Despite how much I love the trope, it's not often I get an enemies-to-lovers story in which the rivalry and its outcome are wholly satisfying to me, so To Steal a Throne is truly a breath of fresh cold air. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my eARC copy to review.

One of my biggest gripes with enemies-to-lovers stories is the lack of equality between the characters, not necessarily in status or power itself, but in the ability to battle one another while utilizing the tools at their disposal. Too often in these stories, I see what is set up as a strong-willed, intelligent FMC who then gets outsmarted, outwitted, and emotionally manipulated by the stronger, smarter, and oh so dreamy for no reason MMC. It always cheapens the rivalry to me and reminds me why I hate bully romances; I despise such imbalances of power. It's something I've had to learn to accept so that when I'm rating a book, it doesn't affect my opinion too much as a whole.

Gabi Burton did an amazing job with Remira and Kaidren. Even though he is in a position of power she cannot access in her position, she throws every bit of herself into conflict and regularly outsmarts everyone, because she has had to learn how to do that. This was set up in her character, and it was represented throughout the story.

Remira and Kaidren's chemistry was incredible. Every move each character made to combat the other made sense, and though I was rooting for Remira (obviously), when it was Kaidren's turn to bite back, I found myself justifying his actions because it made sense. Neither of them is a good person, and their darkness calls to each other in a way I absolutely devoured. I binged this book in like a day and a half, which is something I've honestly been struggling with recently.

I absolutely can't wait for the next book to see how the story continues.

4.75 ⭐ Devil of the Deep is a cinematic Haitian-inspired swash-buckling pirate and mermaid mythological story that has completely enveloped my every waking thought for the past few weeks. Huge thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my eARC.

I can't usually picture what I am reading. I rarely have a truly defined mental image of what is being described to me, and I actively run on vibes and emotion. It was really special to me that I could very clearly picture a lot of what took place in this book. When I think of a "swash-buckling" pirate story, I think of big graphic fights and dramatic moves. This book is full of them, with scenes that are easily transferable to the big screen. I don't always want book-to-movie adaptations, but I would love to see this story unfold on the screen in a movie theatre.

The story follows a couple of different people, namely Nenna, Lu, and Pearl, regularly alternating between their pov's. I have opinions about all of these characters individually (particularly Lu 😒), which I will get into later, but I love the way they come together in the grand scheme of the story. Each character is very complex in their own right, and these complexities mesh well together to build one holistic story that triggered my religious trauma.

Falencia Jean-Francios did an amazing job of blatantly representing the dangers of unchecked organized religion and what happens when men rewrite history to suit their own desires. I honestly think it took me so long to read the book because I kept getting so triggered by the brainwashing and manipulation of faith that I needed to calm myself down (reading this at the same time as I'm listening to Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite was really the downfall to my pacing. Talk about triggering).

From here on, I am going to talk about my opinions on the characters individually. And by that, I mean I'm going to rant about Lu. Slight spoilers ahead

Lu is a very complex character; he almost borders on boring. I didn't like Lu from the get-go. The more I learnt about him, the less I liked him. I knew he would have had to have been a factoring element in Nenna's execution, but seeing exactly what happened and the part he played, cemented him in my mind as on fucking site. As a trans man, Lu has faced his lion's share of discrimination and prejudice, but as someone born into the wealthy class, there are just certain things he cannot comprehend (or would even bother trying to). He is accustomed to being in a position of power and lacks the critical thinking and comprehension skills needed to engage with a lot of the nuances of the situations he is in. We see that he is an intelligent man—seeing as he was able to track down people and items that had escaped many others for years—but his intelligence is stunted not only by his upbringing, but by his desire for acceptance.

Nothing about his semi-redemption was earned, and it's the biggest reason I can't give this a full 5 stars. I usually chalk this kind of thing up to my own personal preference and inability to forgive betrayal in stories, but in this case, Nenna's feelings toward Lu at the end of the book felt disingenuous. There was no real moment where Lu was held accountable for his wrongdoing. As much as he might have seen the error in his ways, he still staunchly tried to defend his actions and thought process, and throughout the book, we saw that he never learned from them. I'm frustrated that, as much as Nenna was determined not to forgive him, by the end, she was mourning him in a way as if she had, without any real in-depth conversation ever having taken place to warrant that kind of forgiveness.

This was great as a standalone, but there was some set-up to continue the story potentially. I hope that if that is actually the case, we explore Lu's and his learning to think for himself a lot more.