Anke

3.5 stars

A fun, light-hearted read capturing the quiet spirit of Christmas.

Although it took me a while to really warm up to Maelyn, she was funny and relatable right out of the gate. However, sometimes, for me personally, she lacked the maturity you would expect from a 26-year-old —most of the time, I felt like the characters were younger than stated in the story.

For a good majority of my reading time, I wondered why Maelyn and Andrew would fit well together, but they got me in the end. Eventually, I found myself oohing and aww-ing at their interactions.

And always a win when a book makes me teary-eyed(in a good way).

I dnf'd this book, so I don't feel that comfortable rating the book solely on the 200-ish pages I have read. On another note, this is the first book since starting as an avid reader at 12 years old(I am now 23 years old) I didn't finish.

I had such high hopes when starting this read and maybe that was setting me up for failure, and maybe it denied me of enjoying the book as I've heard a lot of people enjoying it.
The premise intrigued me, the tropes were promising, and the fact that there are vampires in the story is amazing, the themes showed promise but somewhere along the way all those things just didn't deliver the way I had hoped they would.

I found myself rolling my eyes, cringing at how some of the dialogue was written. While there were some absolutely gorgeous scenes, they just didn't outweigh all the bad ones. I found the banter to be lacking between Oraya and (what I presume is) the love interest to be a little bit too crafted at times; he didn't seem to talk naturally.

Besides the badly written dialogue(in my opinion), the pacing and flow of the actions seemed off more often than not. For example, an enemy would enter the fight scene and I didn't even know where they were coming from. The way some of the magic was described in battle could have been more descriptive. Now, I found it hard to focus on the story and being truly immersed in it.

I also found a small yet strange plothole that I just couldn't overlook.

Lastly, there is the matter of sketching out a fully fleshed-out protagonist. There was so much potential to draw the reader into the experiences and the emotions Oraya was internally battling with. At times, I could see that the author did a really good job at it; and other times I couldn't for the love of God understand why she was doing something. I feel like I could have bonded more with her character if there had been more time spent on the complexity of Oraya's emotions.

The story had a lot of potential but to me, it didn't deliver on multiple aspects.

I can't even express how beautiful Kova's writing style is. The prose. The metaphors. All of it is so well done while always completely capturing the atmosphere of the world the story is taking place in.

Reading Victoria's story has put a balm on my soul and healed a part of me I didn't know needed healing anymore. Yes, the plot is heavily focused on the romance between a human and a magical creature - and it's everything it needs to be, soaring and heartwarming - but to me this story is so much more. It is a testament to how we can overcome hardship and trauma. How we can grow stronger as a person not because of everything we have been through, but despite it. It's about learning to open your heart back up again, letting the walls crumble, taking a leap of faith, and trying to love again.

“Love shouldn't hurt.” Victoria Datch