The Serpent & the Wolf (Dark Inheritance Trilogy #1)

Only because of the monsters.

Available at Amazon.com

The Serpent and the Wolf
Rebecca Robinson
Dark Inheritance Trilogy, book one
Hardcover, 352 pages
Published November 19, 2024
ISBN 9781668052488


Perfect for fans of Raven Kennedy and Thea Guanzon, Rebecca Robinson’s thrilling romantasy debut combines high-stakes political intrigue and a steamy, slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers romance.

All her life, Vaasa Kozár has been sharpened into a blade.

After losing her mother—her only remaining parent—to a mysterious dark magic that has since awakened within her, Vaasa is certain death looms. So is her merciless brother, who aims to eliminate Vaasa as a threat to his crown. In one last political scheme, he marries her off to Reid of Mireh, a ruthless foreign ruler, in hopes that he can use her death as a rallying cry to finally invade Reid’s nation. All Vaasa has to do is die.

But she is desperate to live. Vaasa enters her new marriage with every intent to escape it, wielding the hard-won political prowess and combat abilities her late father instilled in her. But to her surprise, Reid offers her a deal: help him win the votes to rise in power, and she can walk free. In exchange, he will share his knowledge about the dark magic running through her veins—and help keep it at bay.

This proposal may be too good to refuse, yet Vaasa and Reid’s undeniable attraction threatens to break the rules of their arrangement. As her brother’s lethal machinations take form, everything is at stake: Vaasa must learn to trust her new husband, but how can she, especially when their perfect political marriage begins to feel like the real thing?

"Perfect for fans of Raven Kennedy" has become my new instantly Add To Cart trigger. No other questions asked. Blurb? What blurb?

Add on "If you enjoyed Metal Slinger..." Put it in the cart. Ebook. Hardcover. Paperback. Put every edition in the cart.

It's been a minute since I've read an arranged marriage trope and was so pleasantly surprised (because what blurb?) to find this book open up on the wedding night of an arranged political marriage. With a bride primed to seduce, misdirect, and threaten her groom before escaping off the balcony and into the night.

Hot. damn.

Vaasa flees the marriage her family traded her into to spend the next three months hiding in the library of her new city-state. Seeking answers. Seeking insight to the shadows that slither from her skin. Seeking a way to save herself from the cruel death that had taken her mother's life mere months before.

Only to find that her husband held the path to those answers all along.

For Vaasa is a witch endowed with the power of Veragi magic. And if she doesn't learn to wield it, it will consume her. So her husband, Reid, makes her a bargain. Stay with him, play the part of a loving wife so that he can garner the support of their people, and in turn, she receives access to everything that position offers. Knowledge and training. For the term of three years. Then, he'll grant her a legal separation and leave her free to carve her own destiny.

If you love a man that surrounds himself with strong women and doesn't shy at his wife's blade but instead invades her personal space every chance he gets... then Reid is the MMC for you.

He falls first. And he falls hard.

Reid is fierce, but he's also a sweetheart. The way I find myself swooning over these leads that just want to dance with their lady. Rhysand. Malakai Azer. Now, Reid Cazden.

My heart was stuttering with his pining. With his fear and his heartbreak.

“Why did you leave the oarsbank?”

If he’d have stayed, he never would’ve been caught. Those men hadn’t breached it. But an awful thought sprang to life—perhaps it hadn’t been breached because they’d already found what they were searching for.

“Answer me.”

Lips pursed, he shrugged. “I was looking for you.”

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

“I will never not do that.”

It wasn’t up for debate, judging by the strong hold of his jaw and his unwavering gaze. Or perhaps it was the way he snuffed out the lantern and left her standing in the darkness that assured her he had no intention of admitting his own stupidity.

“You’re a fool,” she snapped, turning and trying not to stumble through the dark to get to the other side of the bed.

“Why am I the fool, Wild One?”

Chapter twenty-four was so heavy.

“She is my wife,” Reid finally said.

“And we will find her.”

“I am in love with her.”

His mother sighed softly, leaning back against the iron railing. “I know.”

“She’s going to leave anyway.”

“I know.”

His voice caught, but he forced out the traitorous words. “What if she already has?”

Silence.

Reid turned, a tear escaping the side of his eye as the lump in his throat tightened. “I want—” He stopped, swallowed. “I want what you and Father had.”

Rip my bleeding heart out why don't you.

The political scheming actually outweighs the romance in this book. It's very much Vaasa's story as she copes with her family trauma while learning to trust others and grasp control of the magic that she's inherited. She is a woman who has never known what it feels like to be safe.

By the end though, Vaasa is a formiddable force that finally gives shape to her magic in a worthwhile, albeit gory, finish. It's one hell of an ending that sets a glorious stage for book two.

4 out of 5 stars.

Available in ebook | hardcover | paperback | audiobook

2025/49

Lightlark (Lightlark #1)

Remember us, Heart. Remember it all.

Available at Amazon.com

Lightlark
Alex Aster
Lightlark, book one
ebook, 384 pages
Published August 23, 2022
ASIN B09S6JGRMH
ISBN 9781647006310


Welcome to the Centennial.

Every hundred years, the island of Lightlark appears for only 100 days to host a deadly game, where the rulers of six realms fight to break their curses and win unparalleled power. Each ruler has something to hide. Each curse is uniquely wicked. To break them—and save themselves and their realms—one ruler must die.

To survive, Isla Crown must lie, cheat, and betray. Even as love complicates everything…

When she fell in love with two enemies, in different times… she just doesn’t remember…

Those were the words that inevitably made me decide to pick up this book. Triangles and throuples are not my thing. I've seen the Team Grim/Team Oro posts so I have some idea of what I'm in for. As far as the love interest is concerned that is.

I was not, however, prepared for intricacies of the plot. Less than ten percent in and I'd had so much information thrown at me that it felt like I was about to fail a test. Six cursed realms. Six cursed rulers. Thousands of years and five Centennials of failures.

Were they even trying?

Turns out, deciding which realm to end was just too hard.

Isla is a Wildling. Her kind is cursed to kill anyone they fall in love with and to survive on eating human hearts. She, however, is not. No curse, but also, no power. Also, she portals to other realma using her Starstick, a magical, ancient relic.

Grimshaw: a Nightshade. He is all that stands between the realms and a threat far greater than their curses.

Oro: a Sunling and king of Lightlark. Possesses the powers of all the realms but the sun will kill him.

Celesta: a Starling and Isla's secret ally. Cursed to a short lifespan of twenty-five years.

Azul: a Skyling. Their curse took their ability to fly.

Cleo: a Moonling and eldest of the rulers. They're cursed to be lured to drown in the ocean every full moon.

'Have we met?'

"If we had... it wouldn't have been just once."

What is it you know, Grim? Who are you? More importantly, who are you to her?

Escorts her shopping. Feeds her chocolates. Tips her off to the necessity of a sword. Well he certainly hit the ground running.

For most of this book... it's quite dull. I had to shift to audiobook because my eyes kept wandering from the words on the page.

Isla and Celeste, bless their hearts, have their own plan for breaking the curses on their realms. The youngest of the rulers, first time participates in the Centennial, think they have it all figured out and a good chunk of the book revolves around that doomed to fail plot line.

Did that stop me from ordering Grim and Oro's Dual Crowns book that released while I was working my way through this book? No. It did not.

Because, to absolutely no one's surprise, the leading males are the gravity to this book. Grim is delicious. Dark, brooding, and shrouded in mystery, he's everything I'm attracted to in an MMC. Oro...

Oh, Oro.

He is not so different than Grim. There's a play on enemies-to-lovers in his relationship to Isla. They clash while Isla and Grim seem to blend. Oro is not above using Isla to further his own gain. A fact that urged me to slap Isla upside her crowned head when she deigned to assert that Oro "hadn't really betrayed" her. Tf he didn't! She divulges her most concealed secret, that which has reduced her to a prisoner of her own realm, and not twenty-four later, Oro is announcing it to those that have the most to gain by exploiting it. But he's never lied to her and to Oro, and oddly to Isla as well, that apparently makes up for his transgression against her.

Mister... the way I want to drag you into the sun.

Isla is a terrible judge of whom to trust. Which is why the epic betrayal at the end shouldn't have surprised me. Because I expected that person to die anyway. Somehow it did. Maybe because that person wasn't the person we'd been led to believe they were. It was the how of it, and not the who of it. It was a nice twist; I do love a good female villain.

And why the hell are you spitting at Grim? He maneuvered you like a pawn to save both of your realms but you, Isla, would have sacrificed yourself to save everyone? That's one hell of a twisted outlook. Someone *has* to die but not once did Isla ever offer the Wildling realm as the sacrifice.

She trusts no one but Oro now.

The love of the FMC is a fickle thing.

She's doomed.

The author is a liar and a deceiver. Trust nothing she says and no character she writes.

3 out of 5 stars

Available in ebook | hardcover | paperback | audiobook

2025/48

The Keeper’s Codex: World Guide & Dark Fae Novella

We were two halves of something broken,
bleeding out for each other's wounds.

Available from the Author

The Keeper's Codex
Celeanne Dorrington (Author's Website)
Heirs of the Shattered Veil, world guide
ebook, 253 pages
Upcoming Release: October 16, 2025
ARC Review


In the upcoming trilogy The Heirs of the Shattered Veil, our heroes race to heal a catastrophic tear in the Veil. Their only clue is a forbidden legend—the story of two lovers from warring factions whose bond may have caused the very fracture they’re fighting to mend.

This is that story.

A tragic myth from the final days before the world broke, a time before soulmarks and castes decided one’s fate. It tells of a bond that balanced on a knife’s edge between saving the world and shattering it. One choice would reveal their true nature. Were they fated lovers, or fated enemies whose only destiny was to be each other’s ruin?

This is a mature (18+) dark romantasy. Expect explicit sexual content, graphic violence/gore, adult language, and themes of war.

The Keeper’s Codex is a world guide for the upcoming trilogy, The Heirs of the Shattered Veil. It features a litany of character dossiers and creature descriptions that read more like a journal than an encyclopedia. The art is beautiful and there's so much personality woven throughout the logs that I couldn't help but feel like I was selecting my own character on release day of a long anticipated video game as I read through the pages. Also included is the novella, The Mirrored Pair, and a two chapter preview of The Heirs of the Shattered Veil.

The Novella: The Mirrored Pair

The wit. The charm. The banter that was laced with threats. From the very first page, I was enthralled.

Three years ago, the covenant between the Light and Shadow factions of the fae was broken and the Veil thus began to unravel without their joint efforts to secure it. Peace between the two sides has been a precarious illusion fueled by obscure threats and fake smiles ever since. And none execute the game so well as Lyra, princess of Light, and Malakor, the Shadow prince. Each a weapon, born and molded within those two opposing factions.

She, his perfect match.

He, her most egregious inconvenience.

Malakor is gleeful in his taunts of the princess while she firmly and repeatedly warns that the game he's playing at has already been decided by her hand. It's a battle of wills and solely of words... until he drops from the shadows beside her on a balcony and the event unfolds that will irrevocably shatter the peace between their people. Blow for blow, cut for cut, they go at each other with passion and with malice.

Until their spilled blood mingles and begins to sing.

Cue the explosion and flying shards of glass. The two are ripped apart by a force that leaves them shaking, in fear and outrage. Then the delegates and other royals storm the ground and allegations start flying and slicing as furiously as their weapons, Voidbringer and Dawnrender, had. And I'm sinking lower in my seat trying to dodge the strays.

Lyra is left corrupted by Malakor's darkness while he is tortured by the taint of her Light.

From there, it's a race to the Unweaver with each looking to promise a piece of the other's soul as payment for a cure and dissolution to the bond that links them. If they don't kill themselves while trying to inflict pain on the other first.

Lyra is a downright vicious opponent and I loved her for it. They are so beautifully reflected by one another. But though Lyra is dominant in battle, she is quite submissive as far as the spice is concerned. Poor Malakor was doing all the work. With, admittedly, a bit of help from his shadows.

I wanted desperately for more time with them but as the blurb forewarns—this is tale of tragedy. It is an action packed, true enemies-to-lovers story that features fated mates, morally grey leads with a dual pov, and graphic spice.

"You were the only one who fought for me," I said, the truth of it hollow and strange.

"You were the only one left worth fighting for," he answered, and it wasn't a comfort—it was a claim.

5 out of 5 stars.

Available in ebook | collector's edition

2025/47

Kissed by the Gods (Eternal Wars #1)

That wasn't a kiss...
That was a fucking confession.

Available at Amazon.com

Kissed by the Gods
Caty Rogan
Eternal Wars, book one
Kindle edition, 610 pages
Published September 24, 2025
ASIN B0DY51PX3J


Leina has spent a lifetime submitting. Kneeling. Enduring.

Then soldiers come for her brother, and divine fury surges through her veins. She expects execution for the bodies she left in her wake. Her people have met bloody ends for far, far less.

Instead, Ryot, a godsworn warrior born to privilege and raised in order, drags her into a world that was never meant for her. One of divine armies and death demons, winged war horses and monsters, sacred power and royal secrets.

A kiss from a goddess changes everything.

No longer a criminal, Leina is a prize. The kingdom’s most powerful men want what the goddess touched. Leina wants only one thing, though: freedom for her people. And she’ll trade herself for the strength to destroy the kingdom that broke them.

Conscripted into a war she never asked for, fighting for gods she doesn’t believe in, Leina must decide how far she’s willing to go and what she’s willing to lose. Because her power is more than a threat to the kingdom’s buried secrets.

It’s a death sentence.

Twenty-four year old Leina Haverlyn lives with her parents and two younger brothers, Seb and Leo. They're all that's left after Faraengardian soldiers took Alden and her twin brother, Levvi, six years ago. The day they killed Levvi's wife, Irielle. The day Leina relives in her nighmares.

They farm wheat to sell in the markets, barely surviving. Simply enduring in a world where no one outside their kin can be trusted.

Mother is a healer while Leina is endowed with heightened senses that overwhelm her at times, to the point of debilitation.

The Collection has begun again and it's here that the story begins.

The soldiers are coming for Seb and her father commands Leina to take her distraught mother inside. It's an inevitable loss and not something the people can fight.

But fight Leina does.

Compelled to hold her ground, to stand against the king's soldiers who would take her brother and force him into slavery in the mines, Leina raises her scythe in defiance.

And the bodies start dropping.

Her mother. Her father.

And still she vibrates with a calm energy that forces her to act. Her blade slices the captain's throat and clangs against a swordsman's chest. She catches arrows and flings them back.

It's power she's never known herself capable of. She speaks with a voice she's never heard. One that commands. One that threatens pain and death.

A voice that goes unanswered as the last of the soldiers begins to be eaten alive by bugs that spawn from his mouth and eyes.

The premise was strong, with a thrilling start.

Bonded weapons. Winged horses. Mental and emotional projection, both past and present. Ryot.

Thirty-one year old Ryot, Skywarden of Stormriven, is an Altor sent to execute the rebel but upon discovering Leina his orders are immediately null and void. For an Altor is above the laws of man and an Altor is what Leina is. The first female Altor.

And it's now his duty to collect her and deliver their newest warrior to the Synod, and to the Archon leaders, where she's met with contempt and suspicion in varying degrees from among her new peers and overlords.

Leina survives her first challenge, one to the death, and finds a place in a cast. With Ryot. With Thalric and his ward, Leif. With Caius and his ward, Kiernan. With Faelon. And with the medic, Nyrica. They become her only allies. Allies that warn her not to catch feelings. There are rules. And for the Altor, bonds and vows and loyalty exists only in their duty to the gods. They forsake family, past and future.

Leina convinces Ryot to take her as his ward. It's something he isn't keen on, as his last four wards have all prematurely died. But relent he does. "Will you be mine?" he asks.

"I already am."

They take the vows of Master and Ward and Leina feels the bond surge through their grasped bleeding hands. A bond she believes to be a typical Altor connection, until she learns it isn't. She shouldn't sense Ryot. She shouldn't be feeling him.

I tilt my head back, so I can look directly in his eyes. "Yes. Master Ryot."

I mean to say it sarcastically, but it comes out something else altogether. There's a flash in his eyes—it's primal and it burns, and it starts a fire that stirs something in my own soul.

He liked that.

And gods help me, so did I.

One horse. One tent. Mentor/ward. Forced proximity. Possessive MMC. Dream sharing. Forbidden love. Magic/powers.

Leina is a strong FMC. She is also very bitter, has a martyr mentality, and demands that others see the world through her eyes while making zero effort to see it through theirs. I found her furiously annoying at times.

And we're snowballing from there.

I was repulsed by the Crimson Feather. But that's me and my wiring. I'm sure others would be delighted by the place.

It's a fantasy world and men still can't have a contraception method? Ffs. Then Leina gets offended when a man goes to touch her, which yeah, a big no, but she'd already been flicking at his chest jewelry twice. You touched him first, Leina. Don't be a hypocrite.

I am simply not a fan of FMCs whom everybody loves regardless of what they do or don't do. I need characters to call one another out on the bullshit. I need them to grow together. Heal together. Overcome together.

"Don't call her a girl." Tf, Ryot? You've called her Rebel Girl more times than I've cared to count. It was a sweet endearment that you've now just tainted.

The whole 'Don't dictate to me' line... You're his ward! He's your master! He has every right to dictate to you. You chose him, Leina. It's on you. Own it.

How I struggled through the last twenty percent of the book. But in it, the truth of the Collection is revealed and an alternative path for the Altors becomes a possibility.

Does the author have a crush on Hemsworth's Thor? I'd wager on yes. However, her description of Ryot remains the least bothersome of my complaints.

3 out of 5 stars. DNF at ninety-two percent. This is book one of a six book series. It is unlikely I will continue it.

Available in ebook | hardcover | paperback

2025/46