I always preface my reviews of non fiction books by saying I know nothing about what makes a non fiction book good as I barely ever read from this genre.

What I CAN say is this book is informative, entertaining and witty while describing how murder and casual cruelty was normalised in Ancient Rome. Yes, a good section of this book was about the back stabbing senators that history loves to reference but most of it was how slaves, women and children were murdered and often not given justice as it was considered ‘family business’.

Emma Southon has a really distinct tone. She comes across as highly knowledgeable but also incredibly quick and clever in her writing. Will definitely be reading her other non fiction works.

The hardest things about taking your fanfiction and publishing it is making a coherent and logical magic system. That is where this book did not succeed for me.

The concept of Seers and Mages is strong but in reality it felt silly, which is a sign that it was underdeveloped. The sheer number of Seers, all whom were throwing out random cryptic prophecies that they were not legally allowed to clarify on, was quite ridiculous. The idea that Mages have to pay a toll for the magic is super interesting but then when compared with the sheer amount of power the Seers have just feels super illogical. These prophecies also just sounded - for lack of a better word - really dumb.

What I did love about the book was the slow burn. It wasn’t just a slow burn for the sake of a slow burn so they could quickly get together and have sex. It worked within the story, the characters had great banter and the romance itself feels really earned. This is something that romantasy gets wrong a lot of the time. If I didn’t know that the author was a fanfic writer already, the successful slow burn would’ve tipped me off.

I’m interested in following Alexis Marie’s career. This book isn’t particularly strong but I can see a lot of potential in the case of writing a book that isn’t originally a fanfic (to be fair, most of these dramione fics turned novels have also really struggled with their world building). I’d love to see another Fantasy with a romantic subplot or a romance book from Alexis Marie in the future.

What is most unfortunate about this book is that it's issues really could've been fixed by a rigorous edit and more time from the author in revisions.

As a lover of Ava Reids particular brand of gore, those elements really gripped be for the first 30-40% of the book. The bizarre, subversive traditions of the FMC's House and the way they conflicted with the other noble families traditions was fascinating. The mysterious illness that resurrects people from the dead - and the way it's informed this society's perception of death and the afterlife - was super macabre and unique.

However, at around 40% the thread of the plot is lost completely. At first, I thought it might be fascinating for the FMC to choose to go in another direction for her life. Physically finding her voice after being silent for so long was an unexpected twist for her (at least for it to happen so close to the beginning of the book). However, nothing really happens to move the greater plot forward from then on until the end of the book.

The decision to have the FMC suddenly turn around and be completely bereft that her love interest can't put a baby in her was.... well, a weird choice to say the least.

The romance itself was completely devoid of chemistry. It was insta-lovey, with no real slow development of feelings, in my opinion. The sex scenes, while there wasn't too many of them, felt inappropriate when considering whats going on around them. We're supposed to feel the sexual tension between them because we're told that after their first time they haven't touched each other in close to nine months but we don't properly feel the longing because that nine months is completely skipped over.

I won't be continuing on with this series. When Ava Reid gets it right, she really nails it but often times her novels feel like they aren't properly developed and have some very questionable narrative decisions. I cannot imagine the romance is salvageable nor the overall plot of the series so I will be respectfully bowing out. Thank you to Del Rey and Netgalley for the e-arc.