Thank you Net Galley and Raven More for this arc!

I want to be upfront and say that i dnfed this book at about 40% as i am definitely not the target audience.

Fans of the Insta-love trope, touch her and die, love triangles, would probably like this book.

A huge part of my decision to DNF this book was based on the couple Elara and Varek. I could not make myself be invested in their characters and relationship due to the instalove trope. I felt that as the reader i never really understood why they loved each other, vague allusion are made but i never got a solid understanding of their relationship which makes much of the scenes that would probably read romantic to some fall flat for me.

the biggest thing i take issue with and is primarily what my reasoning for a 2 star review is the lack of world building. i’ve heard that there is some at the end of the book, but there was very little in that 40% i read which imo is not okay. bc of the severe lack of world building i struggled to ground myself in the world and become actually immersed in the story. i had so many questions constantly that are not answered or even hinted at being answered by 40%.

this world has the beginnings of what could be a really interesting gothic fantasy (it reminds me a lot of One Dark Window in its concept with fevers and such), but fell flat in a lot of ways on delivering that gothic vibe again mostly bc of the completely lack of necessary world building.

This book was very enjoyable. The romance was amazing and I enjoyed the setting and the world building so much!

I wanted to like this book so much! I love fated mates, forbidden love, a badass warrior female main character, a man who would give everything for her- but sadly this just did not do it for me. It was tough getting thrown into the story already in the middle of our two leads in love (even if they didn't say it to each other), and the language was a little too prosey for me. I DNF'ed at about 35% but will consider coming back to it with a fresh mind later!