. HE ISN'T WRITTEN LIKE that, for me this was a surprise and a lovely one.
I'll be looking forward to publishing the two books that follow!
Thanks to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for this book which I received as E-ARC for an honest review.
3.5 ⭐️
The story is definitely new adult fantasy romance, the main character knew what she wanted sexually, which felt empowering.
There was one point where she used her power with a very strange outcome and this took me back a lot and I felt it was put in for shock factor maybe, I didn’t get it but I persevered and ignored this aspect of the story so it lost some stars there for me.
There is plenty of action and fantasy based tropes, which I loved. Overall I really enjoyed it and will be continuing the series and checking out other work by this author.

I would like to thank the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for this ARC.

Trigger Warning:
This book explores the themes of parental abuse and abandonment, as well as depicts scenes of torture and/or physical violence.

After seeing the cover, I knew I wanted to get my hands on this book, but I was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable it was to read; this book’s full of substance. Altara is such a strong female character. I think that her power as a woman doesn’t just derive as a product of her soul’s essence being infused with starlight; I feel that her formidable strength is defined by her empathy and her ability to endure pain in order to aid and abet the healing of others. I only wish that she could heal herself, too. It’s hard to imagine the brutality of a world that would allow a woman to unfairly swallow, inherit, and consume the darkness of others at the expense of her own light. I think that the greatest indignity often befalls upon women, and I was impressed with how Altara carried herself in response to being made to bear so many wounds she wasn’t even responsible for. If I were in her position, I would not do the same.

There’s also such nuance to the plot and characters. Many of them have intricately suffered as a result of others’ disloyalty. Loyalty is a game to some people, but not to Altara or Zale. Their word is their bond. Altara would bring herself to her knees to protest the suffering of another, whether or not she identifies them as friend, foe, teacher, cousin, or sister. Zale would burn the world to a crisp to enact his revenge. I understand his desire for vengeance. Both characters experience suffering and undoing at the hand of their parents. It just goes to show how parents can often betray the trust of their children; and often times, retribution is owed.
They sought, in many ways, to produce the destruction, limitation, denouncement, and alienation of their children. It was deliberate. They didn’t care that their children suffered, they cared only that they made a mistake. Their children were penalized so severely, they were practically assigned delineation as separate, deviant, immoral, other. Unbelievably, wrongly, and indelicately, they were denied grace.

Accountability shouldn’t always take the form of punishment (and why does punishment have to take the form of torture or result in degradation or the emasculation of the self, anyway?) and parents, more than anybody, should understand that, but the parental figures in this book refused to. They sought only to strip something of value away from their children because they felt they were too powerful or out of control; there is nothing more upsetting and dehumanizing than sentencing someone to a life in which they are chained or enslaved to certain torments or negative circumstances because you wish to disrobe them.

There is no greater insult than the intimacy of forcibly, brutally taking away someone’s choice, and seizing their agency or autonomy by force—subjugating them and compromising or undermining their free will. No one should have the power or ability to do that (take away someone’s ability to choose): not a parent, not the State (nation/government), not a king or queen. No one and nothing should be able to so thoroughly render another human being devoid of sanctity, devoid of privilege, devoid of life. You can revoke people’s privileges without taking away their dignity. The violation of human rights in this book was beyond appalling and shameful.
It was hard to read about Altara’s evil stepmother abusing her in such cruel ways—producing her physical torture and dispossessing her of her rights, so she is incapable of challenging her authority and is forced to run away or is driven to suicide.

I also didn’t like the racial component—Altara is biracial; her birthmother was deeply brown-skinned and her father is pasty white. We’re not told the race of her stepmother but I’m assuming she’s white, like Altara’s father, white as the native land he hails from. We are not given a reason as to why Altara’s stepmother tortures her and her sister so I can’t help but believe that her actions are motivated by the fact that she’s a racist white woman who hates her stepchildren simply because their skin is brown. I find it very difficult to accept this kind of prejudice and mistreatment [although prejudiced thinking often stems from ignorance, it leads to hate because it invites censure and promotes intolerance of other races]. This kind of racial discrimination is unreal to me, especially because all I can think is: if you’re not accepting of people of color, then don’t marry a man with mixed/interracial kids? It’s literally that simple.

As a brown woman [African American] myself who’s had to combat a great deal of racism, this was extremely disconcerting, discouraging, and disheartening to read. I felt so much empathy for Altara; I shared her grief, her pain, her suffering. Emotionally, this book was devastating, but the pain and trauma of being abused by one’s parents in this undignified manner was beautifully articulated by the author. I give this book four stars!

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for having this available as an ARC.

I was instantly drawn in by the cover as I thought “looks like an awesome warrior princess”. I didn’t realise that this was a sister series to the warrior midwife trilogy, so now I have to backtrack and read those also. Luckily on Ektaa’s website, she mentioned that this could be read as a standalone.

The opening two sentences had me like woah! It engaged me from the beginning and I loved where the story took Altara. She’s a fierce, independent, strong individual who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to get it. It does get her in trouble as we saw in her double marriage.

The situation at the bride school was a bit messed up but I liked how Altara, Malika, Rani and Pia all supported one another. The Old Ones are hot and although we should hate them, we don’t! Kai is just an all round lovely person, so they aren’t all bad.

Can I just say that spicy scene at about 57-58% was one of the most hilarious scenes I’ve ever read! I was just like OMG OMG OMG WTF NO NO, NO WAY! I loved all the humour that came after with the girls in this very unique situation that Altara’s magic got her in.

I loved that this had so much going on - there’s magic, curses, prophecy, shifters, demons, god like men, goddesses, friendship, adventure, mystery, humour and fun. I’ve probably missed some too! Loved that the MC was POC and it’s mentioned on Ektaa’s website that Altara is biracial - it’s awesome having representation in books! It’s the first that I’ve read of Ektaa’s work and now I want to read more! Can’t wait for book 2&3!

Do check your trigger warnings on this.

This book has some of my most loved tropes: enemies to lovers and fated mates.

I had a hard time getting into the book in the beginning because I hadn’t read the previous series and I felt that the writing style just wasn’t for me.

But I’m glad I kept reading! The story was compelling. There was humour, drama, and lots of tension. I am going to have a hard time waiting for Book 2!

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘴 follows Altara Voltanius, born to lightning and lotus, who's escaped her homeland to the security of her mother's maiden island or so she believes. The moment she arrives, right from the tremors that began as soon as she hit earth to the demons lurking around, Altara knows that darkness is at play.

- ~ -

The author has done it again! I'm hooked!

Only complaint is that unlike Saraya's trilogy, the next installment to Altara's story is months away!

But seriously, how am I this in awe of the craft? Like it's the perfect blend of fantasy, humor and romance. The world building, as usual, is phenomenal and it helps to have previously read the other trilogy set in the same world to know the gist of the plot.

And let's talk about the sulty, swoony romance... Like Zale's possessiveness? His reluctant caring attitude? His lusting? Kill me.

Now I'll just be sitting right here, very patiently, waiting for book 2.

- ~ -

4.02 / 5✩

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘐 𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 & 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸𝘦𝘥. 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘸𝘯.

This was great. I had lots of fun getting into this. I enjoyed myself immensely and would seriously highly recommend!