Month: February 2025

Reviews

Gild Review

by amyleighreadsLeave a Comment on Gild Review

*CONTAINS SPOILERS*

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.

Auren definitely has some form of Stockholm syndrome because King Midas really has done a number on her. I can understand her being happy as his favoured one had she been fully aware and ‘in’ on everything that King Midas was doing. But as the story has unfolded and she’s found out there is a whole lot of information that she hasn’t been made privvy to she has to realise that she can’t keep living like this. I have a feeling she isn’t going to happily go back to her cage after everything now.

All the men that have been introduced so far in this series are all quite horrible. Not only to Auren but the other saddles and women as well. Even the guard who she befriends on the trip is still more loyal to Midas than he is to Auren. I can’t see how any of them can be redeemed as far as I’m concerned so it will be interesting to see how the rest of the series play out.

Being first a self published romantasy book I feel as though Raven Kennedy was gearing the book towards those types of readers. At the time reading this I wasn’t personally offended by the language or any of the abusive scenes that take place but I can definitely see how a lot of people would. Be that as it may I was still very engaged and intrigued by the plot of this book, I finished it in basically one sitting. It was a slower start but the pace definitely picked up the story progressed and there was definitely plenty of twists and turns that were quite entertaining.

⭐️3/5 stars quite an addictive read

Tags

The Last 10 Books Tag

by amyleighreadsLeave a Comment on The Last 10 Books Tag

I’ve been redoing tags that I did the last few years just to see how they compare so I figure why not continue on and do this one!

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward

Eldest by Christopher Paolini

The Darkness Within by Tricia Levenseller

Chlorine by Jade Song

I don’t annotate books ever so none…

Aurora’s End by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Took this on holiday and left it at the hotel 😢

I beat my original copy of this book up 😆 So for my reread this year I got a new one!

Argued with my brother that he should read this!

Went to 2 different bookshops to find this book but was never in stock… had to end up ordering online!

Book Lists, Top Ten Tuesdays

10 Books I haven’t Reviewed

by amyleighreads3 Comments on 10 Books I haven’t Reviewed

Hey friends, its Top Ten Tuesday time once again and this week it’s all about Books I Never Reviewed! There’s no particular reason other than laziness and a bit of writer’s block on my part. I actually liked most of these books, I just either couldn’t/didn’t find the time to sit down and write my review until it was past the point where it was fresh in my mind.

Reviews

Fourth Wing Review

by amyleighreadsLeave a Comment on Fourth Wing Review


*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general – also known as her tough-as-talons mother – has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter – like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant. Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Violet as our main protagonist was just a little bit annoying to me. The book really just overemphasized how she’s ‘not like every other girl’ at Basgiath. She’s so tiny and breakable yet she ends up being the most powerful, it was just a bit predictable in that manner. But I was definitely able to overlook this easily and just enjoy the book for what it was. I do enjoy the fact that it shows us various time that she does have to take measures (like wrapping her knees) so she can keep up with everyone else.

Xaden was very well written. He definitely is one of my favourite male main characters I’ve read in a while. Again though it’s just following that same fantasy formula where we have the sexy antagonist who is just misunderstood. There are a few instances where he does live up to his name and is quite ruthless and I like the fact that he doesn’t baby Violet and calls out Dain for holding her back. Speaking of Dain, again very very predictable what was going to happen with him. I knew from the first couple chapters that he was going to end up betraying Violet and it was a bit frustrating that she didn’t see that until the very end.

What saved this for me was the dragons and the plot twists for sure! I love the fact that the dragons are still shown as being quite wild even though they are bonded with humans. They will kill other riders and the cadets with no qualms and we’re not afraid to let everyone know it. The stakes were always high because of this and kept me on the edge of my seat for sure. I love that they are have such different personalities and they corresponded so well with their riders.

⭐️4/5 stars I can thankfully say this did live up to the hype for me!