Thanks to Berkley and Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
So,
as most of my followers know, I'm a dude... a dude that's married to
dudes, totally into dudes and just dudes. But I wanted to try to support
a writer in the LGBTQ+ community, and I wanted to branch out of my
comfort zone a little bit. I'm so glad I did!
This slow burn but
realistic FF romance was just the right balance of light and fluffy and
deep and sophisticated. The relationship grew over the course of the
book, rather than starting with sex and moving into love like a huge
portion of the MM romances you read. To be fair, most of the MM books I
read are more naughty fantasy romance rather than just romance, and this
leaned more into the plain romance side of things.
Of course,
that worked out well for me, because I'm not into lady parts. The slow
burn built into a magnificent crescendo, and even though things do
finally come to a peak (if you know what I mean), it was tasteful,
romantic, and not at all too detailed for my vajayjay-averse mind. In
fact, I think it was a perfectly beautiful scene.
I will warn
readers - while I appreciated the diverse writing and the much needed
message about the Me Too movement, there are a few moments in their
relationship where the miscommunications seem more like a high school
romance, rather than two working adults well past their formative years.
But they worked through them, and let's be honest, sometimes adults act
like teens anyways.
All in all, I'm excited to see what Meryl
Wilsner will do next. I hope she writes some more like this so I can
widen my "community" readings into a more diverse field.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher, Tor Teen, for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
I
read Dark Shores last year and was pleasantly surprised at how much I
enjoyed it, so when I saw this one available, I knew I needed to request
it. And I'll be waiting impatiently for book three after this story.
The
beginning of both books tells basically the same story, Dark Shores
telling Teriana's side of things and Dark Skies showing Lydia's. Then
they both diverge into two separate concurrent tales. I'm assuming
they'll meet back up in book three and become one big story. I hope so,
because if we go back to Teriana and don't get more of Lydia's story,
I'll be devastated, because while I really like Teriana, I adore Lydia.
The magic system and political machinations of this world are really cool, and the stories are fantastic.
Definitely highly recommend reading these two books as soon as you're able, because they're worth the read!