I don't know how to describe this book except as confused not living up to its premise. My main problems are the half-baked romance and how having two leads prevents really exploring our characters more deeply. I personally didn't feel any spark in between our leads so the romance didn't feel compelling. It's hard to articulate exactly what is missing, but I do feel there was a real lack of yearning. I also felt that we didn't have enough wrestling with these characters and the roles that they have been forced into as archetypes of the villainous woman. There's so much to reflect on and I think this concept would have worked better as like a black box play. The specific theatre comp that comes to mind for me is Assassins and the way in which these different characters are all existing in a strange plane of reality. That show is able to really nail who these people are, identify their underlying motivations, and reflect on greater societal themes.

When it comes down to it, I think the biggest issue is that I've seen multiple pieces of media that better tackle the themes presented in this book. The Isle in the Silver Sea has a stronger romance and engages with the idea of characters, including a woman villain, rejecting their preexisting roles. The Everlasting reflects on the cycle of reimagining characters and the role that stories can play in the human experience. Finally, I think that Dimension 20 Neverafter does a better job at doing a horror twist on classic characters and engaging with authors as characters in their own right. When you're writing on themes that have been well tread in recent years, I think that the story needs to be well executed.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a free e-ARC.

🌟3.5 Stars🌟 If you've been feeling that most cozy fantasy is far too low stakes for you, then I feel like this book will strike a really nice balance. Aesthetically, I would compare this to the Ella Enchanted movie since its got a mix of medieval fantasy and anachronistic modern elements. Overall, I thought the setting was cute and the romance was sweet. If you really love friends to lovers and found family as tropes, then I think this will be right up your alley.

Though I had a good enough time with this book, I do have some gripes. The first thing that felt slightly off-putting was the comedy which felt too juvenile for my taste. I will say the jokes weren't always failures and at times were fun and cheeky. The latter half of this book was also extremely repetitive with multiple back to back scenes of sneaking into an enemy camp, getting caught, and then having to escape. It would have taken some reworking, but I feel like we could have gotten things down to a single scene like this. Finally, there was a piece of the story that I am going to call Chekov's Dragon that ended up amounting to nothing. We're given hints about other dragon shifters and nothing really comes of it, frankly it should have been dropped because I spent the whole final battle waiting for them to play a role. They may have been included to show that their are far more shifters out there and that they can live in harmony with humans, however I don't think that we need that scene. Once you know there are shifters it's pretty easy to assume that there are more out there. This foreshadowing just left me waiting for something to happen and when it didn't I was let down.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a free e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Hands down the best in this series. I’m a sucker for true loves who have been tragically separated and think the other dead. Then add into the mix a badass nonbinary character in a marriage of convenience falling for both of them and you’ve got a recipe for success. The tension and melancholy up top was great and it made the reunion hit even better. If you love A Lady For A Duke by Alexis Hall, then you will definitely eat this up.

CW: suicidal ideation, gender dysphoria, discussions of pregnancy, past death in childbirth, PTSD

For the first three chapters I really wasn't feeling this book but things really picked up and I couldn't have predicted where we'd would go. I thought this was going to be a little standalone sci-fi bachelor romance and instead I got a really fun start to an anti-imperialist space opera. Initially, I was pretty offput by Spie because her first interaction with Temmi felt very antagonistic and not like snarky romantic banter. She did win me over though and I really love where her character was left at the end of this book. Branham did a great job establishing why Temmi and Spie would have such a strong bond. They're both black sheep who feel a strong devotion to their siblings and the empire's needs have negatively impacted their lives. I'm assuming that the next book will follow them and I can't wait to see what hell these girls can raise.

I think if you liked Everina Maxwell's sci-fi romances then I think you'll definitely enjoy this book. If you're expecting to have a ton of mystery solving and clue hunting then I don't think you'll love this. The murder mystery element is much more of a B-plot that Temmi is watching from the sidelines. I still enjoyed it but if I hadn't come into the book largely for the sci-fi romance element then I think I would have been disappointed.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I gotta say I’m baffled by this book, like what was that pacing? At around 25% our leads have their first kiss; by this point they’ve had like three interactions and one of the boys believes himself to be straight. These characters just didn’t know each other well enough to have developed any romantic feelings. For the rest of the book not much else happens except cookie cutter romance scenes and conflicts that are immediately resolved. I also don’t love the trope of the evil harpy girlfriend in MM romance and this book ended up going down that route. An ex and a recent breakup are totally fine to explore, but I think you have to be intentional about it. For example there are so few named women in this book (I don’t think there are any that are not family members) that it really stands out when your most homophobic character is the evil ex girlfriend. I don’t think this author is trying to be misogynistic but it sets my alarm bells off a bit.

If you liked this book, just read Time to Shine by Rachel Reid instead. It has a discovery of sexuality that feels logical for the character, does the new roommates thing better, and has an ADHD star forward MMC.

I’m always seeing people rec this author’s hockey romances on insta and this ain’t a great starting point. I worry this is another Eden Finley and Saxon James situation. Every day I worry about the taste level in the hockey romance world.