Author: Analeigh Sbrana
Rating: ⭐️
I’ll be honest, this book was a major disappointment, and it was my first one-star read of this year. This felt like a first draft, and I really question whether or not this was professionally edited, despite the fact that it was published by Harper Collins, who, I assume, employ professional editors as they are a big five publisher.
This book follows Lore, a human living in a town on the edge of the fae lands. In this world, it’s not known how the humans got to this place, but the fae prevent them from leaving their town and tax them heavily so that the humans scrape by on very little.
On the day our story starts, there is an earthquake in the town, and the next day some fae show up to take Lore to the fae castle. There she is told that there is an enchanted library that the fae can’t enter, but they think humans can, and they’ve heard she can read the fae language, so they want her to go in and catalogue the books, clean up the library and bring them any books on magic.
She agrees on the condition that they send aid to her town to mitigate the devastation of the earthquake. She also privately thinks that if she can get her hands on some magic books, she might be able to learn how to use magic against the fae and therefore help her people throw off their oppression.
Other than minor things like anachronisms—at one point while sneaking through the fae castle, the description was something along the lines of “Lore didn’t know if they’d be able to get through under the radar”, in a book with no concept of modernity or even electricity—and more significant things, like plot holes—this enchanted library has been shut for hundreds of years, yet the books can leave the library, so why didn’t the fae just round up some humans, whether or not they could read, and make them cart books out of the library much sooner?—this book did not seem to have a coherent plot, character development or accomplish anything one would expect from a fantasy romance book.
I can tell that the author really loved these characters, because I feel like the entire book was her indulging in seeing them playing out certain tropes and scenes. But I don’t feel she communicated who they were or gave them realistic motivations or really much of a goal. Although Lore started out with a general idea of using magic to free her people, almost everything she does afterwards is reactive, so it didn’t feel like she was driving the plot as much as the plot was happening to her. Additionally, all of the complications Lore came up against, she mastered easily, and especially around the middle, the plot moved in sharp bursts that made it feel like I was being jostled through the story.
I also felt this book was miscategorised in terms of age. Lore was supposed to be 20ish, but she read as 16 or younger, which made some of her decisions seem more foolish and juvenile. This book features a love triangle between Lore and two other fae males, but she has chemistry with neither, and in the brief (though unnecessary) spicy scenes, not only did it feel like the author hadn’t properly prepared us to be invested in these characters’ relationships, but, because Lore read very young, the scenes felt a bit gross to read.
I’ll be honest, I skimmed the last 30% of this book just to see if there was anything particularly interesting at the end (there wasn’t). But in doing so, I observed some pretty cartoonish villains (evil for the sake of evil), tedious monologues, and predictable plot twists. My conclusion that this was a one-star read was confirmed when the plot twist, which should have been devastating for the characters, left me absolutely unmoved because I frankly didn’t care about them, their world or their struggles.
I realise I’ve written a lot about why I did not like this book, but the reason I detail them is one: perhaps they will not put off other readers who are interested, and two: I feel like nothing I found wrong with this book was unfixable.
I think a lot of books probably start out like this one with characters that are so loved by the author, they are coddled through a story while acting out key scenes and tropes that the author wants to see. But the problem is that that doesn’t make a compelling story or enjoyable reading experience for anyone other than the author. That’s why it’s important to have editors and beta readers who can look at a manuscript more objectively and help the author develop what they’ve written from an indulgent passion project to an interesting story that others can fall in love with as well. It frustrates me to see that the publisher didn’t bother with what is literally their primary job. I don’t always mind not having a coherent plot and a lot of indulgent scenes, but that’s more appropriate in fanfiction with characters I already know and love than a book that I have to pay money for.
The Kat Bite 
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