✨Im Literary Anxious✨

Estimated Reading Time🕒: 4 minutes

𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿: F.A. Eden✍🏻 𝗣𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁: 295📖

𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀:⭐⭐
𝗦𝗽𝗶𝗰𝗲:🌶️🌶️.5

📚ARC Review📚

𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: 2/5
𝗣𝗹𝗼𝘁: 2.5/5
𝗪𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴: 3/5
𝗣𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴: 2/5
𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴: 1.5/5

“No matter how much we manipulate the world around us, it will always prevail, given time. Nature comes for us all, in the end.”

❄️ Marriage of Convenience
🪻 Heartbroken MMC pining for his lost love
❄️ Who Dun’it
🪻 She nurses him back to health
❄️ Fae MMC/Human MFC

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What in the M. Night Shyamalan twist did I just read?
 

HEADS UP: SPOILERS AHEAD

Meet our moral heroine, Carra (who doesn’t know she’s Carra) sprinting through the streets of “The Quarters”—which is, apparently, a big no-no. Enter our MMC, Straid, who decides the best way to rescue her is… to marry her? Sure, I’ll bite. Anna (who is actually Carra, stay with me) gets her memory back and—surprise!—turns out she’s a badass sex worker with some very loyal customers. Straid is a heartbroken boy who doesn’t know what to do with this human woman. Then Corlan, Straid’s BFF, drags him into a mystery involving missing humans and fae.

Carra and Straid? They’re slowly growing on each other, but Straid explicitly said no romance—awkward. Then we discover Carra is somehow tangled in this missing person’s mess, and Straid’s sister, who sees “threads” (time? fate? shoelaces?), shows up to help. Oh, and Straid’s long-dead mortal fiancée might be involved. Yes, that fiancée. But wait, there’s more! Carra attends a ball, learns Straid’s a prince (classic), they share their first kiss (finally), and then she gets kidnapped. Naturally.

Turns out Straid’s “dead” fiancée isn’t dead at all—she’s planning to sacrifice everyone to become immortal. Lyenna, the fiancée, is deeply upset that Straid dared to move on after 50 years (seriously, the audacity). Carra, not realizing Straid’s fallen for her, kindly informs Lyenna that Straid will always consider her his one true love. Lyenna’s likely response: “Well, crap.”

Cue Straid and Corlan desperately searching for Carra, and the story ends with her running through the streets again. Déjà vu? Kind of. Except this time, Lyenna is inhabiting her body. Yeah, that’s the cliffhanger.

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I wanted to like this one. The premise had potential, but the execution? Eh. I found the characters fell flat, and we didn’t get enough backstory to feel anything for them. The pacing? Imagine a Tilt-a-Whirl that never slows down.

While the writing was decent enough to keep me from throwing the book, the worldbuilding had gaps big enough to drive a truck through—and yet, there was a lot of info-dumping at the same time.

Things that didn’t work for me but might for you:

• Carra’s profession means she has intimate scenes with other characters. Don’t get me wrong, the spice is there, but I wanted more emotional connection between her and Straid. Guess I’m a sucker for feelings.
• Carra and Straid’s relationship felt too surface-level for me. They barely interact for half the book, and when they do, it’s like watching two people politely nod at each other at a bus stop.

I didn’t realize this was the first in a series, so fingers crossed the next book