Yyyyup. We’re doing this again. As always, check out the last three parts (here, here, and here) if you haven’t yet.

Rose in Chains – Julie Soto – 3.5 Stars

This review contains mentions of slavery, sexual abuse, and torture. Discretion advised.

I think the idea and concept of the magic was really strong, but unfortunately wasn’t explored as deeply as I would have liked. Most of it explored in flashback scenes of the main characters in school, back when the two countries had a tense but working relationship, and teens from both went to school together. In the current timeline, there honestly isn’t too much actual magic-ing going on, other than some pretty messed up stuff I’ll get into.

It starts with Eversun falling in a final conflict, and Briony’s brother, the heir, dying. Briony and many of the other Eversun nobles and workers are locked up, their magic restrained, and are prepared to be sold into slavery to the Bomardi. This is significant because Bomardi can create bonds with people to strengthen their magic. These bonds can be willing, like a marriage, or they can be forced through like. Sexual sacral magic? Kinda crazy.

So Briony is bought by this dude named Toven, who was her rival/childhood infatuation back in school. She thinks he’s going to take her virginity and force himself onto her and drain her magic, but he really just locks her up to keep her safe, and most of the book is spent at his estate. She doesn’t get to do much.

We come to find out that he isn’t really that bad of a guy! He doesn’t like a lot of the stuff that the Bomardi are doing, and is kinda working against them? A lot of the confusion for me in this book comes from Toven’s plans and intentions. Beyond knowing that he has no desire to harm Briony, that he uses mind magic and heart magic, and that he disagrees with a lot of the Bomardi nobility, we know very little about what his goals are.

You like fake dating? How about fake master-slave relations? They go to parties from time to time, and Briony needs to pretend to be his infatuated slave. But she actually kinda likes it, because of her feelings for him, and he’s the one who’s squeamish, because he doesn’t let himself want her back. Their relationship is very interesting. Because while he’s never harmed her, he also is technically keeping her locked up and claims he’s doing all these awful things to her to keep up appearances. And there’s a weird psychic blow job scene? Where he’s like, “I bet you never sucked a guy off” and she’s like, “Wanna bet?” and yeah that scene was weird. The romance in this book is not very romantic, but I imagine it’ll get better as it goes on and Toven stops being her the cold shoulder.

So yeah. Interesting book. I think it handled the heavy themes pretty well, I want to see more of the magic, and there was a pretty great reveal at the end which I hope will make everything better. I need some action, stat. More about Toven and what he actually wants to do, the ability for Briony to actually to things, If the second book doesn’t hook me, this may be a series that I DNF, but I’m seated for now.

Arcana Academy – Elise Kova – 4.5 Stars

We start off with Clara in jail. You see, she practices her inking and casting illegally, and was caught for it. She’s been a prisoner for quite some time, when she gets her out. Prince Kaelis comes to see her power for himself, and during his visit, she escapes.

But it turns out that was Kaelis’s plan all along. He wants Clara’s power for himself. It’s revealed that Clara is in fact a representation of one of the Major arcana, and she is essential to creating The World, a tarot card that will grant the wielder a wish to change the world. The king wants the card for his own selfish reasons, Kaelis wants it to change the world for the better, and Clara wants it to bring her mother back.

Until Clara can create her Major card, she enrolls in Arcana Academy, the school governed by Kaelis, and must pretend to be your average student. She needs to survive lessons from teachers with different methods than her, students who see her as a threat, and her own schemes for freedom and revenge on those who killed her mother, all while searching for her sister who vanished from the Academy while she was in prison. Oh, and falling for prince Kaelis, who she can’t decide if she loves or loathes. True rivals to lovers over here.

Like I said, this book checked almost all of my boxes! I like the magic and aesthetic of the tarot cards, I think the premise of summoning The World is very cool, and the struggle to be the one literally holding all the cards will be a fascinating one. Do check this one out!

This Fatal Kiss – Alicia Jasinska – 3 Stars

The book stars a Rusałka, a water nymph, who died by drowning and now dwells in the river herself. She can either move onto the afterlife by drowning her killer, or become human again by getting a kiss from a mortal.

The romance was alright. Gisela, the water nymph, needs to kiss a mortal who is willing, in order to become human again. But she is thwarted right and left by Kazik, a spirit hunter who wants him away from his town. When Gisela falls for Aleksey, she and Kazik make a deal: He’ll help play match-maker if she promises to leave the town alone when she’s human.

We get a sort of poly-love-triangle of sorts here, between the trio. Kazik likes Aleksey, but begins to fall for Gisela himself. Gisela had set her sights on Aleksey, but gets closer with Kazik. And Aleksey, who has secrets of his own, gets close to them both. The relationship was handled alright, and the attraction between the trio was undeniable, but I’d hesitate to call this book good poly representation, considering nothing official happens between the three, and it ends with one of the boys kissing Gisela and making her human. There wasn’t much of a resolution between the three, which left the ending a little less-than-satisfying. And with the three bisexual characters, we wind up with one hetero couple? I’m a little iffy here. There’s a sequel planned, so maybe that will help resolve the issues and finally make this trio a real trio.

The tone and setting were maybe the most off-putting. It took me too long to figure out what time period we were in. It feels pre-modern technology, but there are references to buses and technology, making it likely early 20th century. I don’t mind the time period it did take place in, but I wish it was made clear a little sooner. The tone was very inconsistent, flip-flopping between heavy themes of the assault and violent deaths the Rusałka endured, and the juvenile comments and behaviors of Gisela. It was jarring at times, seeming like the book couldn’t decide between what its target audience was.

If you want more Polish folklore and some pretty decent LGBTQ rep, this isn’t a bad place to look. It just fell a little flat and was a mediocre read for me.

Spells for Forgetting – Adrienne Young – 3.75 Stars

The town relies on the sprawling apple orchard that, fourteen years ago, was almost burned to the ground. That same night, a girl is found dead in the woods under mysterious circumstances. The suspect of the murder is August, a teen who is driven from the island along with his mother, even after the investigation is inconclusive. This leaves Emery Blackwood almost entirely alone, having lost her best friend Lily and boyfriend August in one fell swoop.

Now, August must return to the island after his mother’s death, and with him brings memories and mysteries perhaps best left buried. Secrets are revealed, tensions rise, and suspicion fills the island, all while magic is teeming at the edges of reality. Will Emery and August be able to finally solve Lily’s death, rekindle their relationship, and settle the dispute over the ownership of the orchard before the tension breaks? And what will be the cost?

The mystery of the novel was pretty solid, and I had lots of questions that got gratifying answers. There are a few secrets that the character knows but the narration keeps from us, which always bothers me as a reader, but I can forgive it for the sake of decent tension.

Maybe the most disappointing part of the novel was how little the magic is actually used. Emery is trained to read tea leaves and has access to a book of family spells, and there is an attempt at magical realism here, but it’s disappointingly under utilized to the point that is almost isn’t there at all. It would have fit in so well with the effective atmosphere and really enhanced it, but more magic happens in flashbacks than it does during the main events of the book.

The book also has nine POVs that it uses. Emery and August are obvious, but seven other townsfolk have occasional chapters that pop up from time to time that honestly don’t do too much for the book. It was hard to distinguish them and really understand what they were doing there. I wouldn’t have minded one or two, but seven? A bit excessive.

My last thing to gripe a bit about was the ending. It was very… anti-climactic. We spend so long dwelling on the tension and increasing threat that is posed against August and Emery, only for there to be a cheap stalemate and no real resolution. No recompense, no repayment, just an underwhelming draw and a cut to an epilogue. If the ending was nailed, I could have seen myself rating this maybe up to 4.5 stars. But alas, I was disappointed in the end, which does dampen this review quite a bit, doesn’t it?

If you like a good mystery and atmosphere with a touch of magic, this book is well worth it. Don’t let my little gripes above deter you from checking it out.

Alchemised – SenLinYu – DNF

This review contains mentions of rape and abuse. Discretion advised.

So let’s get into Alchemised. Firstly, I don’t mind that it used to be Harry Potter Fanfiction. I’ve written a few articles about publishing Fanfiction with my deeper thoughts, but I honestly don’t mind. One of my favorite book series, The Infernal Devices, is the prologue to a series that started from Fanfiction. But when I heard Alchemised was specifically Draco x Hermione Fanfiction, I’ll admit was a little apprehensive, since imo those shippers tend to be a little crazy.

I only got about 1/3 of the way through this book, so obviously I’m lacking a complete picture, but let’s just get into it. I think this book was a little too slow and a little too dark for my taste. We open with Helena, a women who awakens from, essentially, an induced coma, where it is revealed that she was once a healer for a now defeated resistance. Her enemies believe that she has secrets hidden in the months of memory loss she suffered, and so they send her to be mentally tortured, essentially, by Kaine Ferron, a hero of the conflict, and her enemy.

What we have next is a painfully long sequence of events wherein Helena wanders through his estate as a prisoner, is mistreated right and left, has her mind painfully probed for secrets that may not exist, and learns very little about the world around her. Seriously. This part is so slow. But it does become clear that Kaine has little ill will towards her, and somewhat tries to aid her (giving her some freedoms, giving her drugs to numb her pain, taking her on little walks).

Eventually, one of the doctors who awoke Helena reveals that she’s in charge of a breeding program to restore their population of magic users. Since Helena is a powerful user herself, and is in the care of Kaine, the doctor demands Kaine pause the memory sifting and instead impregnate her.

Guys this was all really uncomfortable. The reader can tell that neither Kaine nor Helena want this, and despite the power Kaine does hold, he still goes through with her rape. It’s clear that this disgusts him and he holds no pleasure in doing so, but he still does it.

I know there’s a huge discussion out there about Kaine being a victim, and all the many awful things he’s forced to do, but I have no idea how I’m expected to rationalize his actions and expect a touching romance to bloom. I don’t think I could find solace in someone who abused me, even if they were also being abused themselves. I think I could accept their actions, but not forgive, or even come to love, them.

After Helena is revealed to be pregnant, there’s a time skip, back to events before Helena’s stasis, when she is a healer for the resistance. The resistance is losing, and they need information. A source, none other than Kaine Ferron, comes to them, saying that he will give them the information they so desperately need, only if he can have Helena. Helena agrees, if only to help her friends, and begins going to see Kaine, who begins to train her on how to shield her mind and hide her memories.

This is about where I stopped. I could tell what was going to happen. The reader would come to learn about Helena and Kaine’s original relationship that Helena forgot, and much of the context would ‘erase’ the negativity caused by Kaine in the present day. It would establish a relationship, Helena would eventually remember it, and they’d rekindle their romance, but both as broken individuals now.

Similar to my thoughts on Rose in Chains, I think these complicated master/prisoner relationships, or just relationships in general with staggeringly huge power dynamics, are really dicey for me. It makes them very uncomfortable to read, especially considering it’s almost always women who are put into the position of prisoner/slave. It doesn’t feel very romantic or genuine to me. With both of these books, it’s justified through past relationships and infatuation, but I don’t know if it really works for me?

I was reading Alchemised as a buddy read, and we kinda both lost interest at the 1/3 mark when we first starting diving into the book, and we agreed to stop. This may be a book that I try out again in the future, if only to see how it ends, but I make no promises.

I don’t doubt that there are people out there who genuinely like this book and the romance, but I just question everything about it and the dark romance genre. I’d much rather read something heartfelt, or some rivals to lovers, or romance with dark themes that don’t involve slavery and rape, thank you very much. So if you liked the book, no judgement here, but I think there are far better books out there to spend my time on.

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And that’s another set of reviews! I didn’t intend to include Alchemised in this one, but since I didn’t finish it, I didn’t know if I should write a whole article dedicated to it. So here it is now, tacked to the end here. It’s a little sad that only one of these books made it to 4+ stars for me, but hopefully next time I’ll have some ‘better’ books to share. Feel free to share your own thoughts on these books, and don’t forget to check out the previous three articles in this series!

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