R. A. Steffan

Not nearly enough romance for a genre romance book trilogy. Not even a romantasy. It's best described as an urban fantasy with a subtle extremely slowburn romantic subplot.

An extremely slow burn (nothing happens in the first book at all) and even then it's left simmering - not the feelings, the emotional connection feels strong, honest and authentic. But there's not enough focus on the relationship - not in the beginning, not during high stress suspense and certainly not after all the show more commotion.

The payoff is not good enough for such a long series and I'm left with a bad aftertaste and disappointed, since I think this author is rather exceptional in conveying real emotions, flawed characters, real angst and hardwon love.

The fantasy worldbuilding part was the kind that throws the reader in the middle of everything, with previous happenings referred to often, but very little explained. I suspect this is mainly because this is a connected/ spinoff series - a fact I didn't know going in since that info is not told in the synopsis of the audiobook I listened to through Storytel. This doesn't read well as a standalone series and I'm not willing to read a separate MF series to get the necessary backstory for this. Not my favorite type of storytelling, especially as it never really dawned on me why there was such animosity between the MCs in the first place.

Rating breakdown:
Book 1 - 1 star⭐
Book 2 - 3 stars ⭐⭐⭐
Book 3 - 2 stars ⭐⭐
Evens out to 2/5 stars show less

Audiobook narrated by Gwendolyn Druyor, she knows her characters well, nicely edited. What a great finale to the series, finally I get what I needed from the characters, the world, and all the story behind it all. Zorah and Rans were fantastic. I so love Rans at this point. Nice way to close the series with a happy ending, the spin-off series are calling my name.


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First off, about the audiobook. The narration is pretty bad which I find baffling because the narrator seems to know what she is doing. She is quite adept at narrating in multiple distinct voices which are clearly recognizable and fitting to the characters, but two of the narration voices she chose are horrible. Her third-person narration voice sounds too high and forced, a bit like a bad impression of a baby voice. But even worse is her voice for the MC. It would be a perfectly fine voice show more for a palm-sized glittering fairy or a talking hamster, it's incredibly high and squeaky to the point that her voice regularly cracks. I find it incredibly distracting especially because over 90% are spoken in either of the two uncomfortably high and forced voices. It's a real shame because the natural narration voice of the narrator is very pleasant but she only uses it when reading the chapter numbers. Her other (mostly but not exclusively male) voices are also very good and pleasant to listen to.

Now to the actual review.
At its heart, this is a very typical good angel FMC and demon male love interest who is a bit of a patronizing asshole but also very protective and mysterious. You probably know the type. The two don't end up in a mushy relationship early on as initially suggested but actually assume somewhat antagonistic roles towards each other.
The world-building around the central romance, while being built from many common tropes, was quite unique and interesting in the way the parts were assembled and presented.
Sadly this is not actually a complete book. It just abruptly ends halfway to the plot climax somewhere. It's not even a real cliffhanger. It's more like the book was too long so someone just cut it in half at some point.
Together with the painful audiobook narration I don't feel compelled to get the second book despite the story being completely open-ended at this point. show less

A fantasy romance, The Horse Mistress follows three characters, all of whom do not conform to their society's norms regarding either gender or sexuality. The three eventually form a polyamorous relationship. I enjoyed the story well enough--the characters were all right, the representation seemed decent, and the world building was okay. But for a book that so fully lands in my wheelhouse, it just kind of sat there for me.