while this definitely had weaknesses (nothing major but its clearly a debut) it was honestly really fun. i wasnt expecting it to make me FEEL so many things but i spent a majority of the last 100 pages holding back tears ;-; the emotions and the angst were impeccable aaaaaand i cant lie im a sucker for aldrik <3

3 ⭐️

“I may be a prince,” he said as his lips brushed her ear lightly. “But I would trade it all to be a common man, even if only for tonight.”

I was really hoping to like this book more, but unfortunately it fell flat in my opinion. Im obsessed with her Married to Magic series, so I really thought I would love this series too.

I found Vhalla to be intolerable until the last 50 pages, and I didn’t like the pacing of the book. Im going to read the second one to see if I like it more with her new character development. Fingers crossed!

Overall I did really like this book. The story goes at a nice pace that kept me engrossed with the unknown and the action at some points. I though Vhalla was a really interesting character, if a bit naive but I honestly think thats the point. I hope to see some stellar character growth in the following books.

A majority of the main male characters were meh at times. Kind of put there as a potential love interest and didnt really do much else. Except Aldrick at the beginning but even then he sort of fizzled, didnt he?

I really liked the idea behind this story, I thought that was super interesting and cool that some people are elementals/sorcerers but that they are seen as bad in this world.

I had hoped for a little more world building but that stuff might come in later books.

Characters were pretty interesting and were dynamic althought the dialogue fell flat sometimes.

Editing could use some work, there were sentences where the phrasing/placement of the words was super weird.

3.5 as I found the first 150 pages very slow and not much happened but it got a lot better from that point.

It was awful. I honestly tried to give this book a chance. I told myself "This is can be a unique story! Here we have a heroine who is allowed to be afraid, who doesn't immediately try to solve her problems with a sword. Let's see how this plays out!" - it plays out badly. It felt like our heroine spent the majority of the book quivering and trembling and crying and staring mutely as powerful men explained her things before and after she's physically battered (not directly by the "love interest" and subsequently nursed back to health (twice!).

As far as the "romance" it was like the author was trying to have a Mister Darcy but then just didn't really have the ability to pull that off, and would have Aldric kind of weirdly say and do one mean thing and then awkwardly switch back to saying/doing three nice things after that.

And then lastly, I know that the idea of kingdoms based around elemental powers isn't a unique concept exclusively owned by Nickelodeon, but we have a heroine who is part of a lost race of air elementals, and now lives in an imperialistic kingdom where the fire-using love interest is even referred to as a "Fire Lord". I tried to wonder if this was a fanfiction with the names "Search and replaced" but I couldn't imagine that Vhalla resembled any characters. This was just weird.

I LOVE this book. Seriously. Five stars are not enough. I've read it before and liked it enough to track down the author. I found the box set recently and decided to re read this one to read the others.

It's better than I remembered. Even though I knew the ending, I still went through all the emotions as if it were the first time. I connected with the characters. I felt their heartache and laughter.

The plot is original and refreshing and new. I can't wait to read more.