A Forbidden Alchemy has been sitting on my shelf for a while now, and overall was a very enjoyable romantasy, so here’s a breakdown of all my thoughts while reading!

The positives..

• the setting was very cool! I haven’t read gangster style romantasy before and this felt really fresh and fun. (Sometimes though I imagined them not as gangsters, but The Simpsons Violet and Patches 😂)
• it was very fast paced and easy to read, I’m invested enough to continue this series
• I listened to some of this via audio and thought the narrators sounded very authentic.
• the magic system was unique to me and I would have loved it to be explained in more detail.
• Lots of plot twists that I didn’t pick and an open ending to hook you in for book 2

A few things that I didn’t like..

• the time jumps, they seemed unnecessary with the way they were set out.
• the editing (I know this shouldn’t bring a books rating down, but as a fully published book, it does annoy me slightly to see grammar/spelling errors.)
• I felt the MMCs personality felt a bit like watching a tennis game, I did like his inner war with himself and his feelings though.
• The main characters have a brief meeting at the start of this story, but somehow they’re acting like they are lifelong childhood friends.

I definitely still think if you like the vibes of a gangster fantasy, this is definitely worth a read!!