My only negatives here were Arwen sometimes irritated me with her judgements of Kane and that this could still have been slow-burn but with maybe a few more romantic interactions added between Kane and Arwen. When a ruthlessly cruel king of a neighboring kingdom invades Arwen’s home country… all the men from her village are recruited to fight. Overall, the characters were all well developed and fleshed out, and the author did a great job with the dynamics and the relationships developing in this book, but she also left room for more relationship-building and more character development in the next book.

She's also a girl with hidden healing abilities, which she has been forced to conceal her entire life.Her interactions with Kane are spiced with tension and banter, and I can’t wait to see more of this combustible pairing in the next books. I will definitely be continuing on with this series now it’s managed to easily capture my imagination and I can’t wait to see how this all evolves going forward though this one is to be continued it didn’t feel like it ended things on a major cliffhanger, so I’m happy to anticipate the second book without wanting to throw my kindle vibes. I ENJOYED ARWEN as the MC - I enjoyed being in her head as she tried to navigate the tricky situation of being in this unfamiliar kingdom. The continent named Evendell worship the nine Holy Gemstones and consist of kingdoms named after the holy stones such as Kingdom of Garnet, the Pearl Mountains, the Opal territories, the Peridot Provines, and the most ruthless of them all—the Onyx Kingdom.

Honestly my favorite part was most definitely the ending, because I think Arwen made the best choices, they felt thought out, consistent with her character, and definitely created all the intrigue necessary to have book two be a highly anticipated sequel. To make it out of enemy territory, she’ll have to navigate back-stabbing royals, dark magic, and dangerous beasts.The side characters in the story were equally well-crafted, leaving me eager to discover more about their individual stories in the upcoming book. I definitely really liked Griffin (the King's General), but I did want a little more from Mari (Arwen's new friend in Onyx). When thrown in the dungeon next to a handsome af stranger, she knows he’s the only one who can help her escape.

I initially thought this was going to have a much darker vibe mostly because of the beginning scenes but the building bond between these two was actually very sweet and Kane was patience personified when it came to Arwen's many mistakes. Overall, Kate Golden did a great job of building such a complex world in this series with intricate relationships spanning back CENTURIES of character development. That is how she ends up first in prison, and then forced to work as a healer for Onyx, and that is how she meets the famous and feared king Kane Ravenwood. if youre a fellow mood reader and you are wanting a fantasy enemies-to-lovers romance set in the middle of warring kindoms and fae magic, then this book is what you need. The absolute audacity of some authors to keep us in suspenseful purgatory for too many installments in a series is truly appalling.It's a very marketable jam and I'm jealous of the people who have a taste for it because they look like they're having fun when they read and squeal about these books with their friends. After living without them for so long, Arwen, her mother, and her sister have formed a self-sufficient group.

He supports her and her ambitions, and he encourages her to become better, stronger, and be able to defend herself instead of just deciding that he will be in charge of protecting her.Her handsome arrogant jailor Kane is determined she pays her brother's debt in his stead but he is also surprisingly kind to her and though Arwen tries so hard to hate him she also can’t help reluctantly falling for his many charms. Enzo has my heart forever (smug and sarcastic is already a dream comb I, like so many others, was lucky enough to find this book on TikTok and read it quite literally in one sitting. I feared her personality would be centered around her abilities and her attraction to Kane, but I was luckily wrong. But they could have spotted a few fleas BEFORE you released the book and helped strengthen your story. Although the book was not flawlessly written or expertly crafted, it still managed to keep my attention from beginning to end due to its intriguing fantasy idea and a few angsty moments.