Carissa Broadbent meant it when she said this was her darkest and most action-packed Nyaxia book yet and omg I loved every second of it!!!

Kyrene was everything and I’m actually in love with her. She’s such a well written character, strong, fierce and not afraid to do what’s needed to get to her goals even if that means having to sacrifice others. She also grows so much throughout this book and it’s so heartfelt to see that growth, to see her go from what it seems like an emotionless character that cares about no one to understanding she has a lot of caring that she tries to hide to protect herself and others.

If you’ve read the previous books in the series, you know Septimus isn’t necessarily a likable and easy character, but when I tell you I felt everything for him in this book. You get to see so many different sides of him (my favorite was soft Septimus, need a novella of him being soft for Kyrene on my desk by tomorrow thank you Carissa), understand so many of his past decisions, feel for his story and his past and why he is the way he is. While this doesn’t excuse a lot of wrongs he did to the past books’ main characters, there is a reason for it and you get to have that understanding.

I might start crying if I think too much about Kyrene and Septimus, cause I genuinely just loved them as individual characters but also as a couple. There’s a lot of yummy tension between them that gets really well explored throughout their journey, so much bonding over wanting to reach the same goals and bonding over past trauma that changed how they both viewed the world, both of them understanding each other and slowly starting to fall and care and wanting to protect the other. ahh they were just perfect stunning beautiful amazing.

One of my favorite parts about this series is the plot around the gods and this book delivered!! There’s so much focus around the gods and Kyrene and Septimus’ mission involving them, you get to understand a lot of gods that hadn’t been on the spotlight before, and just how much the gods impact the world they live in and the people in it.

I have such a special love for this series and this book just reminded me of why.

I might be in the minority here but I absolutely loved this. The structure, the characters, the way the story was split between them, the social commentary around how women are viewed and manipulated by society, how much their trauma changed them and makes them so angry and hurt to the point where that harm switches from the outside to coming from themselves without them even realizing it.

None of the characters are likable, but that’s exactly what makes reading this and learning about their stories so much more interesting. You get an immediate first impression when you’re introduced to them, but the more they tell their story, the more you get to understand that there’s so much more to them than just being “unlikable”, that they’re also hurt and most have never had the chance to heal and get help. For most of the book, a lot of the characters show no empathy for the other people in the group, they’re not what you’d call “girls girls”, but they’re also not supposed to be. This is not a book about women caring for each other, it’s a book about how much harm was caused to them and how they deal with it in the present.

The characters feel exaggerated with the way they talk and interact with others, but in a way that is done on purpose, to emphasize how different they are, how each has a distinct personality and how their story makes sense to them.

The way each character's story was told was so interesting to read. Because each of their stories are based on fairytail, there’s so many unique details that indicate what fairytail they’re representing, so many similes and parallels that I found to be written so well, casually inserted into their story that could otherwise be seen as a mindless details, but that here have so much meaning. You can still read this without knowing each fairytail and what each character represents, though I do think it has a way bigger impact when you know the original story and how the author decided to put their own spin in this book.

There’s also an element of mystery with all these women having been called to join this therapy group and these mystery emails having been sent to them. Why? Who sent the emails? Why them? With what purpose? You get to slowly make theories and find out why they all got together to share their lives.

I won’t say this was the most well written book ever, and I do understand some of the criticism it gets, but this worked for me and personally really enjoyed reading it.

I’m in sheer awe after finishing this and I don’t even know what to do with myself, this brought me so many emotions and it engaged my brain in a way that kept me so invested through every single thing that happened.

This book makes you look at the story in a way that you’re always trying to guess what is happening and constantly making up new theories, connecting the characters’ actions to what is happening around them, picking up previous moments and connecting them to the present, and I just love how gripping the book is. Sure, you may have an idea of what is happening and have some theories in mind, but the story will always surprise you in a way, either with what is revealed or with the way it is revealed.

The pull that Evander and Laurie have towards each other is so compulsive and obsessive that it fits so well with the horror side of the story. These characters live and breathe the love they have for each other like the only way they can save themselves is by merging themselves together, with nothing else mattering. It’s not a sweet or kind love story but it is equally addictive.

The way this book encapsulates the horror genre was probably one of my favorite things while reading it. This is evident in the descriptions of the garden and the way it interacted with the characters, the gore being explicit enough that it makes you uncomfortable and even recoil at some parts and the way that some characters would act towards each other. A truly perfect queer horror story.

I can’t talk about a C.G. Drews’ book without talking about their writing. It’s so beautifully done from the detailed descriptions of the botanic elements and the horror aspect of the story, the way the characters would describe their feelings almost in a poetic way, there were so many quotes that I would read and I would have to just sit with it for a while because of how impactful they were (I may or may not have cried a little with how emotional some quotes made me).

I couldn’t help but compare this book to Don’t Let the Forest In, by the same author, because of how similar they are in themes and overall vibes, even if each book is unique in its own way, and if you liked one you'll most likely like the other.