Scarlett St. Clair is a powerhouse of a romantasy writer. She’s prolific and beloved, and I hadn’t read anything by her up to this point. So I was excited to check this book out when I was approached by the publisher for a potential review. I won’t lie, I was especially excited to check out a novella and one that is pulling from various fairytales. I best know St. Clair through references to her “Hades and Persephone” series, and that’s a tough one to get right, so I felt more confident with a fairytale re-telling as an initial entry point to this author’s work.

After now reading this book, I feel like I’m just as unclear on whether or not St. Clair’s books are for me or not. That said, I can now easily understand the appeal for many romantasy fans. Let’s start with that part. Right away, the style of writing appealed to me. There was a nice balance between quick pacing and descriptive prose. The author had clearly read a bunch of fairytales and had no problem capturing the correct tone, writing a story that felt both whimsical and beautiful at times, and violent and disturbing at others. I especially liked just how many fairytale sources were all drawn upon to craft this story. The author even included a note with more details on all of the points of inspiration she pulled upon when writing this book, which I found fascinating.

I also really enjoyed the dialogue and much of the inner monologues we saw from both the hero and the heroine. And while I enjoyed Gesela, Casamir’s chapters turned out to be the most fun. There were a bunch of side characters with whom he interacted, and I loved the ridiculousness of their scenes attempting to point out to their great Fae lord just how inept his attempts at wooing Gesala really were. There was also a captured fairytale prince whose own story veered off into some truly surprising directions.

However, almost from the very start, I struggled with the balance being struck here between plot and spicy scenes. In that…there really was no balance and it was predominantly the latter. No judgement, of course, to readers who are happy with books that lean more in this direction, but for me, I still have fairly high expectations as far as plot goes for my romantasy books. I still want a story, you see. And while yes, there was one here, it was sometimes hard to keep sight of it through all of the insta-lust we had going on.

I was especially put off when, during the very first scene between Gesala and Casamir, we have Gesala completely losing her wits and falling into immediate lust over this complete stranger. And not just “oh, he’s good looking” lust, we’re talking “let’s jump in bed now!” lust. From there, I felt like there were numerous moments where any of the tension or build to the actual love story were undercut by these moments of straight spice. And at a certain point, it became so comical how often Gesala was ending up in contrived situations where she was naked that I started counting. Which really isn’t what I want from a story: to be so distracted by some sort of silliness that I start counting.

I’m not quite sure where to go from here. Reading between all of the spicy scenes, there was a lot to like about this book. I thought the characterization was great, the dialogue was witty and often hilarious, and the fairytale inspiration was spot on. I just didn’t like how much the spicy scenes seemed to overshadow any actual story that was being drawn. The author’s note said she plans on writing stories for all of the other Fae brothers, so maybe I’ll check out the next one of those and go from there. That said, if you enjoy romantasy books with insta-lust/lots of spice, this may be for you. But if you’re looking for more story or plotting to hold things together, this one is on the weaker side.

Rating 7: A bit of a hit or miss reading experience, I really enjoyed the story we had here, but unfortunately the plot often fell to the wayside in lieu of romance scenes.

(Link will go live on The Library Ladies blog on March 27)

Mountains Made of Glass by Scarlett St. Clair
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This is a fairytale tellings that entwines attributes from many fairytales into one story. Gesela lives in a vaillage that suffers many curses. When it is her turn to break a curse she finds herself swept away into a world full of magic, fairies and an Elven prince who is under his own curse.
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What I liked:
-I liked trying to figure out what fairytale each new part of the story was influenced by. However after about 5 or 6 chapters I was totally drawn into the story and completely forgot about comparisons.
-Gesela had a great spunky personality. She was a character that made it easy for me to root for her.
-I loved that last chapter. 😈😈😈
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4⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I’m excited for more, the author plans on doing 6 more books for the Elven Prince’s brothers. Looking forward to them!

I don’t know what I read. But it wasn’t what I was expecting and honestly I shouldn’t read this book. Like for the life of me I don’t remember what this book was about. And that’s terrible. Usually I know what I read but with this book, I just don’t.

Unfortunately I ended up DNFing at 40%. I couldn’t get into it which is shocking because I have loved Scarlett’s past novels. The plot was all over the place.

I found this fairy tale retelling just ok and I think the biggest drawbacks was that it was a short story so that made it hard for the author to convey a compelling story when so much world building and character building needed to happen to make it great and that just wasnt there in such a short story

I could not get into this one so I sadly was not the right reader but I greatly appreciate the chance to try it early!

3/5 Stars

This was just an okay read for me. I liked the story well enough, I liked the characters and the atmosphere of the book was great. I think I just wanted more from this book. My expectations were just too high and that is my own fault because I enjoyed previous books by this author. Overall I would still recommend reading it as I said I did enjoy and have a good time reading it.

I'm a huge fan of St. Clair and her longer novels always fit the bill. This wasn't a favorite of mine but I'm convinced it's because it needed a bit more length to fully grow. I definitely enjoyed it but was left wanting more. I'll be continuing for sure.

I loved this one soooooo much I don't even care it was short, tropey and full of smut.
Who am I kidding.
I'm actually pretty sure I loved this especially because it was short, tropey and full of smut.
Sometimes you gotta scratch a particular itch, and this book didn't just scratch it.
It scratched real good, too.

Father used to say the forest was magic, but I believed otherwise. In fact, I did not think the forest was enchanted at all. She was alive, just as real and sentient as the fae who lived within. It was the fae who were magic, and they were as evil as she was.


The perfect mixture between Holly Black's The Folk of Air and Rebecca F. Kenney Healer to the Ash King, Moutains Made of Glass was a perfect and dark fairytale, complete with all those elements I love in novels.
It wasn't only exquisitely written, with some of the best quotable lines I've ever found in a an adult romantasy book, it was also entertaining to the max and peppered with the most delicious art.
The setting of the Glass Muntains and the cursed forest was as eerie and atmospheric, as the apparition of many fantastical creature was spot on.
Plotwise speaking, it wasn't the masterpiece of the century but I had tons of fun with it and the retelling aspect was so incredibly well done. Rumpelstiltskin, Snow White and Beauty and the Beast are only a few of the fairytales this story was inspired by, and damn, were they properly employed.
If you're interested, * I'll add the author's personal list of fairytales and references she used as inspiration for this, at the bottom of this review.

“When you rescued your princess, what happened?”
The prince shrugged. “She was grateful.”
“And?”
“And?” he repeated, confused.
“What else happened?”
“We returned to her kingdom where her father declared that we would wed,” he said. Then he asked, “Did you rescue your princess?”
“I did,” I said.
“And what happened?”
“I fucked her in the woods all night long.”


St. Clair speaks to my aching heart with her idea of what makes a morally questionable character as gray as they can be. Prince Casamir was so damn gray, so freaking sexy, so deliciously ruthless.
Can you tell I'm in love?
I liked Gesela as well, even if she was a little annoying and way too naive , with her rushed decisions in the beginning, especially for a person as smart as she was described to be.
The romance was chef's kiss. The dual pov and enemies-to-lovers trope gave me a perpetual stomach tingle, and the smut was so so so so good.
"Choke me", FMC said at some point, and there I was, flying to the moon with heart palpitations and squeezed tighs.

I met his gaze.
“You were made for this,” I said.
He smiled and asked, “Made for what, sweet creature?”
Pleasure, I wanted to say. Sex.
But instead, I answered, “Heartbreak.”


The ending was simply perfect.
I can see myself reading this again and again in the future.
I'm gonna go read Scarlett St. Clair's entire backlist now, and pray this wasn't just a one-time thing.



*
-Andersen, Hans Christian. Best-Loved Fairy Tales.
-Carruthers, Amelia. Snow White and Other Examples of Jealousy Unrewarded. Cookhill, Alcester, Warwickshire-
-Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. The Complete Grimms’ Fairy Tales.
-Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm.
-A Treasury of Irish Fairy and Folk Tales.

Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read this book.

Scarlett St. Clair is an author that I've heard a lot about and own quite a few of her books, but just never got around to picking up. I thought based on the synopsis I was really going to love this book, but it was just kind of a miss for me.

For starters, I hate instalove. Or infatuation. Or obsession. Or whatever it was in this book. I hate romance where I literally do not believe in the chemistry beyond the characters wanting to have sex for the sake of it. I don't think that the length of this story gave time for the characters to develop or to allow me to believe what it was the author was trying to tell me.

I will say that the narrators were decent and made it a really quick and enjoyable listen. I will definitely be picking up other books by this author because I do think that the storytelling and plot were okay.

Really hoped I would love this one because the premise was so promising (beauty and the beast retelling), and I found it to be good, not great.

My brain is in a state of twirling like the Apple computer trying to boot orders. I'm just well...sigh.

Thank you to the author, NetGalley, & Bloom Books for the eARC in return for an honest review! All thoughts are my own.

Okay so...I honestly can't tell quite yet if I want to file this away in my Meh folder or keep it squirreled away in an undefined folder until the next one comes out. I see so so so much potential here that didn't quite reach that zenith of greatness for me. I liked the story retelling with its qualities of Beauty and the Beast (even though that particular story is getting far too much love in the retelling department), tantalizing fae loveliness, spicy heat, and maybe hints of Wonderland/Rumpelstiltskin. Maybe the disconnect is in the quick delivery. I think this is one that must be read and to each their own because I can see where some will be immediately on board and some (like me) that need a bit more of the story to become invested.

Definitely worth the read and we'll see where it goes. REVIEW TO BE CONTINUED!!!

No Regrets! 3 out of 5 stars

This was a short, interesting, magic-filled romp! I came away from it wishing for more, but what was on the page was plenty enjoyable.

Gesela lives alone on the edge of a small town full of curses. When the villagers force her to break the curse that’s dried up the town’s well by killing the toad living at the bottom, the consequences are dire. Not a toad, after all, but one of seven elven princes, whose brothers come to exact revenge. They dump Gesela with the seventh cruel and beastly brother, in his Kingdom of Thorns. This elven prince, Casamir, is under a curse of his own. Find a maiden who can fall in love with him and guess his true name, else his name will be lost forever and he will forget himself.

It all sounds highly promising, as far as premises go. Unfortunately, the fact that we’re confined to the length of a novella means that there really isn’t time to go about crafting the story with the amount of depth I usually look for in this genre. There wasn’t time to build chemistry between the characters in a way that feels authentic and gratifying. They just ended up sort of… magically, instantly horny for each other. And there were a lot — a LOT — of fairytale references and magical beings from a variety of cultures and source material… It’s clear from the author’s notes that she researched extensively for this story. The end result was more of a hodgepodge of borrowed lore, though, rather than a story that felt cohesive with intentional details.

Given that the author plans to write novellas for the remaining six elven princes, it’s possible that more of this detail and structured worldbuilding will come in the future. But at this point, I’m left wondering why the book was even titled “Mountains Made of Glass” when the Glass Mountains made all of two brief cameos in this book, neither of which bore much importance to the plot. Everything ultimately came together a bit haphazardly, though it was still an interesting world to peek into.

Will I read the next novella when it’s published? …Probably. I do love fairytales, and grumpy princes who fall reluctantly in love with stubborn main characters. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the author pulls back on the reins a bit, though, to put together a story with more focus and less background noise.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the DRC!

I didn't love this one. It seems this author is very hit or miss for me - I didn't love their Hades and Persephone story, but their vampire series is a favorite! I think this story would have benefitted from being in a longer format.

Pretty sure this is supposed to be a rumplestilskin retelling?
Listen this book was not it for me. As soon as she saw this guy it was like instant lust. I just did not like this.

Scarlett St Clair writes books that keep me up at night and Mountains Made of Glass is no exception. I have no idea how she does it and I'm in love with this series!

I love fairytale retellings and I love Scarlett St. Clair! I was super pumped for this and it did not disappoint at all!!

The world building, like all worlds she builds was phenomenal! The characters were great! You can't go wrong with anything she writes!

If you're in the mood for a quick, dark, spicy fairytale retelling, I highly recommend this!!

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

Incredible world building. Had a blast and loved all the influences. Scarlett is really into something here and I hope to see more of this style from her.

When I hear that the story will be a retelling I'm always getting excited about what the author will do with the concepts applied in the story. In Mountains Made of Glass, there will be a lot of them, and I think this makes it somehow hard to follow to me.
Gesela had lived in a cursed village and now she decided to do something about it - this was the beginning of her quest. On her way to save the village, she killed a toad... but this was a cursed prince! She needs to be punished and gets sent to the mansion of the Beast - that is a seventh-eleven prince, who was also cursed. A lot of cursed stuff right?
A plot was something that should be more on the spot here, as in some parts it felt like the erotic / smut part was overcoming other parts of the story - I think this was my biggest issue, but there was also the other one - beginning that was not introducing wholely the works set by the author, but provided a piece here, a piece there. Only in the later part of the book, I started feeling a connection with the characters and plot.

Received and EARC in exchanged for my honest review.

I LOVE a fairy retelling! However, I just didn't really like this one. The spice felt off and way too fast paced. The book was too short and moved way too fast. I actually wanted more plot and more world building. Not my favorite by the author