adds
I'm getting the impression the short story reviews are mixed in with the longer novel which seems to be bringing the average down for this. I managed to get my hands on the full length book and haven't read the short story.
3.5 because Serpents of the Abyss is a bit diamond in the rough. There's a gem in there for sure but more editing to smooth out the story probably would have bumped this up to an easy 4.5. You can definitely see where the author decided to go in a very different direction with the story which was a smidge jarring. I was all for the change and enjoyed it but didn't see it coming.
Even though this could use a little work I wanted to immediately jump into more from this world. Continuation books were promised in the end author's note but it looks like they haven't been written yet. I'm very much looking forward to those if Sanders decides to write them.
Did all the people who gave this more than 3 stars read the same book? Excuse me, SLOG through the same book. It took me almost 8 weeks to finish this. I read 28 other books because I kept putting this down. I almost gave up and DNF so many times.
My feelings for almost every character I had come to like turned meh or into outright hate. Except for Lucien because he was lucky enough to not even be present through like 3/4 of the book. And the Archeron sisters have been annoying in all 3 books so nothing new there.
Other popular 1 and 2 star reviews sum up my disgust and frustration so I can just be done.
If I decide to be forgiving enough to pick up the 4th book and Nesta isn't given an immediate attitude adjustment though I will nope right on outta there.
I was almost tempted to never add this to a shelf because it's embarrassing. My own, and fremdschämen for the fact that this even exists. Reading this was like being unable to look away from a train derailing. I'm pretty sure there are less tropes and kinks NOT included. Everything under the sun was thrown in. And not always in a good way. There was a safe-word established that I can't recall ever being used. Little miss virgin-had-no-idea-how-sex-worked-or-had-ever-touched-herself was enthusiastically a-ok with EVERYTHING right off the bat. Mhmm sure. Whatever.
I never want to think about Santa sexually in any way shape or form ever again. I wish I could induce memory loss.
I don't think The Scarecrow's Queen was supposed to make me think of The Wizard of Oz at all, but my brain kept going there anyway. Really, how many popular scarecrows are there to picture? My brain just couldn't help it. I struggled to find Hollowstock sexy because in the back of my head there was always this other goofy scarecrow from my childhood. Unfortunately sometimes I had the ick reading this which is really unfortunate because the general premise is pretty darn good. I'm chalking this up to it's-me-not-you.
Reviews are DIVIDED so I was wary going into this one. A lot of people seem to hate how long A Soul to Keep is, but I didn't feel like any part dragged or didn't fit. Some reviews made it seem like Orpheus was nonstop obsessed with one of his previous “captives”, which was really not the case. They definitely came up as a big foil in the plot but it absolutely made sense to explain this Duskwalker's personality and humanity journey.
Now, the only thing that didn't work for me was Reia's dialogue. There's specific world building indicating technology basically froze in what feels like very early if not pre-Scientific Revolution, yet Reia is overly casual and extremely modern in her speech. Almost every time she talked I mentally rewrote her in my head to make it work. I'm hoping other characters in the series are written differently, and I liked this enough to keep going.
DNF 9%. I was looking forward to historical fiction set in ancient Egypt as it's so rarely done. Unfortunately the writing style is not for me. I found myself skimming and speed reading just to get to the meat of the story until I realized I didn't actually care for any of the characters. The best thing I read in this book was the dedication.
