At first I didn't even know where to even begin with this book. I'm usually not one to reread a synopsis after I have chosen a book and put it on my TBR. This one I did when I purchased it a few months ago. 

When I was looking for a book to start a few days ago I looked at the cover and thought 🤔 Oh This looks interesting. Gothic vibes, In A Castle Of Sorts, and add in a mysterious man. It hit all of those things for me. It is a slow burn for what I felt was the first 70% of the book, if not longer. I felt like it could have picked up a bit more to keep the reader a bit more engaged. 

But alas, I kept reading because I needed to know what the heck I had already gotten myself into and what would unfold. 

This was a much deeper read than what I was expecting. I expected there to be some death 💀, usually there is when it comes to a sorrowful gothic book. But this took you to a whole new level. LITERALLY. 

With how this ends it almost requires you to read the second book so that you can see how the first really ends. I honestly don't know that I want to take that much time to really care to see how it ends or even continues. 

It took me a while to get into this one, I don’t think I really got into it until at least 40% of the way through. 

I think a lot of the story hinges on how much the main character loves and cares for her younger brother, but I didn’t really get a chance to care for him. I don’t think he was actually in the story much. There’s much more a focus on the love interest and he’s a bit… meh. I also didn’t really care for him. 

Weirdly, I think the audiobook narrator made me really anxious (I was listening on 1.5 speed which is normal for me, but I did have to slow it down for this book) because she seemed to always be talking really frantically. It meant I’d rarely want to pick it up because I usually listen to audiobooks when I want to relax or turn my brain off - and this didn’t help. 

After the 40(ish)% mark, I did find the story a bit more interesting. I always find folktales being real an interesting premise, and I liked how the fantastical seemed to creep into the real world in this. 

I thought this was a standalone so was a bit surprised when the end didn’t tie everything off nicely. I might check out the sequel… but I may well not. 

First positively the author has a beautiful way of describing rooms, places, clothes, details with adjectives and so the world building is effective and stunning.  Unfortunately that's about where it ends. The last survivor/resurrected of the drown family is constantly cutting themselves to do blood magic. The premise is they are trying to undo the corruption on the land caused by the tragedies and causing the tragedies  This corruption had killed all the plants and blackened the water of the lake.
The other characters introduced who are trying to help with their magic are failing and also start self cutting to pull power which seems both dark, repeatative and unhelpful. The narrator makes a deal with the dark underlord and gives up her family... The love triangle between the undrowned traffic love survivor and the dark underlord both seem like abusive relationships full of gaslighting, darn deals and unfortunately violent power dynamics.. Giving up positive things in their lives to try to save this cursed land. 

It all became redundant, dark and pointless. There's really no plot, the relationships aren't founded in love but more power dynamics, pity, and tragedy.  I skimmed through entire book speed reading after the first half trying to see if it would evolve and a plot would evolve. Nothing evolved.

Sadly I can't recommend this, as despite the promising descriptive language and world building, the characters relationships are very triggering for me as an abuse survivor, and the self cutting is horrific, knowing people who suffered with cutting in real life this is not ok to weave into a young adult book as a source of magic. It's not cutting is just tragic self harm.

This book read like a 2012 self-insert watt pad fanfic, especially in the beginning. There’s a lot of build-up with no delivery and it seems like instead of letting the story speak for itself, the author instead just tells you how you should feel about the story. 

At the beginning, the main character refer to the (initial) antagonist as “the monster” constantly. After hearing a single rumor about him, being told that he’s called a monster and having like 2 interactions with him. It’s like it was just easier to have the main character keep calling him a monster instead of actually illustrating it and leading you to that conclusion yourself. The entire book just felt like it was trying to hard to be dark and scary, without actually delivering. 

My biggest complaint, though, is the descriptions throughout do not line up. When I read, I have a movie that plays in my head of what’s going on in the book. And the way actions were described, it completely took me out of the story almost constantly! For example, if it describes two characters in the same room, at first it will describe them as being on opposite side of the room, and then 2 seconds later it’ll be saying that character A grabbed Character B’s hand. When did they cross the room?? Did I miss something or do they just have super long arms?? 

My final note:

there’s supposed to be  a love triangle in this?? The third person in the supposed love triangle is only actually in a scene maybe 3 times. And the way it’s described it felt my creepy and weird than anything. Reading it, I kept thinking to myself “does the author mean for it to sound like the main character is kind of into him??”

Nothing about it seemed intentional.

“There are monsters in the world. There are monsters in the woods. There’s a monster in the shadows, and now it knows my name.” 

I have to confess I had zero expectations towards this book. When I received my edition in an Owlcrate box I read the blurb and was intrigued, but didn’t expect great things from it. But oh boy was I wrong! I absolutely loved and wholeheartedly enjoyed this book! When I finally picked it up to read it, I knew that it would be part of a series, but honestly, even if I hadn’t, there were a lot of things foreshadowing this fact very early on.

Anyone familiar with Greek mythology would pick up the not so subtle hints of Violeta sacrificing pomegranate… this in combination with a “Lord Under” point pretty obviously to a Hades and Persephone retelling

.  And all in all, I have to say that even though I saw the ending coming, I enjoyed every single moment of getting to it and I just can’t wait to read the sequel once it gets released. 🥰🥰

I loved the atmosphere and characters. They all felt sympathetic and realistic, especially when making frustrating decisions! I really liked the main couple and enjoyed their journey together. They had a beauty and the beast feel that was well-done. That said, this book had parts where I felt like I was missing something and there were a few moments where J was confused. I also wish the secondary characters, particularly Violeta’s brother got more time to shine. Overall, a great read with some surprisingly heart-tugging moments that left me emotional on these characters (Leta and Rowan’s) behalfs.

I hated Leta’s sacrifice though! I found myself wishing she died rather than give up her memories! That hurt😭😭