SPOILERS AHEAD
4/5 stars
There's a reason this book has so much hype - it's very well deserved. Who doesn't love an enemies to lovers back to enemies but 10x harder because the betrayal just kicks you in the gut.
Romantasy books get some heat because they're usually predictable and always follow the same pattern, which is true and will still never turn me off of the genre, but this one tossed the rule book out of the window. Now, it could be that I'm just a vibe reader and don't like to use my whole brain when I read, but I was thrown for a loop at a few different points throughout this one, and the betrayal gutted me even though it was obvious it was coming.
Rune and Gideon are the perfect enemies to lovers because they are literally bound to hate each other. A secret witch who flirts with men to get the information she needs to save other witches while posing as an airhead aristocrat and a witch hunter who was tortured by a witch queen and lost his whole family to witches? I'm in. I'm sold. Sign me up. Of course, the cast would not be complete without a second love interest that we all love but know isn't the one that we're going to end up rooting for. Alex, Gideon's brother, is a literal angel of a boy and can do no wrong. He knows who Rune is and has loved her basically forever regardless of that or the fact that his brother has been unknowingly outsmarted by him as he tracks down the Crimson Moth. It's hard not to love him.
The pace of the book was good and easy to fly through, and there weren't any moments that I was waiting for it to be over. I did recently do a reread of this one in anticipation of the second book in the series coming out, and I flipped between listening and reading to it. The narrator was incredible and so engaging that it made the reread almost better than the first time around.
The build up to Rune and Gideon finally getting together was so good and tension filled, and when Rune overheard Gideon talking to the other Bloodguards about his plans to betray her, I was devestated. I hate a miscommunication trop when it's overdone, but it was essential to the story and only used where it needed to be.
The parts where the rule book was thrown out had me shook. I knew that there was something sus about Rune's friend Verity about halfway through, but I was NOT prepared for her to be Cressida, the witch queen who tortured Gideon. I knew she was probably a witch, maybe not a good one, but at no point did I think that she was Cressida in disguise. That reveal had me gagged. And then killing off Alex? Rule book out the window. I'm all game for killing off main characters, but it never really happens in these kinds of books. And if it does it ends up being a Jon Snow resurrection situation. Maybe a hot take, but I think that main characters should be killed off permanently more often. Is that dark? Probably a little bit. I just feel like it adds such a depth to the story when you fall in love with a character and then lose them. It makes the book more memorable because you'll always miss that character.
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