Hanna

There are only two kinds of men: ones who betray you sooner and ones who betray you later.

 “Bryce smiled sweetly at Cormac. “I get that you want to play Broody Prince, but don't ever fucking interrupt me again.”

I pretty much expected to love this book. But no, this landed in the okay category. I mean, this did not need to be 800 pages long, right? I cannot be the only one thinking that.
The majority of that 800+ pages gets very repetitive and I nearly lost all my interest to pick this book up anymore. It started strong! New archangels and triarii members, some surprising ones you definitely were not waiting to be working together with. And then all that is pushed in the back burner while everyone keeps on doing detective work in the same pattern, just different things to investigate.

I still very much love the characters. Hunt and Ruhn the most. Add Baxian to that list too! So Dear Sarah, please stop making me fall in love with your characters if you're only going to hurt me. I apparently haven't still learned anything from reading her books, do not get attached to anyone.
Kidding, I love the emotional rollercoasters that her books have. You never know if you can fully trust to anyone, or if anyone is even going to survive.

And from there we get to the book's surprise factories, where they good? Ruhn is working as a contact person to the Ophion rebels. He has a way to contact their informant, Agent Daybright. She is veiled in fire through the whole book, until the last chapters. But I guessed it immediately, I just knew it! No surprises there. I just hoped it would have ended with a different note, you know.
The whole book seemed to be full of secrets getting revealed, secrets that shouldn't have been secrets, considering whom kept them from whom. That got a little too much. There comes a point when you are just reading whilst your mind goes “oh, see. This shall reveal to be another one of certain someone's kept secrets.” the point of all the detective work pretty much vanishes right there. Everything is just one big secret!

The ending. WHO ENDS THEIR BOOK LIKE THAT?! LIKE, NO SARAH. THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE! I would have appeared into the other Queens world to get help but that is not the point. You just can not drop a bomb like that and then be like “oh well. See you all in two years!”. Like what?! You think you can leave me with a huge cliffhanger and make me wait for two years?! Darn it.

All in all I do the characters. I do love the relationships they all have. The book was good but just too long. And I do not want to read anyone driving their cock anywhere in a while, or balls tightening, okay? I like smut in my books but this is just something else. 

“What would you say if I tortured you?" asked the bandit leader conversationally.
Halla blinked at him. "Err, 'Ow,' probably. 'Stop, Stop, Stop,' something like that?" *What a bizarre question. What does he expect me to say?*”

I think Swordheart falls under the cozy fantasy genre. I had never heard of that before booktok and I think this book is exactly it. I also think it is not for me. I'm more of the faster and rougher content, you know? 

I liked Halla's character very much. Though she didn't necessarily struck me as a someone whom is middle aged, more like someone in their early twenties at max. But I couldn't help to stop thinking that she reminded me a lot of my adhd son. He is exactly like Halla with his questions, non-stop questions that just keep on coming. 
Zale is one of my faves as well. Really loved their character! They definitely fit together well with Halla, I can see BFFs forming right there.
Sarkis, ehh. 

The romance is just a no for me. How does a 30 something old respectful widow and a 500 or something old man whom appears from a magic sword, just immediately fall in love with no questions asked? Well, that's a lie since Halla asks all kinds of questions, but you get the point.
I get that Halla is very inexperienced in everything about love and all that but still. The constant blushing and secretly touching each other like it happened by accident. That sounds more like a teenage crush to me.
So no. The romance was not for me. I do really like to have romance in my fantasy books but I want it to be more than just instant love at first glance. It needs to develop, you know.

All in all it was a little bit too long and repetitive for my taste. The constant marching back and forth in the world was too long. And not needed in my opinion. The ending is kind of a cliffhanger, I guess. But not so much that I would be intrigued to go on.
What I am still wondering though, is how their lives continued in the end? I'd like to say so much more but I do not want to give away any spoilers.

“Why is video evidence never enough to convict white people of killing us, but suspicion alone is enough to gun us down and lock us up?”

I had a major deja vu while reading this book. I don't know what triggered that exactly, but during the last half of the book, I felt like I've seen/read all this before. So much so that I knew how it would end. That was weird, very weird.

I don't think I've ever put a book on hold as quick as I put this one. I did that immediately when I saw they were going to order it when it's published. I was excited, to say the least. But it was kind of a let down. 

I really didn't think this book would turn out to be a book about Tinsley. Yes, she is the main suspect. I get that. But I still hoped for it to be something else rather than just pretty much all about Tinsley trying to save her behind. Duchess's POVs where really short and there were very few of them. You mostly read the book from Tinsley's POV.

I would have hoped to get more into everyones lives. Especially into the relationship between Duchess and his dad. But we barely scratched the surface. All the other characters and the relationships were left shallow as well.
Even with Tinsley. She has a relationship with the boy, whose name I cannot remember, but that was pretty much that. Her mom is a monster. Yet we don't really dive into her character either.

All in all it was a nice book. I would have hoped for more of the promised mystery but that was a little shortlived aspect for this book. It's not a bad book by any means, and the topic is very important. But I like my mysteries to be exactly that, a mystery. Now the culprit was discovered very early on in the book which left the end flat.

I must say I quite enjoy McFadden's books. And this one was no exception. 
The book didn't quite keep me on the edge of my seat but it did have me wanting to continue even more that I had time to. For a while I thought it really was as simple as I first thought, that she really gave us the answer from the start. And maybe someone who's smarter than me (which doesn't need much) it was an easy thing to figure out. But even though I had my very own suspect from the start, I was still surprised in the end. I did not see that coming.
Although it was very good and I truly enjoyed this, I would have hoped more of that “sitting on the edge of my seat” factor.