Reviewed by Nethra Deckland

What a pretty little cover and what a terrible little story! Don’t be fooled by the pretty cover and the alluring synopsis. They lie!

Needless to say I went into this book with high expectations because of the appealing synopsis and it said this was for “Readers of Sarah J. Maas, K.F. Breene, Ilona Andrews, Kelly St. Claire, Linsey Hall, and Jennifer L. Armentrout love this epic fantasy, enemies-to-lovers romance”. Please!!!!!!

First of all my deepest sympathies to Kriena’s mother, who had to go through 96 hours of labor delivering triplets. Jesus! What a terrible way to start a story! Not gonna lie, I liked the first chapter where the three daughters were separated and taken away from their parents to be hidden away because they were facing some ominous danger. From there it was nothing but downhill.

The world building was terrible. Nothing was explained properly, not even the main characters. Writing was sub par and the plot was unoriginal.

Spoilers ahead: 

The female lead couldn’t even conjure her ‘shadow-magic’ for a few seconds even to save her own skin without hurting herself but a week later she shrouded not only herself but the “shapeshifting devil” and a bunch of other people who they were rescuing for god knows how long without any practice at all. Make that make sense! I really don’t know what to say about Kriena, really because author didn’t give us anything. She was sometimes sad, and considered herself her an orphan although she technically wasn’t, strung along a poor male friend giving him mixed signals who actually was an orphan. She didn’t eat on purpose for one and half days even though her aunt was well capable of providing her food. She sometimes stole from the ‘rich and the powerful’ so she can give back to the poor, though we never really saw her achieving this as the only time we ever read about her attempting a theft she failed miserably and had to be rescued by Balo, her strung along fae friend.

And Nash! Oh he was terrifying! He was the fearsome leader of exactly five ‘spooks’ that the entire kingdom feared and the number one enemy of the kingdom (god knows why!) and he could turn into a gruesome, wait for it… a cute little fluffy fox! and yes sometimes a black wolf! I was terrified of him the entire time I read the book.

There was no rhyme or reason how Kriena and Nash fell for each other. One second they weren’t. The next, they were! because why not? and three weeks later they loooooooved each other too.

The side characters weren’t good either. Reks, in his own words was ‘a chef, a dishswasher and an occasional comedic relief’, Anikae, a ‘powerful’ siren whose mind control magic only seem to work on Kriena for the most part, and there was another brooding older guy I cannot remember the name of, two teenagers (Cassin and Elusa), a dragon shifter and a bunch of other people you don’t have to know about really. They don’t matter. The found family trope really didn’t do it for me.

I hate leaving scathing reviews on books but I am sooooooooo mad about this book. Where was my promised epic fantasy? and enemies to lovers?