This book was a bit convoluted. While I did find it to be adventurous, humorous, and steamy, they were a lot of side plots and plot points that didn't make much sense, so I had to suspend my disbelief more than typically would. I didn't really follow what the stakes were, why Aspeth thought that she should be the one to enter the Guild, how her finding artifacts would magically solve the situation with her gambling father? There was a very brief offhand mention of the supposed 'protection of her people', but that never seems to be brought up again? Hawk also had some failed logic, considering he didn't want to just use a whorehouse during the rut but he was okay with this unknown mysterious wife standing in instead? I liked that Hawk had his own drama, dealing with prejudice from the Guild, as well as trying to handle and cover for Magpie's drunkenness and the frustration of using the Taurians for rescue missions Etc. However it made no sense for him to not be fucking Aspeth left right and center to prepare her for the rut? I felt that his falling for her didn't make much sense and was mostly driven by his horny needs.

There was a cast of other female students (& Kipp) who became found family, and I liked the supporting secondary characters charm, but I wanted a little bit more of them each having a cool moment to help out. There were some D&D/ttrpg vibes throughout this book, I liked the setup of all the adventuring. I would have liked a little bit more adventuring, even though I do understand they were just students. This somehow made the book feel school-related and young adult. There was also this random subplot of the nobleman that Aspeth had broken off thier engagement, he comes around later and it felt weirdly plopped into the book? Maybe primarily there to induce jealousy in Hawk?

Overall I enjoyed reading through this book, I thought it was fun but also frustrating, I had not expected that this would be such a slow burn, but I thought the tension and longing was done pretty well, unlike many of the weak plot points and so many questions that I had.

After reading some reviews: I do agree that there was some decent character development across the board, not that I liked all the characters. I definitely felt that Aspeth was quick to react/ jump to conclusions, as well as sometimes simply badgering others to get her way; also for whatever reason Aspeth and the other holders had a British accent but no one else did? This became annoying in the audiobook. I found the world and the setup to be very interesting, I would have liked to have seen more magic throughout the book. I overall felt that there were too many pages and the ending was too neatly wrapped up, especially since someone who was a villain was not my favorite choice. I had not been expecting this to be a slow burn and for there to be as little smut as there was, I wanted the big rut to be somehow more romantic over perfunctory? I understand this was a setup of a start of a series, I had a fun time but also had lots of questions and a few complaints.