Gild by Raven Kennedy

The fae abandoned this world to us. And the ones with power rule. Gold. Gold floors, gold walls, gold furniture, gold clothes. In Highbell, in the castle built into the frozen mountains, everything is made of gold. Even me. King Midas rescued me. Dug me out of the slums and placed me on a pedestal. I'm called his precious. His favored. I'm the woman he Gold-Touched to show everyone that I belong to him. To show how powerful he is. He gave me protection, and I gave him my heart. And even though I don't leave the confines of the palace, I'm safe. Until war comes to the kingdom and a deal is struck. Suddenly, my trust is broken. My love is challenged. And I realize that everything I thought I knew about Midas might be wrong. Because these bars I'm kept in, no matter how gilded, are still just a cage. But the monsters on the other side might make me wish I'd never left. Author's Note: This is a fantasy romance m/f story. There will be monarchs and magic and fae and steam and violence and all the feels. This book contains explicit content and mature language not intended for anyone under 18 years of age. This is book one of three in the series, so that means it won't be tied up in a bow at the end. In fact, the bow is probably going to be tossed right off a cliff. But it'll be worth the fall.

Not a genre I usually read but thoroughly enjoyed this page turner.
An intriguing tale of King Midas and his favoured Auren.
Ends on a cliffhanger though.

A lot of people have been talking about the series lately and I finally decided to give it a try. I'm always super hesitant to read hyped books because they almost never live up to the hype. I kind of feel that way with this even though I am intrigued and plan to continue.

For me, this was very much a first book that was rocky and trying to figure out its place in the world. I think there were a lot of underdeveloped ideas and storylines that didn't quite work for me. Not to mention the amount of threatened abuse Auren had to deal with. I think what bothered me the most about it is how Auren seems to be strong and want to stick up for others but also kind of does nothing for herself until the last minute. We got hints about how she grew up but I honestly don't get how she ended up where she is in this book without having thicker skin and the ability to stand up for herself. She just kind of lets the threats and abuse happen to her even though we know she came from a hard life before.

For me, it was the last 50% of this book where the actual story started to come into play and I kind of understood what the point was. I think we could have skipped a lot of the introduction in this book and spent more time on the events of the 2nd half so they were not as rushed. I think we wasted a lot of time with Auren in her cage feeling sorry for herself when we could have been learning more about the world and more about her past. I still feel like we know nothing about her other than a few hints she gave to Sail.

The ending was a curveball with a reveal that just adds to my point earlier about this being a rocky book trying to figure out what it was. I think the ending is when the author started to figure out where she wanted to take these characters and what world they were living in. I'm hoping the next books are more concrete in terms of their direction. I will be continuing for now because everyone says the next book is better, but I will say the first half of this book was super dense and hard to get through.