This was a pretty satisfying end to a series. The basic theme really drives through to the story, you can just feel the people who were wronged's resentment towards those who wronged them. It's also a peak in the book of those who wronged them. The guilt they feel and their need to make things right. Or need to not feel guilty anymore. Though I do admit I would like to see more of Giotto's perspective after this series. The world-building shows a new perspective on how religion can misinterpreted as well.

My heart. I love them so much. I got really emotional reading this so many times. Dante is bae. Great conclusion to a well written series!

I loved book one but book two wasn’t an enjoyable reading experience for me. I’d give this 3.5 stars if I could. Most of the book made me mad. I strongly disliked Talia she was so rude to Dante’s friends and expected him to be nice to hers. And Dante is so oblivious and was okay with his friends getting treated that way. Most of the book made be hate this for Alyssa and I admire her so much more for sticking through it and still trying to be a good person because I would’ve been done with his new friends a lot sooner. 80% in things started getting better for me.

I think the writing was amazing and it was really easy to get sucked into the story and Emily is an author I would instant buy from. I just didn’t like feeling upset for Alyssa for that long and my rating is purely based on my reading experience and themes that I’m not a fan of. I would still recommend people read this series!

Thank you NetGalley and Emily Thiede for the chance to read this ARC!

While I had fun reading This Cursed Light, it felt more like This Vicious Grace 2.0 than its own story. TVG did so much so well. I thought Alessa’s arc was fantastic, the romance was impeccable, the setting and descriptions were gorgeous, and the central themes were consistent. It’s been a few days since I finished TCL and I’m still scratching my head because I can’t quite place my finger on why I didn’t enjoy this nearly as much as TVG. I think I just wanted more, but it felt like duology plateaued at the end of TVG and stayed there for all of TCL.

I appreciate how Emily Thiede explores trauma and how it affects personal growth and our relationships with other people. I enjoyed tension and issues between Alessa and Dante for the first half or so of the book, but it quickly started to get old. Constantly hearing from each of their POVs that they are awful and the other doesn’t love them is exhausting. The dual POV just didn’t work for me. Alessa and Dante felt like they were repeating each other, which really slowed the story down.

I was looking forward to understanding the magic system more in TCL, but that didn’t happen. I’m past expecting magic to be explained and have logic in YA and NA fantasy—especially fantasy romance—these days. There seemed to be much more focus on Alessa and Dante pining for each other and feeling awkward and out of place in their society that magic was put on the back burner.

Overall I think This Cursed Light was fine. I’m sure most people who enjoyed This Viscous Grace will be happy with TCL.

2.5 stars. Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and Wednesday Books for this advanced copy! You can pick up This Cursed Light on December 5, 2023.

I had such high hopes going into this book because I gave This Vicious Grace five stars. But it felt like I was reading a completely different story, with less compelling characters and a plot that wasn’t necessary. The story skipped around so much that I felt like I had no time to settle in with the characters and feel what they felt. We just skipped from moment to moment with almost no transition or explanation.

A lot of the magic wasn’t explained super clearly, the characters felt like caricatures of themselves, and overall I just didn’t feel motivated to pick it up. It pains me to say it, because I love this author and the first book, but this one was a miss for me.

It might be up your alley if you enjoy training montages and forbidden love, and miscommunication. But all in all the sequel wasn’t for me.

This Cursed Light is the second book in the Last Finestra duology and should be read in order. After saving the world, Alessa and her companions are home and ready to live their lives. Dante is still struggling with the loss of his powers and the inability to touch is putting a strain on his and Alessa’s relationship. But the Gods are not finished with them yet, the big bad is coming and Dante will have to ask his people for help. Secrets come to light as Alessa and Dante’s love story test their wills and limits to reach a hard won and satisfying HEA in this exciting fantasy duology’s conclusion. My voluntary, unbiased review is based upon a review copy from NetGalley.

The saga of series ending badly for Sarah continues.

This wasn't the worst ending I've ever read. It wrapped up character arcs nicely and finished off all of the plot lines. There weren't any major personality shifts for the MCs, and I still enjoyed the fantasy version of Italy.

I firmly believe Alessa and Dante are some of the best YA characters I've read in a while. Their POVs switched cohesively, and they have strong personalities. Alessa and Dante are working through shared and separate trauma. We see them struggle to get over childhood hurt and how it affects their abilities to form healthy relationships, platonic and romantic. It's rare to not have YA books where the main characters make dumb decisions for the purpose of furthering the plot. They are both sharp, and come with flaws.

The romance I loved so much intially fell apart in This Cursed Light. Dante and Alessa's sharp dynamic was completely absent. I missed the wit, sass, and humor that made me fall in love with them in the first book. They got stuck in a miscommunication loop, falling into the classic YA trap of "I'm not good enough for you, why do you love me." In small doses, I can deal with this trope, but it permeated the whole novel, up until the epilogue. Sure, there were fleeting moments of the iconic wit and dialogue, but overall, it was replaced with a weird back-and-forth dynamic.

When Dante and Alessa weren't working through couple therapy, they were bundles of raging hormones. While it only had one or two vague sex scenes, the amount of innuendos and talk about bodies looking sexy was too much for me. If I was looking for smut, I would be in the adult section. This isn't really the author's fault; publishing companies need to market for the right audience. I know this will boil down to personal opinion, but this is not intended for a younger audience. Lots of dirty jokes and heated statement that no fourteen-year-old has business reading.

Much like This Vicious Grace, the villain plays a fleeting role. The big bad is overplayed and talked to death, but facing the villain takes up hardly thirty pages. There's so much prep and anxiety over an evil that is underwhelming in the end, when it has the potential to be terrifying. Thiede spends too much time prepping her characters for a ludicrously quick battle. The preparation is repitive as well. Majority of the time the preparation is reading about soldiers training, over and over again.

If Thiede doesn't give the side characters their own books, I'm rioting. More often than not, they are relegated to therapy roles or moments of humor, which is a shame. They are all so witty and fun, yet they never reached their full potential. I would have liked to see them not play the roles of psychologists and comedic relief.

If you loved This Vicious Grace, I do reccomend you read the sequel. It still was fun and charming. If you don go in with high hopes for the romance, and are ready to admit the villian is too similar to the first book, you'll set yourself up for success.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advance copy! All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

In her much-anticipated sequel, Thiede pits her impassioned lovers and their allies up against a new threat, a battle promised by the gods to be an even bigger test of the heroes’ mettle that the war they faced at the end of book one. While we don’t know much about what’s to come this time, the book follows a similar structure to book one, as the central cast of characters prepares for battle, while also building friendships, grappling with complicated family relationships, and falling in love. Thiede flips the focus from heroine to hero, though both have plenty of page time, as Dante’s struggle to reframe his identity after the loss of his powers takes center stage, a challenge that proves especially complex since the story takes the group into his old community. Outsider becomes insider. The elite become the ostracized. No one’s on familiar footing. Meanwhile, Alessa struggles with a growing darkness inside her. And while the lovers engage in lots of flirty banter that keeps the tone relatively light overall, we know a menace looms on the horizon, and when it comes, readers will be flipping pages through the climatic action scenes, hoping the lovers not only emerge victorious, but also get their longed for happily ever after. Fans of book one will likely devour this, and be eager to see what Thiede sets her hand to next!

This Cursed Light begins by asking us what we would truly sacrifice for love. Beginning knowing that nothing is ever as simple as 'happily ever after', This Cursed Light begins on a tense edge of the knife. Reeling from the emotional whirlwind and actions of This Vicious Grace, for Alessa and Dante their journey and turmoil is far from over. They're still very much working through the trauma of the last book. I think what I enjoyed was how This Cursed Light works through their relationship.

Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press, for providing an advanced ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book is set to release on December 5, 2023—a great pickup for a good read.

I loved the first book and was super happy to receive an advanced copy of "A Cursed Light." Alessa has won Divorando with the help of her chosen Fonte, her Fonti friends, and a ghiotte, Dante. Alessa, the other Fontes, and the rest of Saverio believe they are now safe from Crollo and his army. However, Dante believes they aren’t finished with him yet, and something worse is on the horizon. To prepare for whatever Crollo has in store, they will need an army of the beings the Church of Saverio banished—Ghiottes.

I appreciate the character development of Alessa and Dante, as well as the other characters in this story. No plotlines felt unfinished, which I appreciated. Although I liked how this book ended, I have one issue with it. In my opinion, I felt like the plot was slow for much of the book. It seemed like there was too much dragging on about Alessa or Dante’s trauma on a new journey, which felt unnecessary to the story. The book started to pick up around 80% of the book or so. Other than that, I liked the book and the following chapters made up for it.

The epilogue was beautiful and a perfect conclusion to this duology. The story presented in this duology is interesting and unique, and I would recommend you read it :)

Thank you to NetGalley for sending me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This Cursed Light by Emily Thiede was a highly anticipated read for me as I loved This Vicious Grace (book one). The author continues her Italian-inspired fantasy romance series with this exciting sequel.

The characters that the author continued to flush out were individually endearing and I loved seeing the relationships between them develop further. The author continued to find ways to raise the stakes that left me on the edge of my seat and unwilling to put this book down until I was finished reading.

Overall, I gave this book a four-star rating and would recommend it to anyone who likes action-packed adventure, twists and turns, loveable characters, and feel-good romance. Its sure to be a satisfying read!

I really loved this book! It was full of adventure and I loved how the author developed the characters! I was never bored because of how well the author kept the story going. I will be recommending this book to all of my friends and family.

I really enjoyed This Vicious Grace by Emily Thiede and was looking forward to the second book in this duology. I follow Emily on social media and I know she's spoken publicly about how difficult the second book was to write, sophomore slumps, etc. I do think it shows in this book. It's not as cohesive as the first, the world building isn't as interesting and the plot feels tacked on to the first book just to make a two book deal. I did really love the interactions between Alessa and Dante in the TVG, Emily is excellent at banter and definitely has made me chortle out loud with some of her funnier bits. I just found that all of the obstacles and resolutions in TCL ended up being too convenient and the stakes didn't feel particularly high throughout the book. While I loved Talia of the Ghiotes, the rest don't make much of an impression. By the final battle of the book, I was completely disinvested in what would happen. I appreciate a happy ending but it does skew quite close the end of the first book. Also, there are a lot of formatting issues with the kindle. There is no break in the page to signify a shift of perspective (like switching from Dante to Alessa) and it reads very confusingly. For example, at 71% on the kindle it jumps from Dante speaking to Adrick: "You can't keep it from her forever." "I won't," directly into the sentence "As night fell outside their villa, Dante pulled a scarf from his pocket with a flourish, earning a very wary look from Alessa." Also at 85%, Alessa is speaking to Talia and then it jumps to Dante speaking to Blaise. It's just jarring. Overall, I look forward to what Thiede writes next - clearly we both have a love of romance and fantasy - but this one missed the mark for me.

After reading the first book in this duology I was looking for the riveting story to continue but sadly this second foray into this world was filled with angst, pettiness and many times just plain boring. It did give us some closure from the story in book 1 which without this book you would assume they would have to keep fighting for survival every 7 years but this could have been done as a novella with better results IMHO since I felt large portions of this book were filler or useless drama. I wanted to give this book at least 4 stars but when you compare it to the first book which was a "can't put it down" story, this one was closer to a punishment than a pleasure so sadly I am giving it 3 stars and wishing it would have been more.

Thank you to Emily Thiede and Wednesday Books for this ARC!

To be honest, this book took me forever to be into. It has been a while since I read the first book, so it took me a minute to remember what all had happened.

However, after remembering, it was such a good read. The character development of all of the characters was amazing - especially the ones we’ve met already in the first book. Alessa and Dante are so cute and I thought it was interesting to watch their relationship evolve and each of them struggle with their own insecurities.

The new characters were equally interesting to me and that ending!! So good!

Overall a solid sequel. This installment didn’t captivate me as much as the first, but the individual character development was really beautifully done, and it was interesting to see a fuller picture of the world.

Rating: 4.50/5.00. Recommendation: Absolutely read this duology! Especially if you love found family and a great slow burn with tension.

I missed these characters so much!! Sorry for the length of this review in advance :)

Out of Context Notes on my Kindle while reading
“I love how gay this is,” “I love them so much,” “Kill me ;)”, “I love a petty naked standoff,” & “CACKLING”

Summary
This Cursed Light is the second book in The Last Finestra duology. Dante and Alessa barely survived the first apocalyptic event and have hardly caught their breath before racing to prevent another world-ending catastrophe. The gods in this world manipulate the humans and you can BET this endangers everyone again. Alessa and crew are on an expedition to locate the long lost ghiotte to fix Dante and recruit them to their cause. Will the ghiotte be able to move forward after being banished from society? And will their army be enough?

Characters
One of the reasons I fell in love with this duology is because I feel at home with these characters. Every character we meet is just looking for somewhere to belong. I really relate to that - and I imagine a lot of readers do. This is FOUND FAMILY to the max and it’s one of my favs. Everyone is so funny/snarky and GAY and I love every one of them. Also, I can really tell Emily Thiede has been to therapy and enjoy the level of emotional intelligence displayed in the book.

Alessa is still growing into her role as Finestra; her success during the first event has helped to build her confidence. However, what happened to Dante still haunts her and Dante’s dangerous behavior has her on edge. Dante is struggling to operate in a world where he’s no longer self-healing; he previously felt unworthy of his relationship with Alessa because he was in a lower social class. Now, he’s lost his powers and can’t even protect her - he’s continually trying to prove he’s good enough. Not only do they have a physical barrier to their relationship, but a mental one as well. Will their love be enough to survive?

I loved getting to see Alessa’s relationship with her brother (Adrick) evolve in this book. The scenes between Adrick and Kaleb were SO GOOD and tbh, I need more of them. Also, Talia and Kamaria!! NEED MORE. They’re both so feisty.

Plot
The plot moved quickly in my opinion. It was nice to see the perspective on the aftermath of the first event; I feel like this is left out of a lot of other fantasy serieses. The journey to locate the ghiotte was challenging but didn’t take too long. The ghiotte’s location is still clear in my mind. I wish we had more time at the end; it felt a bit rushed. I think 50 more pages could have been helpful. But the epilogue was also beautiful and tied a nice bow on the end.

Thank you to NetGalley & Wednesday Books for providing the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

5/5 stars
Recommended if you like: fantasy, magic, grumpy x sunshine, prophecies, found family

This review has been posted to Goodreads as of 10/6 and has been posted to my book blog and Instagram as of 10/19.

I was so excited to receive this and dive back into Alessa and Dante's world! This book picks up several months after the ending of TVG. The Duo Divina, Alessa and Kaleb, made their trip to the other sanctuary island once things had calmed down on Saverio and Dante had healed somewhat. But despite the seeming calmness that has returned post-Divorando, things are not all sunshine and lemon trees. Both Dante and Alessa have a sense of something being...off, and while Dante is convinced something bigger is coming, Alessa is hoping things will settle down and she can just be normal.

The people of Saverio seem to have totally forgotten they wanted to kill Alessa before the Divorando because everyone seems to be thrilled to be invited to the Finestra's celebrations and interested in at least knowing her on a surface level. The control and understanding of her abilities that Alessa found by the end of the last book means that she's really able to come out of her shell in this one, though the ingrained sense of obedience and 'everyone over me' mentality still peeks through at times. But! Alessa is able to hug her brother and her grandparents! Adrick and Alessa do have some bridges to mend in their relationship (and by 'they' I mean 'Adrick', lol). It was actually kind of surprising to see how OK Alessa was with Adrick throughout this book, even if Kaleb and Dante weren't quite there yet (and speaking of Adrick and Kaleb, a novella about their misadventures would be wonderful). I'm pleased to say we do meet Nonna in this book, which I was hoping for.

Alessa does get a chance to be more of a normal girl in this one. She finally has friends in the form of her Fontes, and that group is just as tight-knit and humorous as in the first book. I absolutely love seeing the group together, or at least mostly together, and we get some good scenes with them interacting and having each other's backs. I'm also pleased to say that the Kaleb-Dante friendship is still alive and well, lol. Alessa still struggles with the whole 'not touching' thing, though that's largely in the past, and is clearly still scarred from her isolated adolescence. She's still the funny and clumsy girl we know and love from book 1, but her struggles have matured with her and there's a new sense of confidence in her.

Alessa and Dante are still going strong in this one, though they have moments where things are a little shaky. Both are dealing with issues of self-worth, Alessa's brought on by her past and Dante's by the side-effects of the ending of TVG.

Where the first book focused on the Finestra and Fontes, this book focuses more on the ghiotte, which means traveling away from Saverio. The first book was Alessa's story and journey, and while she is still a main character in this one and has her own things going on, this book is about Dante's journey and him coming into himself. It was definitely interesting to see how the ghiotte culture and customs were different from those on Saverio. Since the group was persecuted, they're very tight-knit and wary of outsiders, especially the 'blessed.' A lot of the ghiotte are fairly young and, since they're essentially invincible, they engage in a lot of the kind of behaviors you would expect of invincible teens and 20-somethings.

Dante, as mentioned, is struggling with the side-effects from the end of TVG. They've abated a little bit, but he's not back to where he was before, and it's kind of looking like he won't ever be there. When it's just him and Alessa it's hard enough, but when faced with the other ghiotte, Dante's feelings of inadequacy are multiplied. I enjoyed getting to see more of Dante in the role of a trainer, and was pleased to see him in more of a leadership role this time as well. He's definitely someone that people listen to and respect, even if he doesn't always see it, and he's good at uniting two sides.

Most of the new characters are ghiotte, including some people from Dante's past. It was interesting seeing him balance his love and loyalty of Alessa + friendship with the Fontes with his sense of loyalty toward the ghiotte, particularly when Dante not only has been the only one for so long but also when he needs their help to stop the coming Big Bad. I wasn't really a fan of one ghiotte character in particular, but she sorted herself out after the 60-65% mark and by the end I liked her.

There were a couple twists at the end relating to the event that Dante kept seeing. One of the twists was one I saw coming pretty much from the beginning, but it ended up being a pretty minor one, so it didn't take away from the rest of the reveals or my enjoyment of the book. The gods definitely played dirty this time around, and imo, I feel as if this book shows Dea and Crollo aren't actually quite as opposite as everyone seems to think. I do get their frustration with how Divorando had played out for the past couple centuries, but, like, their solution is just kind of mean, lol.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and thought the ending did service to the characters. Pretty much everything/everyone I wanted to see after the end of TVG happens/appears in this one, so that was pretty satisfying. The threat in this book is new without feeling contrived, and I loved where it took the characters. After reading this book, I 100% think Kaleb deserves his own novella, I think it would be hilarious.

* Thank you NetGalley and St Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. *

I loved This Vicious Grace, and I loved This Cursed Light even more. This Vicious Grace was a beautiful first book, and a stunning debut, but This Cursed Light was everything you want in a fantasy. High stakes, found family, a love to last a lifetime. I loved seeing Alessa and Dante grow even more into themselves as people, and I loved seeing the way their group evolved and became stronger, more in-sync.

The ending just about killed me - don't worry, no spoilers. I'll just tell you that it was very intense, very emotional, and very beautiful.

Considering this is Emily Thiede's debut series, and only second novel, I'm truly excited to see what she comes up with next. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for any future books from her.

Absolutely LOVED this book. The world building in the series is seriously too tier and the characters are so compelling.

Alessa and her found family will do anything to protect each other and save the world but in such refreshingly new and interesting way! Sometimes the YA fantasy genre can be over saturated and all start to blur together for me and this series shines through.

Beautifully written and makes me want to start all over again!