Amelia Hutchins

Before I get into this, I have to say something.

After I posted this review, I scrolled down to see what others thought, and came across something that made me very upset.

Reviewers "ShelliP" and "PinkReads" gave this this book one star. That isn't the problem. It was their written reviews. Word for word the same. They were not very short reviews either. They were "copy and paste" the exact same review. ShelliP's review is hidden under spoilers so you don't see them both at the same time. show more However, they are no doubt either fake or rehearsed reviews and put there by reasons other than honesty. I checked out ShelliP's shelves and she only has a few books shelved, and they only have the exclusive shelves. I could see them having the same glowing review, thereby making it seem that someone paid to have a good review, but one-star reviews? How does this happen? Who benefits from giving an author bad review?

Now back to the review:
I admit that I was a bit worried about this book before starting it. I had become increasingly disappointed in the series, and the last book was (IMHO) not quite up to par for the series.

So, when I started this book at about 10:00 pm last night, I was very surprised and happy to see that my complaints from the previous books seemed to be “fixed” in this one. Not that I expect Amelia to have read my review and revised the book, but the problems I had been facing didn’t plague this one (with the exception of the spacing between paragraphs).

I am not going to get into details as much as the previous review, however I am going to touch on the main points. Minor spoilers ahead.

The book opens up with Cynthia believing she is seventeen and still a guild enforcer, a witch, in a coven with Adam, Lorissa, and Adrien, and she is confused as hell as to why she is in Fairy. Her last memory was being in the Guild catacombs losing her virginity to her boyfriend, Adrien., and she is at the height of her intolerance towards the fae and other creatures (vampires), she was a “good little guild hunter”.

While Adam does his best to try and convince her of the realities of their life, she is convinced he had been messed with by those evil fae standing in the corner of the room watching their exchange. Those evil fae being her husband and his brothers. Ryder finds the whole exchange amusing, and is reminded of how she was when they first met and has fun goading her about it.

The amnesia plot point wasn’t dragged out, and didn’t have any of those feelings we get when our heroes and heroine are needlessly dragged though conflicts that only serve to piss us off.

What it did do was bring back the banter between Cyn and Ryder for a couple of chapters, and add some much-needed comic relief to the book. Remember how she was at the opening of the series, all those creative curses and insults towards Ryder, well they were in abundance here.

The sex, wasn’t primary in this book. It was there, and some of it was pretty long, but it wasn’t pages and pages of sex with a bit of plot thrown in. Ryder was still a bit OTT with the dirty-talk, but it wasn’t so much that I got pissed off. However, he did wax poetic a bit much, it seemed that much of his dirty-talk had turned into love talk. It got a bit tedious, but I can’t complain about it too much because the readers needed to be sure that Ryder loved Cyn and was behind her totally. The tedious plot points of conflict between Ryder and Cyn were gone (we had new conflicts, but they were much easier to deal with).

I wasn’t lost on the plot, characters or inside jokes. If you understood what was going on in the previous book, nothing new was added, and some of the lesser characters you needed to know were missing.

What Cyn went through in the pit from the last book was a big part of this book. What she went through, and how it affected her in the present, and how she dealt with it was a major plot point. We see her POV from memories and dreams. How she and Ryder dealt with it and each other was a main focus for this book.

Of course, we have the “great war” and although it was a major part of the last book, it wasn’t such an immediate and overwhelming part of this one. This book was more about what Cyn went through in the pit, how she and Ryder dealt with it, and dealing with the preparations of going to that final battle. The actual battle scenes take place in the last 80% of the book.

Cyn and Ryder are able to get the whole picture of the sequence of events that lead them to this point, where truths were told and lies were uncovered, and the truths of their existence and purpose in life were finally revealed.

We get to see Cyn and Ryder’s kids as they grow since they show up twice. The first time they are just about to be teenagers, and at the end of the book they are in their early twenties. So, this was a nice way to grow them up for the following books, which I have no doubt will be their books.

All in all, this was a great book. I felt much better about it than the previous books, and am actually interested in re-reading it. It was as if the previous book was showing how far Cyn and Ryder had fallen as characters in general, and this book brought them back to where they should be
So, don’t stress out about reading it if you are worried about being disappointed. Also, it was definitely not the end of the series in that no further books will be written about these characters, but it buttoned up their main arc, and cleared the board for the future. In fact, the final epilogue sets up the next possible book nicely.

Note:
There are scenes of "rape and torture" but they aren't the trigger inducing kind. We relive the horrors Cyn goes through while in that pit, and there are no humans or realistic events that could possibly be equated to what someone would go through in real life. Although, Cyn's feelings on the matter are very relatable. show less

Okay, so I was suggested to try out a book from this author as part of my 2022 Reading Challenge and ended up selecting this one without really knowing what to expect.

We have a kickass Witch named Synthia that does sort of sketchy CSI cases and ends up accepting (forcibly) a job with a dangerous Dark Fae Prince called Ryder. She still suffers from severe PTSD after two very traumatic life events and being forced to work under a manipulative and sex hungry evil Fae like Ryder pushes her show more buttons to the limit.

The initial job she is tasked to fulfill is quite good. A string of murders of female Fae and Witches in Spokane over the past few years must be solved once and for all when photographs of Ryder's official fiancé Princess Arianna of the Light Fae are featured in several crime scenes. Synthia is supposed to learn how to impersonate Arianna and go to an Engagement Ball alongside Ryder to lure the killer.

The problem? Well, it seems like 95% of the plot doesn't follow suit with this job and most of it revolves Ryder's incessant desire to hump Synthia until she can no longer moan anymore. Like, almost every single Ryder POV scene is about his BDSM sex fetishes chaining her up to a bed and raping her until she can no longer think. But let's remember, he is a "good" guy that is taking advantage of legal loopholes from the Witch Guild to get what he really wants (if you know what I mean). Apparently if Synthia backs down from this job despite only being made aware of a mere 10% of it, the Guild will be forced to kill her and every member of her coven. So it isn't surprising in the least that she treats Ryder with disdain for a huge portion of the story. She doesn't even feel betrayed or pissed off that her own people are serving her on a platter to satiate Ryder's desires. Eek.

The steamy scenes are well written and I enjoyed the whole murder mystery as Synthia and her allies try to solve the crime. But it is really hard for me to truly enjoy the steamy scenes when they are pretty much borderline rape. Synthia was never given the option to say no to Ryder's advances, which does ring the wrong kind of bells on me. He does start to act nicer in the last few chapters of the book, but one minute he's all cuddly, the next he wants to chain Synthia to his bed and rape her and then doesn't even feel the least modicum of remorse when she rightfully gets angry. So yes, if rapey male characters is just not your cup of tea, I wouldn't blame potential readers to skip this book.

I might consider reading the sequel since I have a hunch there is more to Ryder than his intolerable sex addicted outer shell, and because the greater story seems quite interesting. But only if I have guarantees Ryder learns how to apologize and stops thinking chaining an unwilling naked woman to his bed for his personal pleasure is a good role model. I like my alpha hunks to be cuddly and sweet, not well... like serial rapists. If I wanted that, I would have read the remaining two 50 Shades of Grey Books ages ago. :/ show less

Okay, so I was suggested to try out a book from this author as part of my 2022 Reading Challenge and ended up selecting this one without really knowing what to expect.

We have a kickass Witch named Synthia that does sort of sketchy CSI cases and ends up accepting (forcibly) a job with a dangerous Dark Fae Prince called Ryder. She still suffers from severe PTSD after two very traumatic life events and being forced to work under a manipulative and sex hungry evil Fae like Ryder pushes her show more buttons to the limit.

The initial job she is tasked to fulfill is quite good. A string of murders of female Fae and Witches in Spokane over the past few years must be solved once and for all when photographs of Ryder's official fiancé Princess Arianna of the Light Fae are featured in several crime scenes. Synthia is supposed to learn how to impersonate Arianna and go to an Engagement Ball alongside Ryder to lure the killer.

The problem? Well, it seems like 95% of the plot doesn't follow suit with this job and most of it revolves Ryder's incessant desire to hump Synthia until she can no longer moan anymore. Like, almost every single Ryder POV scene is about his BDSM sex fetishes chaining her up to a bed and raping her until she can no longer think. But let's remember, he is a "good" guy that is taking advantage of legal loopholes from the Witch Guild to get what he really wants (if you know what I mean). Apparently if Synthia backs down from this job despite only being made aware of a mere 10% of it, the Guild will be forced to kill her and every member of her coven. So it isn't surprising in the least that she treats Ryder with disdain for a huge portion of the story. She doesn't even feel betrayed or pissed off that her own people are serving her on a platter to satiate Ryder's desires. Eek.

The steamy scenes are well written and I enjoyed the whole murder mystery as Synthia and her allies try to solve the crime. But it is really hard for me to truly enjoy the steamy scenes when they are pretty much borderline rape. Synthia was never given the option to say no to Ryder's advances, which does ring the wrong kind of bells on me. He does start to act nicer in the last few chapters of the book, but one minute he's all cuddly, the next he wants to chain Synthia to his bed and rape her and then doesn't even feel the least modicum of remorse when she rightfully gets angry. So yes, if rapey male characters is just not your cup of tea, I wouldn't blame potential readers to skip this book.

I might consider reading the sequel since I have a hunch there is more to Ryder than his intolerable sex addicted outer shell, and because the greater story seems quite interesting. But only if I have guarantees Ryder learns how to apologize and stops thinking chaining an unwilling naked woman to his bed for his personal pleasure is a good role model. I like my alpha hunks to be cuddly and sweet, not well... like serial rapists. If I wanted that, I would have read the remaining two 50 Shades of Grey Books ages ago. :/ show less

This is basically just porn and not even particularly good or varied at that.
Don't be fooled by the title. The MC is a pushover except for a few scenes specifically designed to portray her as a badass. She is just a typical damsel which annoys me a lot because the author clearly tries to sell her as the opposite.
What particularly annoyed me about this is how the MC can casually decapitate attackers if it's badass time but always acts like the helpless damsel when people sexually assault her show more for the kink factor.

The main romance is pretty fucked up which I wouldn't mind too much if the guy would have to atone for it in some way but he never does. It basically goes like this over and over again:
The guy makes a dick-move, she promises herself to never let him touch her again (and leave), he touches her again and she melts and everything is dandy again, repeat.

The backstory could actually have been interesting if everything beyond the fucking wasn't entirely secondary.
Even most of the parts that are not explicitly sexual are sexualized. We constantly hear about others going at it or talking about sexual experiences or about genital piercing or plugs of all kinds worn in public or nudity and so on and so forth. It very much feels like the author attempts to please as many different kinks in as short a time as possible.
The language is very crass and crude but I got kind of desensitized to it early on already because there just is this constant stream of it.

And these are only the most glaring flaws that are somewhat unique.
Beyond those, we have lots of very typical lazy writing flaws which didn't even register much in the wake of the worst parts.

The best part is the end which reveals a few twists and throws up a new conflict for the next book.
It's the only part of the book that feels like any kind of planning and effort went into it.
Which makes sense because it's the part that stays with you the most and is the biggest factor for people to buy the next book.
I very much feel like the book has been written with the intent to optimize for sales numbers with as little time investment as possible.

All in all, just a sub-par book that might be enjoyable if you love cheap drama or want to get off to some kink or another. show less