Thank you so much to NetGalley, Tiny Fox Press, and Fiona Fenn for this ARC!
*all opinions are my own*

Cursed and sorrowful goth daddy, brooding sorcerer, Orpheus, may radiate an aura of misery, but all he truly needs is love and a more positive crowd of friends who can appreciate him for who he is. Enter General Fenrir Ryker, a man whose sun-drenched personality could easily land him captain of any cheer squad. With a smile so dazzling it practically screams "Colgate sponsorship," Fenrir’s charm and boundless optimism are impossible to ignore, making it difficult for our grumpy sorcerer not to fall for his irresistible charms.

Honestly, to me, Orpheus felt more like a villain by association than someone truly evil. He’s a softy at heart, just shaped by a rough upbringing. I might be biased, though, I tend to side with the villains’ point of view more often than not.
This enemies-to-lovers, grumpy-sunshine story had me giggling and laughing hysterically at their antics and dialogue, but it also gave me plenty of moments where I definitely needed a tissue or two. It’s cozy and romantic, with just enough thrill to keep you on the edge of your seat, plus, dragons! (Though I might be biased, because any story with dragons immediately piques my interest.)

Fiona’s story captivated me from the very beginning. With its amazing plot, wonderful characters, and a post-apocalyptic world that often gave me clockpunk vibes, it’s simply fascinating. Da Vinci would be proud of the inventions in this book, especially Achates, a Netherflame-powered horse that I’m sure would leave him in awe. The interludes between backstory and present action felt like watching the curtain rise and fall at an opera. I can’t believe this is her debut novel! It’s definitely going on my list of books I wish I could read again for the first time.

I think this is probably the first thing I read in a long time that has some steampunk vibes to it and, I got to say, it was a pleasant surprise.

This book... How would I put it? It´s not what I thought it would be. But not in a bad way, I actually found myself enjoying it quite a bit, starting with the two main characters, Orpheus and Fenrir: Their dynamic, specially at the beginning, felt very funny and YA. It´s the classic troupe of a protagonist who hates the other for some random reason, while the other character is actually a nice person and actually has a crush on him (we say yes to missunderstandments here).
The story begins with Orpheus being cursed by his own hand (apparently) and having been thrown out of palace by his best friend Lore (I pause here to say that I loved the flashbacks with Lore; I think it were all perfect to understand her character, since she didn´t appear that much in the present overall). Fenrir goes with him... for some unknown reason (though it´s pretty obvious it is for protection).
Anyway, I won´t say how the curse thing was solved, but I was satisfied. This book has its own found family (or found place, more like), some epic fights with dragons and a cozy plot where the protagonists need to close a crack in Hell so no one else dies.
I recommend if you like reading fantasy / sci fi and like the dinamic of idiots to lovers. Cause that´s what we really got here, not really enemies.

4 ⭐️
Loovved!! I loved the world built in this book and the journey we was taken on! The mc is likeable and the love interest is just as great. I love that lgbt+ relationships are being incorporated more into books and this one was well done!!

#NetGalley

Thank you to NetGalley and Tiny Fox Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Crack at the Heart of Everything is a book that bounced around in my brain for a while as I tried to decided how to rate it, and ultimately I landed at about the 3 star mark.

Overall, I did enjoy this book. It was a fun read, but it also had a lot of emotional depth to it. If you are looking for a misunderstood villain in a LGBTQ+ romance with adventure, action, some hell-beasts - you found it, I would recommend it.

Orpheus has accidentally cursed himself when he raised an army of hell-beasts, endangering those in the palace. Orpheus finds himself banished to a life outside of palace walls. His rival - the palace's general, follows him into his banishment, and steps between him and certain doom constantly. Orpheus begins to warm to the general and his persistent need to help, all while he struggles with understanding the world and making better choices.

When I picked up this review, I was promised a villain on a journey of redemption and love. However, Orpheus is not truly the villain he is made out to be in the marketing. Is he the best person? No. Is he a villain? No, he is far from it. He is a man who made some bad decisions that haunted his life, and was then labeled a villain in other people eyes because of it. Orpheus, in all honesty, was just a naive boy making choices without understanding the butterfly effect. If that makes him a villain, than so be it.

The writing itself was good. I felt that it had the correct amount of banter, and a bit of humor that made it enjoyable to read. I like a book that can give me a good giggle, and this one did.

There was an extreme depth to all of the emotions that occurred in this book, making me sad when needed, making me feel for the character at exactly the right moments. However, what did not work for me, was that I never felt like I understood the love interest as a character. I couldn't understand his motivations. When his motivations became clear, I still felt like I had needed more to fall in love with his character, as charismatic as he was. I wanted to care for him, and I didn't.

The world was also set in a very dystopian, post apocalyptic version of our own - something I wish I had known before picking the book up. It raised a lot of questions for me, and that could have been solved with just a slight bit more world building.

As a debut novel goes, this is a good one.

4.5/5 stars
After a bit of a slow start, this novel grabbed me at about 10% in after some world building, character introduction, and story setting. Orpheus is a mage with a dark history that is alluded to thru the flashback interludes and Fenrir seems to be the sunniest hero. There is a lot of tension between the main characters (there is a nickname) and some friendships earned along the way. I have a soft spot for animal companions, especially when you get to know them along the way.

The Crack at the Heart of Everything is a futuristic fantasy with a journey that begins with Orpheus’s banishment, has some monsters including a dragon, and builds upon the meaning of heroes and self-sacrifice.

I was given a copy by the publisher via NetGalley (thank you!) and all opinions are my own.

Have you ever found yourself feeling empathy for the villian of a story? Did you ever wonder what their backstory is? If they were given the opportunity to do things differently, would they redeem themselves? Fiona Fenn explores these questions in this book, with heartfelt compassion and love.

Written in Orpheus's POV, this book is a solid character driven story. You as a reader, are bringing the pieces together alongside Orpheus in understanding the timeline and setting of the story. This is a book you do have to buckle-up and stick-to-it if you're confused about things at first, the author does write with intention and a plan. Things do fall in place as you continue to read, be patient!

I felt like Orpheus himself is a wonderfully crafted character. His backstory, his journey through the book, is done very well. I found myself growing in empathy for this character, and was rooting for him as the story progressed. There were moments I found myself misty-eyed when I was reading. The romance in this book is a slow burn, rivals-to-lovers situation. And it complements Orpheus growth as a character.

The Crack at the Heart of Everything is a wonderful story unlike anything I've read before. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since reading it and I highly recommend it!

It's a great debut novel with likable characters, significant worldbuilding, nice pairing and an interesting plot.

I really like the worldbuilding in this book and especially love that the side characters are not just npcs but actually have their own "soul" in the story making them interesting (though I would've like to get to know them better). The romance between Orpheus and Fenrir was really heart warming and I really enjoyed how it was shown in the story. That being said, I guess I just wanted it where Orpheus is shown as more of a monster and how terrible of a villain he was which would've made more of an impact in his redemption and I think having that contrast of bad and good would have given it more depth to the story. Overall, it was a great quick read and would definitely recommend.

I thought this was a fun read!

I thought it blended fantasy and sci-fi really well. It was an exciting adventure full of banter, drama and a cute little slow-burn romance.

Orpheus is quite a captivating main character and I have to say I kind of loved him from very early on. At his very heart, he's just an awkward nerd and that makes him very endearing. His love interest, though... Please Fenrir is so lovable from his very first introduction onwards. He's the sort of cheeky, strong and handsome hero that's fairly typical within the Fantasy and Sci-fi genres, however he's so well written that he had my heart immediately.

Even though I loved the plot as whole, the world building was a lot as first and it took me a while to get into it. I'm so glad I pushed through the set-up, though because the adventure that followed was well worth it!

I loved Orpheus's journey. So sheltered and traumatized, he doesn't even realize that he doesn't know anything and it's rather beautiful to watch him explore not only the world but himself as well. I only wish we had a bit more of a look into Fenrir's story as the romance aspect hinges quite a bit on his feelings and I wish I understood them better. But the overall world-building is fantastic and the parallel unfolding of Orpheus's history and the current predicament is wonderfully crafted. I found myself deeply invested in both aspects. This was an incredibly creative world and premise that I don't want to say too much about since there is so much in the discovery, but I loved what it ultimately has to say about humans and our societies.

"You said, once, that empires aren’t built without bloodshed, and you weren’t wrong. But the people I was fighting... they were trying to escape this. They didn’t want our land or our food or our grid, they were running for their lives, and if we hadn’t been so scared of protecting what we had, we might have seen that. It’s something I’ve thought about every day since."

(This was a review of a free advanced review copy. Thanks to Tiny Fox Press, Fiona Fenn, and NetGalley for that privilege!)

This is both a debut novel and a stand-alone, and it’s a pleasant romp about a chosen one, a queen, a knight and a dragon. There’s a slow romance with a bit of banter, but the focus is on Orpheus as he slowly realizes that the person he gave so much of his life to … never wanted him. That she was using him, and through him caused so much harm. Now he has a chance, with Fenrir, to both do something about the devastation around him as well as to become a different person.

Where Lore wanted obedience and used shame and guilt to keep Orpheus pliant, Fenrir uses food and adventure. Rather than keeping Orpheus to himself, Fenrir introduces him to other people and new experiences, encourages him to be more self-sufficient. Fenrir is there when Orpheus needs him, but he’s not interested in limiting him.

Orpheus is the only point of view in the book and he’s not exactly the best at reading a room. The relationship is mostly Fenrir trying both to court Orpheus and at the same time not pressure him into anything, with Orpheus eventually realizing … hey, are you flirting with me? Am I, am I flirting back? It’s cute.

The pacing suffers, though. By the time Orpheus and Fenrir move on to the plot, there’s less than a third of the book left and they end up racing to the end, and while things do happen, they don’t feel as if they have any real weight or are all that much of a hindrance to the characters.

Still, this was fun. Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for granting me an ARC!

I love everything sci-fi and lgbtq+, so I ate this book up. I loved Orpheus and Fenrir’s relationship, though it was slightly insta-lovey. I thought Orpheus was going to be more villainous than his character was written, but I’m pleasantly surprised with how everything turned out. This book was the perfect length. I love a good standalone fantasy, where you don’t have to invest in 5-6 books to understand the story. This book is a solid 4 stars for me. I would absolutely read another book by this author.

Oh I did not expect this book to blow me away like it did.

The novel starts and the end of the story: the battle is won, the army is returning victorious, and peace will settle across the land - right? Usually, I'm not a fan of books that start a the typical "end" of the story, because it tends to lead to excessive info dumping, and expose that pulls you right out of the flow. But Fiona Fenn introduces us to this hell-soaked post-apoclyptic world through the narrative of Orpheus, a "dark wizard" who we gradually realise is learning about the reality of the world he lives in along side us as readers.

I <i> loved </i> Orpheus. His relentless love for Lore (and eventually everyone who even shows him a drop of kindness), his spiky exterior, his zippy dialogue. Orpheus and Fenrir had so much chemistry - I can't believe Fiona Fenn has dropped us into the story so late in the development of their rival/enemy dynamic and <i> immediately </i> we can grasp that there is so more to it than Orpheus (poor naive Orpheus) realises. We can feel the years of built up tension, even though we weren't there for it, the reluctance on Orpheus' side, the quiet yearning on Fenrir's. It's tense, snarky, sweet and it ultimately they both made my heart hurt (in a good way...most of the time).

When the backstory does come it always feels natural, and not pushed upon us like "FYI you need to know this now". The interludes made me want to cry for Orpheus and wrap him up in cotton wool.

The world building was established just like the relationships, slowly, as Orpheus began to unpick pieces of the planet's history. The hell-demons were GREAT. They weren't overly described but gave me enough details to get my imagination running wild. And the imagery of a literal CRACK in the earth? Fantastic.

And PRAISE BE this book was not too long! Everything felt necessary, considered, and served the story as it needed to - this could have been spun into a 3 book epic, but I'm much more impressed with the concise and effective story telling. I'm so wowed that this is a debut!

Thank you to NetGalley and Tiny Fox Press for the electronic ARC - I will be keeping an eager eye out for what Fiona Fenn writes next!

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Crack at the Heart of Everything is a sweet standalone fantasy with a twist that recontestualizes everything we thought we knew about the story. We follow the main character Orpheus as he attempts to navigate a curse and come to terms with his evil deeds done in service of his queen, while contending with his newfound feelings for his cheerful companion and seeing the world outside for the first time.

It's a story about isolation, betrayal, and the love we can still find, no matter our circumstances. Orpheus is a compelling character, a man who only wants to do what's right, a traumatized person with self-harm tendencies. He cries often, but his tears aren't seen as a weakness, and his search for comfort is a strength. His companion slowly chips at the wall Orpheus has had to build, with his steadfulness and his great heart. This is not a romantasy, but the sweet romance grows organically, alongside with the main plot.

The worldbuilding is intriguing, snippets of the past revealing themselves slowly until the reader pieces together the truth. Some parts are still nebulous - one wonders at a few things - but the story still works. Despite the urgency and the trauma, there's also a strong cozy vibe.

The Crack at the Heart of Everything is a delightful debut.

I receive this book as an ARC

A solid 4-star. I like it and find it compelling and refreshing in both the plot and the setting.
"The Crack at the Heart of Everything" is a simple story, almost quite cosy (if you ignore the apocalypse and the literal hell on earth), with a heavy emphasis on character development and their inner struggle. Or, well, our dear protagonist Orpheus’ inner struggle.
The story is presented as being the redemption arc of a villainous wizard, but that is what Orpheus thinks is happening while in reality, the story is about a traumatized man who made poor choices in his life and his growth now that is no longer in that abusive situation.

Now, I guess, one can find Oprheus a little whiny, but a man having a 200 pages mental breakdown while he’s re-evaluating all his life choices and realizing the multiple ways life traumatized him and how he had tried to not think about them (all of this while being touch-starved) is tailormade for me so I can’t be objective about it.
Fenrir’s characterization doesn’t always work for me (for example is very good at reading Fifi and at communicating but somehow he never noticed that Orpheus was convinced that he sincerely hated him? ) but he’s a big giant sunshine loyal and heroic man so, everything is forgiven.
In general, I found the entire cast well done and on the emotional side of the story, I have very little to complain.

The plot is, in a couple of situations, a little deus-ex-machina solved or with coincidences a little too coincident, but it works and does its job. There are some clever points and some well-done foreshadowings, so while it’s an emotional and character-driven story, it’s not a slow one.
The theme of redemption and the romance would have probably enjoyed some extra scenes in the pre-exile section, but for a standalone book, and one that, for once, isn’t 500 pages, I would say the pacing is ok.

Also, whoever is calling this Insta-love hasn’t read some really famous romantasy, those are insta-love. This is a romance about one of them thinking they’re in an enemies-to-enemies situation bc they don’t have a healthy relationship to compare or any knowledge about people, while the other is already thinking about naming their children yesterday.

Now let us talk about my favourite part: THE SETTING.
Without spoilers, the setting is so interesting and refreshing, and the book is quite good at not showing all its cards right away. You start to pick the weirdness at the start but only after some time, you get the full picture. My only is that the ending of the book makes it very difficult to have more of the setting and I WANTED MORE (XD)

So yeah, I liked it and if you’re in for some hurt/comfort, you’ll be into “The Crack at the Heart of Everything" too.

Thank you to the author and Tiny Fox Press for the ARC!!! This is my honest review!

Rating: 3.75 rounded up

I really enjoyed this book! I loved the world building we got to see and the fact that it was dystopian fiction really helped me to get hooked from page one.

As far as writing goes, I really liked the interludes we got to see in between the chapters, that showcased the relationship between Orpheus and Lore. I love the writing that just gives smidges of events and has build up over time. One of the things I found a bit confusing though was that at times the writing of the sequence of events became a bit "choppy", like the author would be aware of certain events but we, as readers, would not get the same depth in the description of them, and that took away from the immersion for me a bit, without however having a big negative impact overall.

When it comes to characters, I loved Orpheus and Fenrir. Their relationship bloomed naturally and it was so good to see them getting closer. I adored the fact that Fenrir fell first and saw Orpheus as he was and also took time to get him to see that too. And Orpheus, poor man, he was so broken, but seeing him interact with Fenrir and getting to love him and himself was everything.

I did not like Lore's character though. I felt that she lacked some depth that would make her a compelling villain. Maybe if there were some more interactions with her, outside of the flashbacks, so we could see her more in action, justifying the climax of the book (but again this is my opinion entirely 😅)

Overall, it was a very enjoyable book (I literally finished it in a day) and a great debut!! Looking forward to seeing more of the author's work in the future!

this book landed somewhere around the 3 star mark for me.

this was just wasn't the book i thought i was going to be reading based on the premise that was sold. orpheus, for as much as he was marketed as a villain, was never really that much of one. yes, he had done some things that were bad, but they were done with an odd sense of naivety wherein he just wasn't aware of the true effects of his actions. orpheus was marketed as a evil sorcerer in need of redemption, but was never really actively villainous in any way and as such the redemption arc never really felt like much of one as we sympathise with orpheus very early on.

much of this book was also orpheus being emotional and weepy over the same issues over and over again. like ok, i love to see men in fantasy be emotionally vulnerable but seeing orpheus angst over the same things we had just seen him spiral over got very repetitive, very fast. fenrir was also just a little too ,,, for lack of a better word, good. we don't really get to see much of why he ticks, and why he has such an unerringly strong belief in orpheus being a good person. he just lacked a bit of nuance for me. their romance was sweet, but we miss a lot of its development. why did fenrir like orpheus in the first place? why was orpheus convinced fenrir hated him?

i also had a bone to pick with the setting of this world— once i realised it was set in a post-apocalyptic version of our own, a lot of questions were raised. where did the knowledge of industry and technology go? why use swords if guns were still an option? where did orpheus learn his magic and sigils from? why was ohm even summoned in the first place? what war was fought, and against what? as readers we are just dropped in the middle of the action, which isn't an inherently bad thing, but it made character's references to past events and the motivations and reasonings for certain actions difficult to understand.

a couple more little things that i'll admit are nit-picky— some turns of phrase were used excessively in this. in the first 20% of the book orpheus sneered in what seemed like every sentence. rim-pale was another descriptor that was used too much, as i honestly don't think fenrir's eyes were described as being anything else. i also picked up the comparison of fire being anathema to ice being used a little heavy-handedly throughout the book. and my last little thing— the epilogue was not an epilogue!

in short, a lot of aspects in this book from the characters to the setting to the events of the war, felt like they needed a little more context and a little more background to really build a sense of immersion and investment in the story. in saying all this though, this book did have some moments of amazing prose and character moments that really stood out. fenrir and orpheus' romance was really sweet, and i loved red as a side character as well. the pacing of the last half of the novel was also really well done, and had me turning the pages to see where the story would take me.ultimately this is a cosy, fantasy read and a pretty solid debut novel!

thank you to NetGalley and Tiny Fox Press for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

I feel awful, but this one is a DNF for me - I just couldn't get into the story. I enjoyed the prose and I still find the concept intriguing so I am going to class this as a 'it's not you, it's me' for now and I would like to come back to it! I struggled following the worldbuilding a bit though and that paired with not being totally invested in the characters had me put the book down and not pick it back up.

Thank you to Tiny Fox Press and NetGalley for the ARC!

In theory, I liked The Crack at the Heart of Everything. It was well executed, with some really fascinating worldbuilding and some lovable characters.
That said, there were a few things that keep me from giving it five stars, This might be personal preference, but I really just think Orpheus should have been... worse. I don't know, for a book that's supposedly about "a former villain finding redemption", Orpheus just felt incredibly easy to sympathise with basically from chapter 2 onwards, and even a lot of his bad actions from before the book took place, are framed in a way that makes the reader sympathise with him right away, which I think made the redemption arc not hit as well as it could have.
I am going to get vaguely spoilery from here onwards, not so much about things that happen in the books but about things that don't!
To illustrate my point, let's take Fenrir. Fenrir is clearly a Good Boy Extraordinaire, and he is convinced right away that Orpheus is good, and never falters in his belief. I think having Orpheus prove that he's really a villain, to have done something bad enough that even Fenrir has a moment of doubt, only to reach the conclusion that actually Orpheus has the potential to be good, would probably make the whole redemption theme hit harder.
By contrast, Lore, who seems like a very interesting character, comes off as almost cartoonishly evil by the end, which makes you empathise even more with Orpheus. If every bad thing Orpheus has done was done to please his only friend, who was actually manipulating him and taking advantage of him all along only to then cast him aside, then I don't really think he even needs redemption, he just needs better taste in friends.
And I don't even think the story this book is telling is necessarily bad - realising that you can actually do good in the world despite what you've led yourself to believe, rising up to fix a world you were misled into breaking - but it is a slightly different story from what the book was advertising itself as, which threw me for a little bit of a loop.
Overall though, as you can guess from the four stars, I still liked this novel! The romance is sweet, the worldbuilding is really cool, and even the side characters feel fully fleshed out and developed. Just don't go in expecting the most dramatic redemption arc of all time, but rather an emotional story about recognising your own potential for good.

Provided by netgalley for a free and honest review.

I'm so sad about this but this didn't work for me. I requested this as soon as I saw it because the blurb sounded amazing. And it seems I'm in the minority, but I feel like this book didn't know what it wanted to be.

I think there were a lot of moments that felt very contrived. First of all, there didn't feel like there was a lot of depth. You have no real time to connect to the characters or their emotions before the initial catalyst of Orpheus being exiled from the palace. You're just dropped into it all with no explanation for anything. There's an attempt to make us understand the relationship between Lore and Orpheus through very boring flashbacks, but frankly, it didn't work. It just really pressed home the point of Lore bad! Without really adding anything to the story.

I actually liked the romance dynamic but again it just felt as if we'd missed a lot of development. We don't get to see these people interact before the plot. Orpheus believes they dislike each other but we don't get to see it! We don't get to see the banter! We just get to see Fenrir saving Orpheus in the same way over and over again.

Also I feel like this would have worked better if it had been just a straight up fantasy. The constant mention of 'the incident' which, honestly, just reminded me of the show LOST, with literally no explanation whatsoever...this is what I mean when I say it felt contrived. It was like trying to find a reason for the plot to exist.