I was really surprised with this book how quickly I was drawn into the story. I love a dark fantasy romance and this book being from the pov of the mmc was really interesting as I think most of the others I have read have always been from the females pov.

The characters have been well thought out and have such depth and personality that it made the book more enjoyable as I felt invested in the plot, and the take on elves was interesting.

While this is a standalone prequal to the rest of the series it has really made me want to read the rest of Hartcarver's books.

This book made me deeply uncomfortable. In reading the description, I didn't expect to find the callous, graphic depiction of sex slaves in the first few chapters. It was disgusting and it turned me off from the characters and the entire plot.

This fantasy romance book was a great build up and introduction to this world. The book was a slow start, and more descriptive words about the world would have been appreciated. At the beginning I was unsure about this book but you have to preserver with it. It’s more fantasy than romance and I am interested in what happens next in this world. By the end of the book you just start to build up the characters and this leaves you hungry for more.

Thank you to Netgalley and Dorwick Publishing for sending me an Arc of this book to review.
There were several aspects of this book I enjoyed. I thought the world building was interesting and well done. I liked that the Elves in this book were different from other books I’ve read. I wanted to know more about the Elves and tainted bloodlines. Overall this was a solid fantasy with an interesting premise, and I will continue to read the series as it is released.
There were a few things about the book I wasn’t a huge fan of. I found the pacing to be slow and I had a hard time getting into the book. It didn’t pick up until about half way through. I also didn’t connect with the characters very much. I found Arson to just be a brute who was only motivated by sex. I also didn’t fully understand the motivation behind Hanhelins actions which made it hard for me to care about her. I wish there was more to the Haus and Tobas storyline. I got the impression it would be more important than it was based on the set up, but it kinda fell flat for me.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. Unfortunately the interesting premise of this book did not hold up to the execution of it.

TW: Rape, attempted rape, gore.

Beware, there will be spoilers....

Sure you want to keep reading....

Ok, here we go.

I struggled to read this book and make it all the way through. I was really intrigued by the premise of the story and excited to dive in. But from the first chapter, the dialogue felt stilted and unrealistic. Or rather, the dialogue throughout the book was written to sound like speech, but dialogue in a novel should be used as a device to convey character, move plot forward, provide subtext etc. It was just too on the nose, it took me right out of the story.

There was a general lack of strong characterization for all main characters. Arson seemed to become less likeable as the book went on? I thought he would be a more sympathetic figure from the opening chapters but then he became less and less likeable as he pursued his kidnapping and rape of a bride, any bride.

And that leads to the biggest problem of the book. It is absolutely obsessed with the pursuit of sex, consensual or not. That seems to be Arson and his brothers only motivation, and it was one that is introduced by their father Haus very suddenly that seems to contradict everything he has instilled in them. The brothers are nearly indistinguishable, other than Poison being more loud and annoying and violent than the others.

The action scenes were likely the best part of the book for me. Visual and well-paced.

Hanhelin's characterization is all over the place. Her motivations and goals and desires seem to change constantly. I did not get any sense of her desire or 'love' for Arson, just that she was capitulating to marry him because she felt obliged to give him sex since he saved her life. And then somehow that becomes 'love' with big, big air quotes. Unfortunately, I found the execution of this novel to be unsuccessful and did not fulfill the promise made in the premise description.

So my most recent book is a genre that I don’t normally dive into but figured I’d give a try. A Basket of Devils by J.C. Hartcarver is a Dark Fantasy Romance novel with an enemies-to-lovers type of story. It focuses on an elf named Arson raised by a human with his three brothers as assassins. They find their lives changed when they learn they are elves and decide to find wives in the far away kingdom of Norr. The rules are different there leading them to conflict as they are not welcomed because of a cursed bloodline that they possibly carry known as the Overseas Taint. As this is a prequel book and the start of a new series from this author, it worked out as a perfect starting point for me as I learned about the kingdom of Norr and found myself loving the world-building the more I got into it. I also found myself caring for the characters and invested in the decisions they made along the way. For those of you looking for it, this book also has plenty of steamy moments and while without spoiling I’ll say there’s a bitter ending, I'm excited to see where this story goes and probably will look into the original Sufferborn trilogy after this. A Basket of Devils by J.C. Hartcarver is out today.

Thanks, Netgalley and Publisher for the opportunity to read and review!
What I enjoyed most to be honest is the diversity between the elves. We have elves literally from different nations and I enjoyed learning little by little about the different species. However the smutty plot centered around sexual themes and motivations, especially of the 4 brothers just isn't my cup of tea! There's no actual romance either.

Thank you to NetGalley who sent me an early ARC copy in exchange for a fair review.

Rating: 1.5/5* rounded to 2*

Spoiler towards end

The book was sold as a dark romance fantasy adventure book, with the premice of a shady Lord - Haus-  raising 4 inhuman children - Posion, Bludegeon, Bleed, and Arson - found at sea as devil's to be his assassins. Haus later discovers they are actually elves, so wants his sons to have wives to breed an army for him.

This plot line would of actually been interesting. However the book is just following the main character Arson (the youngest of the 4 quadruplets) around deciding that he has every right to just kidnap a random elf women to make his wife. Him and his brothers are determined to gets wives so they can get the "satisfaction" they need, and view the women as nothing more. Arson proceeds to kidnap women, rape one and refuse to pull out when asked then go on to try to rape the women he decides he's in love with (who randomly decides she loves him back cos he stopped her being killed by a troll or something). There are hints that he knows this is bad, but that's the end of it. He never changes his mind, and for example only cares that his brother kidnapped a women whos a mother and wife, raped her, tied her up and bares no thought to her injuries, because his "wife" was angry at him about it. The only character motivation is sex (except for the female protagonist which is knowledge but that has its own set of issues I shall get to) literally every other character the only motivation is sex. The brothers, sex. The female handmaid, sex. How the society functions, who is worthy of sex. The overall view of women in this book is appalling, and so is the view of men. The men in the elves culture constantly wear revealling clothing, are threatened with castration, and any form of self pleasure is a sin. The main motivation for the brothers in the beginning is a "pleasure box", a box with a servant inside to give them blowjobs when they do a good job. This is literally the reason the devils enjoy their mission, and in the beginning the oldest son once again tries to rape her. Despite all this though, the female servant still likes the devils? Throughout the female characters still decide they love all the males and want these horribly abusive figures. I genuinely thought this book must of been written by a man, so imagine my shock when I found out it was a women. The main female character Henhelim is obsessed with the over seas taint found in the devil's, and is determined to find out all she can and eradicate it. Now I might just be in an uncharitable mood considering the rest of this book, but it all just screams eugenics and racism, with the need to remove the "taint" which causes the over elves to look different. She wants to have him restrained for ever to study him and by this point I had lost patience.

I am a fan of smutty books and dark romance but this book just read as flat characters determined to be awful to each other who change their mind's when the plot needed it. Getting to the plot, the beginning 2/3rds are very slow, and took me a long time to get through despite its short nature. The last 1/3 is the ONLY thing that brought this up from a 1* is (SPOILER) the author decided to kill of the main character Arson and actually add some excitement, even if none of the characters actions after this make sense, such as the remaining 3 brothers deciding that since 1 brother was gone they should never see each other again?

Overall this book was full of dissapointment. I cannot express how much sex is the only motivator in this book, and despite having many many sex scenes, none of them actually did anything, I just felt uncomfortable and bored. I know this book can be read as a stand alone (like I have) or as part of a series, so maybe if you read the rest you would have more joy, but I can't imagine so. The book is full of 1D characters, easy to guess plots and twists, and tell not show writing. I know the author is self published, and I normally hate leaving a negative review but I can't get over all the issues with this book.

This was a very intriguing book from the start, it had a very clever writing style. I really enjoyed reading this book, especially as I ended up reading this book in two days. The characters within this book were very interesting. The author has created characters that had some intriguing depth to them, also with what they had to go through the characters developed nicely throughout the book. The story line of the book was very intriguing and nice to read. I really enjoyed the ending of the book.

This was a great book, a universe that can be expanded greatly! It’s such a good fanasty book with elves of different origins. Considering it’s a short book, there is much that it covers and it creates a new world that will be new to many readers.

I also really like the visuals for each chapter additionally the chapter names, small but little things that pull the book together.

I personally enjoy shorter chapters but the longer chapters did not feel like it took ages to get through since it was so captivating.

Overall such a good book - 8.5/10

#netgalley

This is a really solid fantasy read!

The book got off to a slow start for me. There was a lot of world building and geography to get the story going. It did pick up quite a bit about 2/3 of the way through the story. Things got stressful near the end!

I really enjoyed getting to learn the history of the world. Although the book was slow, it set a very solid foundation for the world and the story going forward. There is so much potential for where the future stories go and who they follow. I'm excited to see what happens in future books.

Wow loved this book. Grabbed right from the beginning. Love. The characters and the story line. Cannot wait to read more books from this author. I would highly reccomend this book. Will definitely continute to follow this series, hopefully it is as good as its prequel.