Explosive and enthralling romantasy debut from New York Times bestselling author Rachel Howzell Hall…

Thrown into a desolate land of sickness and unnatural beasts, Kai wakes in the woods with no idea who she is or how she got there. All she knows is that if she cannot reach the Sea of Devour, even this hellscape will get worse. But when she sees the village blacksmith fight invaders with unspeakable skill, she decides to accept his offer of help.

Too bad he’s as skilled at annoying her as he is at fighting.

As she searches for answers, Kai only finds more questions, especially regarding the blacksmith who can ignite her body like a flame, then douse it with ice in the next breath.

And no one is what—or who—they appear to be in the kingdom of Vinevridth, including the man whose secrets might be as deadly as the land itself.

I haven’t read a ton of romantasy, but was anticipating this one and excited to read it. I thought the premise had amazing potential and sounded unique, but the overall execution didn’t really hit the highs I wanted it to. I thought the worldbuilding was really well done and though I’m not a huge fan of slow burn all the time, I did feel like this story did it well. There were times where it almost felt like the tone changed a little, almost like it was kind of shifting to more simplistic, so that wavering of tone did break me out of the story and was a distraction. That being said, I would be interested in seeing how the story and world continued to build in following books as the characters were compelling and had depth. There were a lot of good points to this story and I feel it was a solid first venture into romantasy.

Happy reading!