Thank you to Netgalley and publisher for an arc in exchange for my thoughts.

Publication: January 23, 2024

Rating: 2.5 stars

I'm so bummed that I didn't enjoy this book more and thankfully it seems like I may be the outlier. I loved the plot, the characters and all the diverse representations. The biggest thing that killed me for this was the way the story was written. The writing style lacked any "showing" depth. There was one scene where Rayan tells Yeeran that he has never seen her so mad. I had no idea that there was that level of anger.

Overall, definitely a book worth trying for yourself, however, I struggled with the lack of showing within the writing.

Faebound is a highly anticipated adult fantasy that comes out January 2024.

This story follows two Elven sisters - Yeeran and Lettle - in a world where Elves, Fae, and humans once existed, but only the Elven remain. The impossible happens when sisters become imprisoned by the long lost fae court.

This is a fast-paced fantasy with a diverse cast of characters. Faebound includes a sapphic romance, dual pov (both sisters), unique magic system, lovable magical creatures, and is inclusive of all types of people.

I feel like while it is an adult fantasy, the writing had somewhat of a YA style and was a quick read with some interesting twists.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Del Rey for the digital arc. All opinions are my own.

What a fun and captivating romantasy to start the new year with. This sapphic story really brought it with its own creation story, history, and political intrigue. I can’t wait to see what happens next. If you are nursing a book slump, pick this one up and be ready to wish the next book comes soon.

This book was EVERYTHING!

An absolute powerhouse and mesmerizing fantasy to kick off what I am sure will be an incredible trilogy. In this world, there are three species: Humans, Fae, and Elves. Fae and humans are extinct, and the Elves are the only remaining species, divided into tribes and locked for centuries in the Forever War. Our two protagonists are Lettle and Yeeran, Elven sisters who are seeking their paths to power, hoping to bring peace to their people. The sisters are fierce, powerful, and intelligent, and all around the FMC's that you LOVE to see and can't help but root for.

There is something so magical about following where this story leads you so I highly recommend going in blind - the twists and secrets were beautifully incorporated and brilliant. The world building, magic system, and creativity of this novel blew me away. The fantasy, and overall, romantasy genre, in many ways has become almost algorithmic in its approach and can feel redundant, and this book was anything but formulaic, and instead felt completely fresh and unique in almost every way.

A few highlights for me that make this a standout fantasy novel and one of the best fantasy books I've read: Afro/Arab world and characters, queer-normativity, women leaders/warriors/rulers, the pace, sapphic romance, slow-burn romance, unique magic system, and did I mention already, how GOOD the world-building is. *Chef's kiss.*

My only critique would be I would have loved a touch more character development for our central characters before the plot really heated up. But alas, we trust in the trilogy process and hopefully will get to dive deeper into the main characters in the books to come.

Thank you so much NetGalley and Random House Publishing for this ARC. This book was a joy to read. Now excuse me while I tell everyone to read this book asap!

I want to start off by giving a big thank you to @netgalley and random House publishing group for giving me the opportunity to read this arc!

Fae, elves, and humans, three gods. A world at war and who is going to stop it. This book throws you into a world at war, along with love, betrayal, and magic.

I loved all the characters, lettle, yeeran, rayan, furi being some of the main characters. In this book your really get to discover who they are and start to like and dislike based on the story. I found the begging a bit hard to get into being thrown right into a romance, I was trying to grasp what was really going on. The world building I found was more descriptive when it came to the fae lands, I wanted to know more about the lands of the other tribes.

I had a love hate relationship with yeeran and furi...but so did they😂

Overall I gave this a 4 star read as I really enjoyed it. The more I read the more I became attached...now I'm looking forward to the second book in this story!!

When I saw this book being promoted, the person mentioned that it would be THE fantasy book of 2024. After reading, ohmygoodness, I 100% agree!

This book was a breath of fresh air when it comes to a fantasy romance. The way the plot was the absolute main focus and didn’t stray its course when relationships were devolving or perhaps breaking apart was stellar. The world building was perfect, and I really really love that the fantasy and the romance each did not take away from each other. This book really details the gross and disgusting things about war and how the many people cast their judgement upon others simply because they are on the opposite side.

The way the author captured how the war ravaged on for so long, and how it has destroyed so much was devastating. The elven have continued fighting for so long, even after they believed the fae and humans to be gone. I found myself sympathizing with the elven and the fae, because each had their own suffering (with so much misunderstanding in the present between them).

Yeeran was a badass character who was faced with many hard decisions, when all she wanted was to fight for peace and to keep her sister safe. I loved her development and who she fell for in the end, but my heart broke when she made the final decision at the end of the book (please I need a second).

Little was absolutely my favorite character, especially when her personality and stubbornness shown through. She never lost sight of what she wanted and also what she wanted to avoid. She sought out GROWTH in a world that was destined to continuously bring her down (especially when they ended up with the fae.) this book highlighted so much prejudice against the elven, but Lettie continued on. I loved her character development, especially toward the end when she finally got what she wanted from a certain character.

I will add that I would love just a bit more depth into the important side characters that have been woven into the main characters story.

The scars of their life had fused them together.

Wow, for being a 400ish page, it took me a long time to finish this book. My initial reaction is that I liked it AND I am not sure I am excited for the rest of the series.

Plot- 3.5/5🔆
Spice- 1ish/5🌶️
Romance-0/5💗

Ok, so first of all, Pila is my favorite character. She is the only one who has REAL TALK. Puts people in their place. The rest of the characters felt pretty complex. I went from liking them to being annoyed pretty quickly. They are older characters which I love, but unfortunately they all act young. One in particular loves to throw tantrums, yes we are looking at you Lettle. No one is ever on the same page with each other, and it felt like all the characters were bumping off of each other the entire time, like a pin ball game. I love chemistry and banter, and I think I felt like it was missing that.

The plot is intense. There feels like a lot of details are provided, which is why I felt like this was a slower read. I really thought I had the whole story figured out but the last 20 % of the book was one plot twist after another. That was a pleasant surprise.

Lastly, I can't mentally picture drumfire without giggling. Thinking of Yeeran tippy tapping her fingers to try and kill someone is just silly. It feels like that cannot be a serious tool for war. But anyways..

This book has great representation of people with disability and LGBTQ+. I would say this book is way more fantasy than romance. In fact the "romance" in the book seemed to be just an accidental thing that happens, rather than a plot point.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for this arc in exchange for an honest review!

So I wanted to love this book, but I ended up just liking it.

There are problems that I have the world building that had me wanting to give up for the first 30% of the book (how can there be 1000 years of war? What economy could withstand this? No one explains why the resource is needed.) These are things that still haunt me after completing the book.

I felt like I was part of Mystery Incorporated because many of the prophecies and clues woven throughout the story seemed so obvious that when things are revealed everyone should be able to know who is under the mask at the end of the story.

These issues aside, I found myself invested enough to enjoy things as they unraveled. The characters are likable enough, if a little single minded. Anything with animal companions will pull on my heartstrings, and the Obeah did that for me.

Overall, I can see this being a very enjoyable new fantasy series. The politics, sapphic rivals to lovers, the magic system will be very satisfying for the right person.

Genuinely one of the best fantasy books I’ve read in maybe two years. It was immersive but easy to follow. I fell in love with Yeeran and Lettle and even Rayan. I learned to love other characters as the plot grew (don’t want to put any spoilers of who) the world building was unique and so cool and the drum magic was a great addition! I am gutted I have to wait for book 2 because this one isn’t even out yet 😭 I can not wait to devour this entire series (and get physical copies to put on my shelf)

I loved the Final Strife by El-Arifi, so I knew I'd love this book, even if it's a little outside my usual genre of choice. Even for a romantasy, I enjoyed this book so much! The characters were well fleshed out, unique, all with great representation for LGBTQIA+ communities. I liked not knowing who the villain was because multiple people were suspicious. The twist at the end was a great way to end the book. I'll keep an eye out for the next one.

Any kind of war in fantasy books tend to lose my interest at times. However, this one hooked me from that first fight. It kept me on edge and from there the story takes off. It follows two sisters and we get each of their POV. Unique worldbuilding, amazing character development, but it missed the mark a bit with the magic system not being fully explained in the beginning. It took me a few chapters in till I understood it a bit better. This book is also a bit predictable, you will easily know what is coming. With that being said I do not doubt people will be loving this book and might become one of the top books for 2024. Can't wait to see what more comes our way.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing for this eARC.

ARC Review:
Mind blowing.
The world building in this novel is phenomenal. It is so intricate and detailed when many books lack this. The concepts of having the different elf tribes in the forever war and the use of killing animals to harbor magic. Seeing poverty and starvation. Children being expected to participate in this war.
Lettle having a disfigurement to do plague. The plot twists were also amazing and unexpected. I would have never imagined killing the obeah would also mean killing the fae bounded to it. The prophecies Lettle making coming true leading to the murder of the queens and Komi being murdered by Rayan as well. Also Rayan being king and Lettle still falling in love with someone she is suppose to end one day. The relationship between Yerran and Furi is beautiful, Furi still fell for her despite Yerran accidentally ending her brothers life. Also all the Elf’s are now tied to Mosima for various reasons. I’m excited to see how going back to her tribe goes for Yerran and the future of her and Furi’s relationship. I’m also excited but scared for Rayan and Lettle.

A phenomenal addition to any romantasy lover's bookshelf from powerhouse author, Saara El-Arifi! The characters were charming, the emotions deeply felt, and the world-building tight! I cannot wait to hand sell this one in the store, and I am eagerly awaiting the next installment in the series!

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

I haven't read anything by Saafa El-Arifi before this... and I think that may have been a mistake on my part.
I DEVOURED this book in less then 48 hours.
It was that good. The world building was easy to understand and grasp. The book had love, passion, friendship, sisterhood, enemies, fae creature's, elves and so much more! I'm excited to hear this is a trilogy because I can't wait until the next book is released!

It's a 2/5 on the spice chart
And a 5/5 stars!

Highly recommend!

Thank you Random House publishing for this arc in exchange for an honest review! I really enjoyed this read! The storyline, the mystery, the romance, the magic…this book had it all! The world building was so easy to grasp and pulled you in to their world. I will say though, the twists were pretty predictable and I was able to sort of figure it all out before the twists actually came.

Will definitely be recommending this book to others!

I haven’t read any of Saara El-Arifi’s other books but now that I’ve finished this one I’ll definitely be picking up more of her work! I LOVE the world she’s created and can’t wait for the rest of the series to come out. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is one of my favorite books of the year. I give it 4.75 stars because, even with the notes I have below, I think the story was really easy to get into and I found the world fascinating. I loved the relationships, I loved the architecture and world building, I loved the creatures/animals, I loved the diverse scope of characters, and I loved the variety magic and magic wielding.

Without giving too much away, some of my favorite characters were the fae creatures, but I’m really excited to read other perspectives in book 2. My only two flags with Faebound are the prophecies and some sudden decisions that didn’t make sense to me or lacked consequences. In terms of the prophecies, though I enjoyed solving them along with the characters, I felt they were maybe too simple. As the reader I felt I was solving them faster than the decade-trained seer.

When it came to character decisions, they seemed emotionally charged rather than logic-based (especially for high ranking military officials). I believe the characters were in their late 20s/early-mid 30s but their actions were more in line with teenagers a lot of times. This set in for me toward the end with one big decision that was clearly intended to set up the next book, but felt more emotionally impulsive than a well weighted out and thought-through change of heart (particularly since it’d already been stated multiple times that “the council will not approve” of said decision). I really hope the next book addresses the consequences of these characters’ actions more.

I really hope to see the quirks worked out in the following book and would love to be able to give the next ones 5+ stars!

Thank you NetGalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

AMAZING !!! This is the first book of a new trilogy by Saara El-Arifi and I couldn’t put it down. The world and characters that she has created has me counting down the days till book 2 and I don’t even know when that is.

Two elven sisters Yeeran and Lettle find themselves alongside the Fae. In a world they believed no longer existed in the midst of a forever war. What will their future hold you just have to read to find out.

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

3.5 rounded up.

I had mixed expectations for this one - Saara el-Arifi's Ending Fire trilogy is, thus far, one of my favorite fantasy series, but I am not a romantasy girl. I went in knowing there would be romance as a lead storyline, but I had higher expectations than I do for a normal romantasy book, because Saara's world building in Ending Fire was so great. I would say this book met my mixed expectations for that reason.

The world building in this book is great. The magic is so unique, and the different worlds she creates with the fae and the elves are so distinct. I truly wanted to learn more about them. This aspect was top notch.

The romance was... not great. It felt very insta-love, and one of the relationships I just did not understand where the feelings came from. The sex scenes are VERY well done, if I do say so myself, but they didn't add to the emotions of the relationship for me.

Will I continue this series? Absolutely. I love Saara too much not to. Will it be one of my first suggestions when people ask for fantasy book recs? No. I think your mileage may vary with this one based on your interest in romance as a main plot of a book!

Thank you to Del Rey and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I think calling this a romantasy might be a bit of a stretch (so romantasy fans, be aware that there are only 3 sex scenes and they’re rather short and all in the last ~25% of the book). And I think our MC Yeeran is a little too brainwashed for a little too long, which makes the middle section when we’re exploring fae territory drag considerably. However, the politics and worldbuilding were kind of fascinating and it was really interesting to see how the differences between fae and elven lifestyles impacted two very different kinds of people (with Yeeran giving us the military perspective and Lettle the more spiritual).

The main problem I had was just how static the story feels once we reached the fae court. The conversations get repetitive and one of the major twists is super obvious (I mean, it’s a fantasy, so is it meant to be a twist? It surprises our POV characters, at least, so I feel like it should also have maybe surprised the reader too).

Though I do think that the setup at the end will lead book two to more epic heights!

Final rating: 2.5/5 (rounded up)

I’m so mad. I wanted to fall head over heels for this book. I recently read The final strife and I really liked those first two books, but this one missed the mark for me.
I struggled a lot to get fully invested into this book and its world. The beginning felt rushed, and it made me feel disconnected from the characters because it was so focused on the world building. However, it picks up around 30% and the book is very fast-paced the rest of the way.
My favorite thing about this book, and probably the only thing that made me kept reading, was the magic system. It was phenomenal, despite a few inconsistencies. Everything felt special and unique, but my lack of interest for the plot or the characters ruined the reading experience.
It was awfully predictable, mostly because the plot was something I’ve seen before so many times, there was no actual shock value here.
The characters acted like teenagers even though they were older, and I was annoyed the whole time about every decision they made.
Overall, an underwhelming book. I really don’t think I’ll be continuing this series.

Read if you like:
- Arab-African inspired romantasy
- Enemies to lovers
- Dual POV
- Queernormative world
- Disability rep
- Magical beasts

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My review will be posted on Goodreads on publication day.
Pub Date: 23 Jan 2024

Thank you to Netgalley, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Del Rey and the author for giving me the chance to read this advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.