Overall, this book was amazing. Honestly speaking, i’m not the biggest fan of fantasy but this story had me gripped from the start.

The fmc is a strong, determined woman + the treatment of the mmc in prison had her (and me!) in shock.

Despite being enemies, they quickly find they both agree on a lot of things when it comes to ‘the gate’.

Also, love, love, love the military aspect.

All throughout this, i was trying to figure out what the plot twist was going to be + trying to unravel the secrets. I was genuinely making notes and trying to link things up like a crazy woman.

This urban fantasy book caught my attention from the outset - we jump into the scene about 20 years after portals opened that led to incursions of magical creatures and humans manifested magical power, sometimes with devastating consequences. Our main character, Asha, struggles to even use her power because of her traumatic introduction to magic. She has just returned from an offworld mission, and because of her facility with learning magic, she is tasked with attempting to gain fluency in Elvish by interrogating an elvish prionser, the first one that she's known to have been held in captivity for any length of time.

With most books like this, you can guess how the book is going to go - she's going to find herself intrigued, the elf surprises himself with attraction to her, and they happily escape together. It was a pleasant surprise that both individuals feel so strongly about their roles and duties that they tried their best to stay true to their mission - Asha in learning Elvish without torture, and "Barney" in not teaching the more private dialect that wasn't for trade purpose. There really wasn't ever a point where either individual professes undying, unreasonably deep love, just a shared realization that they both wanted to survive what life was throwing their way.

I look forward to reading about the continued adventure - it's wonderful to have an author writing in my favorite urban fantasy genre!

Thank you BooksGoSocial for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

This was a really good book going to check out more of Mason books highly recommend so happy I got to review 😊

This was a very fun read. More of a military sci-fi and less of a typical fae romantasy. Instead of the different types of non human character being from a place like Underhill, they're from different planets that have accessed earth via magical portals. It does end on a cliffhanger, but it didn't come as a surprise, and I intend to read on anyway. Thank you for the chance to read this ARC!

This was a really fun, although slightly dark fantasy. I really enjoyed it, and honestly probably would have enjoyed it more as an audiobook! Thank you to the author for the arc!