February 26, 2025 • 88 mins
On this episode we dive into House of Earth & Blood part 2! There is much to say about the second half of this book and we have A LOT of opinions!
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Be advised, this content is not appropriate for younger viewers. These books may contain depictions of sex, drugs, alcohol, and violence. We urge listeners to regard the trigger warnings at the beginning of the video before continuing!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey guys, welcome to A Novel Affair, the bookish podcast where we kiss and tell about our torrid
(00:13):
affairs with fictional characters.
So grab a drink and get ready for some pure unadulterated fun.
Today we are covering part two of Crescent City House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J.
Moss.
And remember to get the in-depth uncensored version of our review.
Be sure to check out our podcast and learn about all of our favorite scenes, especially
(00:38):
the steamy one.
Just look for the link below.
So we are jumping right into the middle of everything, this investigation, and we...
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I love the second half of this book because this second half is when we start to really
get into all the other characters that have really robust side stories that don't feel
like side stories.
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When we meet Therian, he ends up...
We learn more about him in later books, but I love Therian.
He is one of my favorite characters.
He's a big flirt.
He's a mare, which is basically a man mermaid.
A merman.
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A merman.
Merman and Barnacle Boy.
Yes.
Except there's no Barnacle Boy.
And this one's hotter.
He is hot.
In my head, he's super hot.
And I love the flirty chemistry between him and Bryce.
And I also love how Hans all annoyed by it.
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It's ideal.
And...
In my head, he is Aquaman with Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool personality.
That's what I get from him.
Okay.
Sure.
I can get behind that.
I'm not mad about it.
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Not at all.
Not at all.
You're picturing it.
I'm totally picturing it right now.
And I'm happy.
I'm happy we're here.
But in this scene, I think the next best thing besides Therian is when we get to meet the
otter for the first time.
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And I love it.
I am obsessed.
And the fact that Bryce squeals like a giant girl, like, endears her to me so much because
she's like, oh, it's so cute.
Which I can totally relate.
So of course, because TikTok listens to us, after reading this and all of our text conversations
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about it, I started getting like fan art for Crescent City.
And the otter was by far my favorite fan art.
It's so cute.
It was adorable as I imagined.
A universal like, if you are not here for the otters, then what are you doing?
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Honestly.
I think the funniest thing about how classically like romanticy that this book is, and it's
Sarah J. Moss, you know, to a T.
But like we're on it's at chapter 47 of this book, where we get our very first kiss between
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Hunt and Bryce.
As a dark romance girly, even the slow burns in those books, we at least get the first
kiss in like the first 10 to 15 chapters on a slow burn.
Maybe 20.
For sure.
47 chapters just to get a kiss.
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This is one of the most frustrating slow burns in existence, I'm pretty sure.
I am legit getting lady blue balls over here.
And I it's like this, they're on the rooftop, they just came from, I think almost dying,
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you know, it has one of those moments that have a tendency to kind of like.
Listen this ride after the Christalos attack.
Yes.
Yes.
And like she shoot, he kills it, she shoots it for good measure, and then he chops it
up into little pieces for good measure.
And then it's turned to ash.
(05:07):
Yeah.
And it's like super duper dead.
I was like, okay, that's not coming back.
Yeah.
And in true like slow burn fashion, their kiss gets interrupted by.
So irritated.
Sabine the thunder cunt.
Who's the worst?
(05:28):
She's absolute worst.
Listen here.
Listen here, Miss Moss, I'm going to need more pickles in this book.
Something better make up for all of this torture.
Yeah.
Agreed.
And this is where we find out.
It's like the first record scratch moment of the book where we find out it was Danica
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that stole the horn.
I had a suspicion that it was Danica.
Did you?
It just there were there were too many dots that connected for it to be her.
But granted, I didn't see what was coming later on.
But this the horn, the horn part, I was like, it was that bitch.
Why else would she randomly get attacked?
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Why would the Kristalos be following her?
Like why would it come to her if it's attracted to the horn?
If she didn't have the horn?
Yeah.
Great.
I didn't know everything I knew now that I back then, but I wondered.
I did wonder.
I had suspicions.
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That through this part of the book where their investigation is like progressing, but the
facts change.
Every chapter, we either learn something new that we didn't know that puts everything
else into a different light, or we learn something we thought we knew wasn't in fact the case.
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So then it's like, I can rely on absolutely nothing that I've been told at this point.
I think it's hilarious because when we read Flock, we realized that Cecilia was an unreliable
narrator.
Right.
So when you jump into this book and it's third POV and you're getting all these different
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point of views, not just from the main character, you're like, OK, somebody here has got to
be reliable.
You're not expecting none of them.
None of them.
Yes, exactly.
Everyone is lying and being lied to completely.
My next exciting side character, Hear Me Out Cake, is when we get to meet Adis, one of
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the princes of hell.
Everyone is a fan of Rune Danon.
I'm sure there are some simps for Therian.
Adis was...
I shouldn't be fangirling over a demon, but...
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The fan group gets narrower and narrower as you go throughout these side characters.
So tons of people are here for Rune Danon.
There's probably a smaller set of people that are here for Therian.
But then there's that really dark sub sub group that we belong to that's like, did you
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say prince of hell?
Right?
Go on.
Pick me, kingdom of the wicked.
Yeah.
Exactly.
I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed him.
Everything about his personality.
The fact that he's literally a prince of hell.
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Like powerful.
Duh.
And then he had a funny demeanor and attitude.
And he's so cryptic and annoying at the same time.
And I'm like, I just, I have issues.
I just love, I think it's the mystery.
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But the fact that the room is cold because hell is freezing.
I don't know.
I love that.
It just kind of adds to this like different.
It's just different.
I like it when it's something that we're not used to.
There's only one other time that I've seen hell being like a frozen wasteland in a book.
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And that was kingdom of the wicked.
And I am here for that.
For sure.
Yeah.
It's just different.
Yeah, I like it.
It's like, and honestly, again.
I would rather.
If you're going to, if I'm going to go to hell, it's going to be cold because I'm this
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tiny Texas woman.
I love the heat.
Yeah, we.
I can't do the cold.
We drive way too well in like burning flames.
So the real punishment would be to be like cold for all of eternity.
We would still be sitting there with heating blankets in a fiery hell.
The next morning that hunt is a whole chef.
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And I just have to say, I love a man that can cook like such a attractive quality.
Jesse can cook.
He does most of the cooking.
Not that I can't cook, but when I cook, it's like a full on big ass meal.
Jesse on the other hand, can just find three random ingredients and make like a big ass
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dinner out of it.
Oh my gosh.
And he plays chopped.
You know, the show where you like, here's some random ingredients, make a meal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He can make like the, you know, 45 cent ramen noodles taste like they just came from like
an actual ramen house.
So it got me.
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I'm a good man because the way to wait on my heart is definitely through my stomach.
I love it.
So we're having like all these moments, you know, where they've obviously become friends
and they're starting to understand each other and they Bryce's like softening up a little
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bit.
But the basic big event that precedes this is that because, well that, but when Micah
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calls hunt into for another assassination that he has to do, it's like a punishment
because they're not solving the, all these mysteries fast enough.
And he like even says that he's not allowed to use guns.
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So like he's trying to make it as hard on hunt as possible.
And we see this moment where we see the toll that all these murders takes on hunt and he
like comes back to the apartment and he is in the shower, like under scalding water and
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it's like burning him and then his body's healing.
And then it's like a cycle and she goes in there and she finds him and she like literally
bathes him, gets him out of the shower, like puts him in his-
The whole time she's trying not to look at his junk, but she does very much look at his
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ass.
Yes, which I just thought that this was one of those moments where it's like, normally
I think you would see it the other way around, but it's like such a cool, like where she's
taking care of this big, like the umbra mortis and she's literally putting him in his underwear
and putting him to bed.
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So it's like this really like heart wrenching like moment where you're like, oh my gosh,
like this is such an intimate moment, even though it's not sexual in any way.
But then-
I thought my favorite thing about this entire part was when she's trying to dress him and
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then she's like looking at the t-shirt with the slats in the back and she's trying to
figure out how to put it on him and she's like, okay, we're just not going to do a shirt
tonight because she can't figure out how to get his wings through it.
I laughed so hard because I was like, that would have been me.
Oh yeah.
Not worth the effort.
Oh yeah, 100%.
It's fine.
We'll just look at you naked from the top.
Yeah, you don't even need a shirt.
I would never put a shirt on Hunt, but that's just me.
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I mean, fair.
Not to say she didn't have like an ulterior motive of not really trying.
She didn't try for very long.
She did not try very hard.
But then, so she's in his- she puts on his shirt because he wants her to stay.
She basically like, they sleep in the bed together that night and he's like getting
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comfort from her.
But then the next day she's like literally in his t-shirt and nothing else.
And there's this-
I really thought I might get a pickle here.
Yeah, this sexual tension.
I thought I was going to.
And what is it about?
This is such a fantasy romance trope that I don't know why it works, but it totally
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does.
But in every book where people have magic, there is this way that the men can sense the
women's arousal and it always works for the moment because he can tell she's turned on
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and so then he's turned on and then everybody's turned on.
And so it's like, this was one of those moments and I just was thinking, why does that work
so well?
But it totally does.
So in my opinion, when this happens in these books, I may be the one person on the planet
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who would hate to have this sense of smell for that reason.
Because that does not need to be common knowledge, like between me and a partner, sure, but everyone
can smell it.
Everyone's gonna know.
And I'm sorry, there are too many masked men on my TikTok.
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I don't need to be walking around with people knowing what I'm watching on TikTok.
Yeah, that would be a problem.
Like how would you imagine listening to an audiobook at work?
That's exactly what I was just going to say.
How would I ever get away with listening to my smut books while I'm working in my corporate
day job?
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It would not work for us book girlies.
It would be horrible, like all the women who take their books on airplane rides, the whole
freaking cabin's gonna know what you're doing.
Could not.
I see how it works for the books, but if that was like a thing in real life, I would demand
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to like have the glands removed or something.
Yeah, like seriously.
I don't need all my secrets out there guys.
Something about this book, the building of Bryce and hunts relationship, I love this
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balance that she has created where they have these like sexy tense moments, the sexual
tension moments.
And then right after this in the chapters that follow, we have the very realistic domestic
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he does the whole meet the parents thing, which they do over a video call.
But it's like everything that you typically would imagine, like protective stepdad is
like assessing hunt like soldier to soldier and embers like asking all the questions,
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trying to like get all the details and obviously just they even bring up jelly jubilee, which
I love in this moment.
And I have to say that the whole jelly jubilee thing cracks me up because it's just so Bryce.
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So side note, and we can cut this later if we determine that we should.
The first time that somebody ever met my parents, so this was not supposed to like happen.
I was supposedly like just hanging out on the steps of our apartment and just listening
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music and reading books because I'm a nerd.
And I had invited a guy and we were going to hang out in the parking lot and my mother,
somebody snitch.
OK, somebody ratted my ass out.
Rude.
Yeah, horrible.
And she brings him inside and I don't know because I had been out there for a while,
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so I don't know if this was planned or not or if it just happened to coincide.
But my stepfather was cleaning his AK in the living room.
And I have no idea like how long he had actually been like sitting there doing it or if he
just like went ahead and brought that out as soon as he brought the guy inside.
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He didn't say anything to him about it.
He didn't like threaten him with it or make any like awkward comments about the gun sitting
right there.
But yeah, that happened first time.
That's so classic Texas.
That's like a rite of passage experience in our youth, because I guarantee you this has
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happened in my lifetime before.
Yeah, it was a while before I brought anybody around after that.
Understandable.
And to be honest, he never came back to the parking lot.
How weird.
To hang out.
It's so weird.
OK.
Sorry, that was a side note.
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The Meet the Parents thing is so relatable.
But then when I have these like swoon moments that are just not your typical fantasy romance
swoon moments.
And when they're watching reality TV together and like binging like this totally lowbrow
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show, like I love this moment.
Like it's so it's so freaking cute.
I love how the Umbra Mortis is binging reality TV with Bryce.
And that's what I love is that Hunt does not buy his own hype.
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Like he's badass when he needs to be badass.
But he's not above sitting there watching like ridiculous TV shows.
And he's he just doesn't have to.
He's a real alpha male and he doesn't have to constantly tell people and remind people
and protect this image.
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And I really it's what endears Hunt to me, but also reminds me of my husband's.
Because Joe looks like mean, but he's really just like this down to earth, like goofy,
friendly dude.
And I feel like that that is Hunt.
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Yeah, Joe looks like for those of you listening, he looks like he if you walked up to him,
he would just punch you in the throat for no fucking reason.
But that couldn't be further from the truth.
He's so fucking wacky.
And sometimes I forget that.
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And then you'll send me like this random photo of him doing something weird.
And I'm like, ah, there's Joe.
There he is.
Almost forgot.
Yes.
My moment with this, though, with like the unconventional swoon, it was similar to yours,
but it was when he turned on the Sunball game.
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And he was like just being a typical dude with like the backwards hat.
Yeah.
His sports game.
Why?
And the fan art with the backwards hat.
Why is the backwards hat so attractive?
Hey, honestly, I don't know.
It was so.
Oh, my God.
I'm probably going to age myself here.
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But the song snapbacks and tattoos.
Yes.
And they made a whole song about this.
So I need to add that to my library.
I totally co-sign this moment because I agree.
And the fact that like she's kind of teasing him about it, like I just this backwards hat
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and a Sunball game is totally not the Umber Mortis like image that that she had in her
head.
Yeah, I didn't see it coming either.
I was on the same page as her.
I was like, wait.
What?
Yeah, no, I love that also.
And the fan art of it popped up and I was like, oh, God bless fan art.
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I just have to say all the book nerds out there that also have the ability to draw more
than a stick figure.
Bless you, because I totally dig it.
As much as I like the fan art, I am getting tired of seeing like the AI generated fan
art.
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Yeah, because a lot of it's not accurate.
Like a lot of it of Bryce.
She's so skinny in the AI fan art.
And that's not Bryce.
Bryce is curvy, which adds to her appeal.
Exactly.
So AI needs to get it together with being more accurate.
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They focus more on abs.
They should have to read the book.
Okay, is all I'm saying.
You would think.
You know, this is another moment where we really get to see the processing of grief
and like what it's like and how hard it can be.
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And Bryce makes a comment here that's like, it sucks that everyone just moves on and forgets.
And that's such an accurate, like heart punch moment, because anybody who's ever lost anyone,
you have that feeling of like, why isn't the world just stopping to like, you know, this
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major event happened and everybody's moving on like nothing happened.
And so that's so and then because of this, you know, she's kind of pouring her heart
out about Danica and Hunt actually shares and is like, I get it.
That's how I felt losing Shahar.
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And Bryce says, keep going.
I'll add my comment when you're done.
Bryce says, I never realized it.
You and I are mirrors.
And it doesn't.
It takes a lot for me to like clutch my pearls.
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But this was one of those moments because that's such a good feeling to have in your
partner.
So I love this moment.
Well, and then so we have this sweet emotional connection moment.
And then she opens the box of croissants and sees that somebody wrote trash and icing on
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one of them.
And then we we walk right into my next swoon moment, which is Bryce go I mean, Hunt goes
full protective mode and like hauls us out of there immediately goes to confront the
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bitch wolf that clearly did this.
And you know, it's like I will kill you basically.
Stay away from Bryce.
You know, the whole angry, protective, just yum is what I have to say about that.
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I loved it.
It was very much giving who did this to you.
Yes.
Yes.
Just just another we got like my dark romance moment.
Yes.
Amelie, right?
I loved it.
Amelie.
Raven's Croft is who this is and obviously.
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It's just satisfying because nobody in this world stands up for Bryce.
I mean, you've got Danica and her two close friends, but she's really not like respected
the way that she totally should be just in general.
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Well, at this point, too, she's lost Danica.
Fury is like never around and Juniper hardly talks to her anymore.
So she for two years, she's been dealing with this all by herself with nobody to stand up
for her.
And she's not going to stand up for herself because again, she's taking her punishment.
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Yep.
So it was nice because whenever he did this, that was my first thought was finally somebody's
going to stand up for her.
Somebody is going to do something.
Yeah.
But then I was so mad right after all this.
When Bryce and Hunt are called into Micah's office where Sabine and Amelie are, where
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Sabine is basically throwing a wall-eyed fit over Hunt and Amelie's like butting heads
over what she did to Bryce.
And Hunt's punishment is what they call the living death, which is Hunt gets his.
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Heartbreaking wings cut off.
That's what it is.
And at the beginning of the scene, I didn't realize they would grow back.
So I'm like, how, how is this possible?
This can't be happening.
I forgot about the regenerative properties that they had.
Yeah.
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And I was thinking the same thing.
I was like, no, no, no, somebody's got to stop this.
Yeah.
Somebody's going to burst in and save him from losing his wings because they cannot
do this to a main character.
And then on the other hand, I was like, okay, but this is Sarah J Maas.
Right, right.
This is the same woman who killed the serial.
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So who knows?
So then, of course, he's like massively injured.
It's this like dramatic moment.
Bryce is like letting all her feelings show.
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And why is it that there's always got to be some massive like battle or injury.
And one of the two characters has to be like having almost just died and we get like a
smut scene.
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Have you noticed that?
It's for dramatic purposes.
And I will say it mostly happens in either dark romance or romance.
You're not going to get this in the cliche.
Yeah, yeah.
Romantic stuff.
That's fair.
But basically, this is the first little bit of action that we get.
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And I remember when I read this for the first time, I was so excited because I was like,
yes, yes, yes, this is happening.
This is happening.
And then he's like bleeding all over the place because he just underwent like this massive
trauma and she's like.
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And then it's like, he can't have sex until he's fully healed.
Yeah, during this scene, when all this like ended and there still wasn't anything, I turned
into freaking bubble bass from SpongeBob.
Still no pickles.
I was literally yelling at the book and then I was immediately texting Tara, you guys.
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I was like, how dare they?
It's rude.
It was.
This one was the totally rude one because like.
You know, slowest slow burn I have ever read in my life.
You at least got a little I'm going to call this foreplay.
I'm going to call this foreplay, but it's not enough.
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I'm calling this edging.
OK, that's probably better.
That's probably a way better.
Foreplay is enjoyable.
Edging is torture.
That's what this is.
So on top of the fact that we, you know.
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Know that like the smut is off the table for until he heals.
This is the giant.
What the fuck moment.
The first of many in the second half of this book.
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This is obviously right after this is when we find out that.
Well I guess we I should say we catch hunt.
In a synth deal with the Viper Queen.
(33:16):
And I'm just going to go ahead and let you scream for five minutes because I know you
need to get it out.
When she rolled up in the in the boat thingy with Therian.
And it was so dramatic and she's like he turns around and I can't believe it in my head.
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I was like it's going to be Micah or Sabine.
I was not expecting hunt and I immediately again I'm going to talk to the audience here
because I'm not talking to your ass right now.
I immediately texted Tara.
It was like no not hunt not hunt no.
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I my heart sank.
I was like this cannot be right.
And then if I remember correctly.
I was already like in denial about it.
If I remember correctly this is when you decided you needed to fight someone.
Yeah.
What was it that I said exactly.
Hold on I will tell you guys exactly what the fuck I said.
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I am ready to fucking fight somebody.
I don't know who but somebody is going to fucking get it.
And then you sit laughing faces and I said I'm not even kidding and you said I know that's
why it's so funny that I called you a bitch.
I love this feeling of you've read a book and you have your book bestie reading it for
(34:49):
the first time and you're like anticipating all these moments that you know that they're
going to hit.
And this was one that I knew I was going to get a text message about.
And this is good.
This is another something that we've talked about with Sarah J Maas before is there is
some real like what moments in her series in terms of didn't see this coming.
(35:16):
In this scene with all this everything about it pissed me off.
Like her reaction Micah's reaction Fury's reaction hunts reaction the fucking serpent
queen's reaction or the viper queen's reaction everyone just pissed me off.
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And then I was reeling in my head like thinking about all of Bryce's point of views when he
would like randomly dip out.
And I'm like is this what he's been doing every time he dipped out like I was piecing
it together my head I was like how did I not see that I was so mad that it didn't strike
me as concerning.
(36:02):
I will say this when I this was my third reread of this for our episodes and this reread I
saw all of the little breadcrumbs and the foreshadowing and how brilliantly it all comes
out here.
(36:24):
And so this was a really like good plot twist moment and there it kind of sets off this
chain of events which is basically like the fallout from this event.
(36:46):
Okay so this book so we go from this ongoing investigation this moment totally redirects
like the action moving forward because what we're seeing now is the fallout from this
plot twist Hunt and his two Justinian and Victoria the wraith were his co-conspirators
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in this and you know Hunt does say that like he was trying he had a change of heart and
tried to back out of it and couldn't but when Micah chooses their punishments when Victoria
(37:43):
the wraith she basically gets removed from her human body and put into like a glass box
and then they throw her into the bottom of the river or the ocean where she's never gonna
die so she's gonna go insane.
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Can you imagine being trapped with nothing but your thoughts for like all of eternity?
I mean I can't imagine it for all of eternity but I don't have to imagine what it's like
to be trapped alone with my thoughts and that's it's horrifying on a short-term scale.
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This is my literal nightmare like worst punishment I've seen in a book in a while.
Yeah.
Yeah that was like whoa.
I would figure out a way to off myself at some point.
Dude I mean I probably wait a while to see if anybody comes to rescue me but.
(38:48):
But she has no physical form so she can't even do that.
She's just an essence.
Yeah.
No thank you.
Well she's got all of eternity to try to figure it out.
Right.
My hope would be when an octopus comes by and opens the lid and I just drown.
Yeah same same same.
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The autumn king goes and pays a visit to Bryce and I am judging myself.
This seems to be conflicted.
I was super conflicted and I my first thought was I clearly have some issues here right.
Tara I think we all have daddy issues I'm pretty sure that's why we're reading these
(39:32):
books.
And the thing is that the autumn king comes to her and in his own way is kind of like
reaching out to her.
I still don't trust his motives completely I'm not saying he's like being a good guy
here but he is trying to help her understand that he actually did love her mother and didn't
(40:03):
like he's like I was I would have married her I would have made her my queen even though
she was human.
And she wanted to be married to him too.
He made it a point to say that she won't she wanted to marry him as well.
But that was like an important thing.
Here's what doesn't jive with that is that he hit her.
(40:28):
Yeah.
And so I'm like okay cool so you loved her but you still hit her and that she like had
good reason.
Yeah I mean she did what you should do in that situation which is to flee to leave.
(40:55):
Yeah and if she's protecting her baby but Bryce I feel like if I had been in this situation
I would have been pretty quick to be like I don't know I feel like I could have pretty
easily fallen for it and been like oh my god maybe he's not as bad as I thought because
(41:20):
that's what I want to believe.
Not Bryce Adelaide Quinlan no sir she was like cool story bro.
Yeah.
Basically not here for it.
This little slideshow of their moments together and you are panicking you're like this is
(41:45):
a farewell.
This is a like montage moment of nothing's gonna ever be okay again.
I was looking because I read the physical copy I didn't listen to the audiobook or do
the ebook.
So when this is happening I'm looking at the pages that I have left and I'm like there's
(42:07):
still time.
There is still time.
I'm like this cannot be a tragedy if Tara gave me a tragedy I am going to kill her.
Yeah but also like knowing that this is gonna be a series I'm like I have this question
(42:29):
with Sarah J Maas oh my gosh what if Hunt is not like endgame.
Like what if he was the stepping stone to get her out of the Danica shit to something
else and it's like yeah you know you start to question everything.
I had that thought for a second too.
I had that thought that's also why I asked you if each book was technically a standalone
(42:54):
in the same world.
But when you said that it was like a complete trilogy I was like oh fuck anything is possible.
I was like this she's gonna pull something out of her ass at the very last minute.
And she does she pulls so much.
(43:17):
My anxiety was so volatile like a stock market chart throughout the rest of this book.
She said I'm on an emotional roller coaster right now and it's going to make me vomit.
That is exactly what I texted you.
(43:38):
So granted that was after the other comment that I made but we'll get to that because
I'm embarrassed.
The honestly the last sweet moment that I can share before things get like super intense
for a while is we do find out one we we finally get a conversation between Bryce and Fury
(44:00):
where Fury kind of explains like everybody deals with grief differently and she kind
of explains that it was hard for her to talk to Bryce because of the guilt she felt that
Fury was out partying with Bryce that night and just all the what ifs and dangers and
(44:28):
felt like she should have protected them etc.
And I love getting that extra layer right to this character.
You start to get more dimensions of Fury but then you also find out that Fury and Juniper
are in love and that is I loved this which they're so perfect for each other and I love
(44:53):
that you know all of these stories rune story and rune story and Therian story and the Viper
Queens world even and the wolf pack with the Sabine and all of them like these all continue
(45:15):
throughout the next three books and we get to know them more and we get to see all these
different sides of them and so I love getting this like and Juniper is a ballet dancer and
Fury is a mercenary badass famous assassin and so it's like this you know I don't know
(45:37):
it's just really cool and I love these characters for it.
When I found that out my like the first thing I thought of are those TikToks where they're
like me walking through you know a con with what am I trying to say?
(46:03):
It's like they're walking through some kind of like book con, comic con and they're like
worry free and then it shows why they're worried free because there's the big dog behind them.
Oh yeah.
They're scary guard dog.
Exactly.
And that was like the first thing that popped into my mind was I'm a big dog.
(46:26):
I love it.
But then we take a turn for like she tells Bryce and I loved it because she was like
I'm going to tell you this but I need you to please promise me you are not going to
do something stupid.
I am serious Bryce.
(46:49):
And Bryce is not taking this serious at all.
Bryce later goes I told her I wouldn't do anything stupid but I didn't say I wouldn't
do anything smart and I'm like oh she's about to do something that's definitely not smart.
She's going to be so fucking stupid and she was absolutely.
Yeah so.
And at first she tried to play us smart.
(47:11):
She tries to buy Hunt then she tries to trade herself for Hunt.
And there's the stupid part.
Yeah and you know it's interesting because in this moment where Bryce is making a whole
scene and Rune shows up to save her ass and it's kind of interesting because Bryce has
(47:41):
had all of these frustrations and issues because truths keep being kept from her but in this
moment we have this big secret that Bryce has been keeping is unveiled to Hunt and even
(48:02):
like Rune's closest friends.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Bryce is actually Rune's sister and that makes Bryce a fae princess.
Yeah and Hunt is in shock.
(48:23):
He's like what the fuck.
Yeah but he and Rune have this moment of solidarity where like they're both going to do whatever
it takes to save Bryce from herself in this moment.
And even though it's annoying and I understand why Bryce is mad because Rune uses the whole
(48:46):
as an unmarried woman she is the property of her dad and brother until she's married
to save her from herself which it's like ew that's really gross but also.
I hated it but I loved it.
It was this unnecessary evil.
This was about to go so bad because Sandra was thinking about it.
(49:09):
Yeah.
She was looking at Hunt like oh this really would hurt you Hunt maybe.
Yeah.
I'll take her.
For sure.
And she would have done unspeakable things to Bryce.
But then we start getting like Declan and the other guy that are Rune's best friends.
(49:33):
I read too many books and they all start to run together.
Especially when they're all like random names not common names.
Correct.
Correct.
That they're like she's our princess and it's just wild to hear that reference to Bryce
because she's so not a princess.
(49:57):
She even makes like pretty much the same comment.
She's like I am not a fucking princess.
Exactly.
No not my title.
I loved in the summit how there were only two people who did not back down from the
Asteri stare.
(50:21):
And I loved who she chose to be those two people.
Hunt being one of them.
He just straight up eye contacted that motherfucker.
Even when Sabine was or Sandriel was like giving him gusts of wind to look away.
It's like he's like he's like what have I got to lose right now?
Right.
(50:42):
Like what are you gonna do?
Kill me?
Cool.
Put me out of my misery so I don't have to go back with this bitch.
But the other person is actually who I wanted to talk about next.
Because we find out that right here in this moment the medwitch that Rune has been kind
(51:03):
of crushing on I think.
Yeah.
A little bit definitely intrigued by is Hypoxia the new queen of the witches.
The witches yeah.
And she's the other person that is not intimidated.
(51:24):
Which is so weird because she was so young and was like kept hidden from the world and
has like no experience with people that somehow she's got so much fucking backbone like the
balls on this chick.
And in the audiobooks both the original audiobook and in the graphic audio her voice is done
(51:50):
with a British accent.
A very posh proper British accent.
And it's such a cool like juxtaposition because she's very composed and very proper and very
soft spoken but yet she's got this inner strength that is impressive truly.
(52:16):
She was giving Julie Andrews Mary Poppins.
Yes that's a great.
Very stern very well spoken but stood on fucking business.
Yeah yeah yes.
And I mean here at this point we're gonna slide right into the first.
(52:42):
My favorite scene.
Ultimate reveal which is Mike is a douchebag which we already knew to a certain point but
he's like the douchebag of this book.
I was highly embarrassed at this part because.
The shame you guys the fucking shame I am so sorry.
(53:07):
My dark romance brain got me here.
Okay.
When he leaves the summit and it turns out he went to go see Bryce I thought it was like
he was gonna try to like come on to her like he had the hots for her.
So I thought like all this domineering like attitude and shit I was like oh dark romance
(53:32):
girly like and I texted Tara was like.
Am I sick like why is there this like attraction here and then I texted her two minutes later
and was like I take it all back I'm so sorry no no no no no no.
This was.
The shame.
(53:53):
Classic moment I loved it.
That's so hard.
This fucked me up you guys I legitimately for the first time ever reading any of these
books questioned my morals because I was like how did I let this just how did I not see
that.
This was one of those moments where we read we learn things that we had like we got one
(54:19):
story then it changed as it relates to you know we've just if you even take Danica and
we had learned that oh she's a synth addict she didn't want you to know to she was blackmailed
by Micah to.
(54:42):
Be involved in the first place and.
He was after the horn and all like all these revelations happen like boom boom boom boom
boom boom.
And.
In this moment it takes a second for you to realize what is happening because he and Bryce
(55:02):
are having this conversation that make you feel like they're a step ahead of where you're
at and you're you have to kind of piece it together after the fact.
Yeah.
That's what that's where my issue happened here okay you guys it was not immediately.
(55:23):
Revealed okay yeah just don't judge me too hard guys please.
But there's a moment in this scene that I felt like was just super uncalled for and
that is when syrinx gets tossed into the aquarium with the knock.
(55:44):
Piss me off and I'm like leave syrinx out of this.
I was heartbroken.
I definitely thought it was a goner I thought the the thing he was going to get it but then
you know.
(56:07):
In this book there's lots of emotional heart wrenching gut wrenching moments but when I
tell you that this moment.
That La Habba is what makes me cry in this book not just the first time not just the
(56:27):
first two times but all three times I cried when I get to the moment where La Habba all
in one moment decides she's gonna sacrifice herself to give Bryce enough time to do what
(56:54):
she needs to do.
And we find out that Bryce bargained with Jessaba to free La Habba that she's free.
And La Habba is like then let my first act as a free person be to save my friends and
(57:21):
I'm like just a sobbing mess because I love La Habba.
I know and everyone at the summit is watching and the part that got me is when she's ramming
into the glass of this freaking snake like thing over and over chanting to herself about
(57:42):
protecting her friend that's behind her and then everyone in the summit stands up and
puts their hand over their heart and I was like oh my god.
For I don't cry in books.
There's only one book I ever cried in but this made me tear up.
Considering the fact that she is a fire sprite which they as an entire like race species
(58:09):
whatever you want to call it were considered lowers which don't even justify like citizenship
status they can be bought and sold.
The fact that they're all it's just it's so much and she's you know saying like her heritage
she says and I am not afraid and you're just it's gut wrenching.
(58:35):
It's absolutely gut wrenching.
Reading this part was hard and made me a little teary eyed.
I didn't cry but I got teary eyed but I can only imagine how much worse that would have
been if I had listened to the audio of this.
Yes that would have been gut wrenching.
It's yes.
100% accurate.
(58:59):
I loved this this next part is just my absolute favorite scene.
How cool is my favorite.
How cool is the god slayer rifle just first of all.
I love it I loved everything about this everything I would not change one fucking detail about
(59:23):
this scene.
And you also texted me during this part because it's really here's what it is it's the first
of all it's called the god slayer rifle.
(59:44):
First of all she is assembling the rifle while she is in motion to get in position without
even looking at it it's muscle memory.
Yes.
And it's so badass.
(01:00:06):
Basically assembles the rifle gets to the vantage point aims and one shot instant like
headshot kill.
And I liked how it was planned she opened the front door to distracting so that she
(01:00:27):
could just get his ass and then time slows which makes this part to me just so much better
because the bullet is slowly going through him she jumps down as a fucking superhero
landing like and then she just starts going to town with Danica's sword and everyone at
(01:00:50):
the summit is just like I got in to be just like looking like that's where the fuck the
sword.
Yeah.
I like how she just hacks the shit out of him she hacks the shit out of him then God
Slayer was good hacking the shit out of him was my favorite part.
(01:01:12):
Well I'm going to say if if all of that was not badass enough in true irreverent Bryce
fashion she lights him on fire and vacuums the ashes like he's nothing more than she
took the time to go get the vacuum plug it in come over here and just back him up the
(01:01:40):
fucking ashes just throw the bag of ashes in the trash.
It was just schetskis like absolute cherry on top of a hot butch sundae of a kill.
And everyone at the summit is just watching this.
Which makes it even cooler because it's not just like everybody's getting to see what
(01:02:07):
a badass this half a half human is.
Yeah.
They even say like something to the effect of like the hysteria is going to kill her
because she's she just showed the world that a half human half fae and a fire sprite just
(01:02:29):
took down an archangel governor.
Yep.
But I.
Out of all the books I've read this is my favorite kill scene my favorite everything
about it was so perfectly written.
(01:02:50):
I'm going to say I agree with you.
I 100% agree it's so satisfying.
For me it wasn't just the fact that it was satisfying and that the bad guy was killed
but because I have a better satisfying death in this book.
(01:03:13):
But it was just so bad ass and the fact that everyone shit on her throughout this entire
book and she had finally had enough finally fought back did it in the most badass hottest
way possible because not going to lie crushing on Bryce right now for sure for sure.
(01:03:35):
But she also proved herself to everyone in that summit who had been shitting on her
for so long proving that just because she hasn't made the drop and she is half human
that she is not useless.
She is fucking powerful and she doesn't need magic to be that and I loved all of it.
(01:03:59):
Well and not to totally gloss over the fact that totally did not expect for Bryce to have
the horn tattooed into her back.
Yeah that was that was clever.
Shocking that was clever.
There was a moment where I was like is Bryce the horn but then I was like she can't be
(01:04:20):
the horn because the horn was an object that was stolen because usually in these books
when there's like a missing object it's the main character.
Sure sure.
Usually I and you know what I didn't even catch that or think of that so this one was
like a total totally didn't see this that particular thing coming but I thought it was
(01:04:43):
pretty cool and I liked it.
And so when Bryce gets trapped under the whatever she's trapped under and she calls hunt and
basically is giving her final goodbyes to everyone like I tell Rune I forgive him till
(01:05:04):
like she goes through this whole list.
It's another moment where it took me out of that.
Everything's gonna be okay.
Like it's an I don't know it was genuine even though you know like oh there's three books
and the main character still here.
You're not thinking that in this moment because it's so like intense and gut wrenching.
(01:05:26):
It's also something really hard about a third person point of view is that that point of
view can change so anybody is indispensable.
It doesn't have to stick with the main character because it's not wholly in their point of
view.
(01:05:47):
So the second book very well could have written her off just like any TV show could have written
a main character off.
Yeah.
So how shocked were you by the star born fey reveal and the whole story behind their light
(01:06:10):
it up catchphrase.
I can't say that I saw that exact thing coming but I definitely I didn't see the star born.
Let me put it clearly.
I didn't put the star born thing.
I didn't guess that I did guess that she was going to have more power than what the Oracle
(01:06:37):
or not the Oracle but the test that she did when she was younger said I knew she was going
to end up with way more power than what that test had said.
I didn't know it was going to be like a star born thing or that during the drop she was
going to gain all this power of everyone who touched the gates.
Yeah.
But I didn't know how it was going to happen.
(01:06:58):
I just knew she was going to end up with more power.
I thought it was interesting that the actual star born gift is what they call it of her
being able to literally like shine like starlight.
They said it didn't register on that magic test because it's not technically magic.
(01:07:24):
It's its own thing.
But then she does the drop and gets all of this power and how much do you love that she
increases past the Autumn King like just barely and the whole time he's like well she has
(01:07:51):
to survive it first.
This is like she's like whatever blah blah blah.
And I'm like uh huh you hope.
I liked that it wasn't overdone.
Like they didn't make her the most powerful thing in the land.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I liked that she just barely outranked her father.
(01:08:16):
It was spiteful.
Yes.
It wasn't overwhelming.
It was just pure fucking spite.
Like if nothing else I'm going to get just right above him by a decimal.
And I love that Ember.
I think it's the Autumn King that calls Ember.
(01:08:36):
But I love it.
She's like sit on that bitch.
Yes.
She tells the Autumn King all about himself.
Reads him for filth as they say.
Because she pretty much flipped him off and told him to sit on it and spin.
And I was oh I loved it.
(01:09:00):
And all at this moment while this is all happening one more time as if we haven't said it enough
Hypoxia is a fearless badass literally just removes Hunt's crown tattoo thing that's like
(01:09:23):
dampening his power.
This is my favorite kill scene.
Not in writing terms but in satisfaction.
There was just something so satisfying about this.
The instant that the crown is gone he's like literally electrocutes her basically.
(01:09:48):
And I love how everyone as soon as they see it happening like him in front of Sandriel
electrifying the air they all duck under the table and they're holding on for dear life
like fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would be too.
(01:10:08):
And then he just like rips her head off.
And everything slows.
Just like super caveman style.
Fucking smash.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're all next.
Okay but while that's all happening and Bryce is making the drop or no after that because
(01:10:31):
Hunt shows up.
Yeah.
Hunt's dying.
She decides to make the drop because Danica is on the other end.
This whole thing.
This got a tear for me.
This she does the drop and she's communicating with Danica's like spirit or whatever.
(01:10:54):
Like we've been through hell right now at this point and you're going to throw in like
a Danica's spirit from the afterlife at us.
When they were in the summit discussing it and they're like how is this even possible?
A ghost can't anchor you and they were like she's doing the drop by herself but then you
(01:11:18):
go back to her and she's doing it with Danica.
This got a tear from me.
I won't say that I balled like a baby because there's only one scene in book history that's
made me do that but I did have a tear.
It was her screaming through the thing just to light it up.
(01:11:40):
Bryce light it up and I was like oh my god.
Again emotional roller coaster that had me ready to vomit.
So do with that what you will.
Yeah.
Yeah for sure.
And the fact that there is a flashback to the first time Bryce used her starlight and
(01:12:09):
that whole flashback scene in the middle of this intense like is Hunk going to die?
Are they all going to get blown apart by bombs?
You know what I mean?
Like and like oh we're doing a flashback right now.
Oh my god.
I had the same reaction.
I was like are you kidding me?
This is not the time.
I did like that we learned that the first like real time that she used her star born
(01:12:37):
magic was with her mom and her stepdad when they were fleeing the temple.
Yep.
And then you find out from Ember her mother that she was like well how else do you think
that we defeated your fucking little minions?
We were held at gunpoint like you thought we were going to be able to take them out?
(01:13:00):
Nah your daughter killed your man.
I love it.
She buried their ass.
Yeah.
Well and then okay so she makes the drop and Hunt has been like giving her CPR to keep
her body alive so she could like come back and this drop is still like a very abstract
(01:13:22):
concept.
Like it's just not very clear exactly but it's like happening like in her head slash
soul.
I don't know.
I was trying to picture the runway because she's like you have to run down the runway
fast enough to make the jump up to Ascension to get out of this like tunnel but like how
(01:13:48):
are you going to run straight down a runway and then vertically jump up?
Like how physics does not work that way?
Yeah I don't know.
I mean you can run and jump further but that's not Ascension unless the runway is like vertical.
This part confused me.
A ramp?
I don't know.
(01:14:09):
I was kind of not in a physical plane so I don't know.
I don't know.
You got me.
I was highly confused.
If anybody has more clarification please let us know.
But I love the levity in this moment as you know Hunt is doing CPR and he tells her that
(01:14:33):
she waited until he was almost dead to tell him that or until he was like unconscious
to tell him that she loved him and he's like you fucking coward and the first thing she
says is did you call me a fucking coward?
I loved that he was like come back here and say it to my face.
(01:14:58):
Yes.
Yes.
It's just so I love their like witty banter back and forth.
I mean if anything was going to get her to come back it was not going to be sweet words
it was going to be a challenge.
Sure.
For sure.
And that's exactly what that was.
Which I love.
I did too.
And then as if we haven't been through enough we think we're about to get rewarded with
(01:15:24):
some hot and steamy Bryce just saved the world sex and we get Sarah J Moss blue balls once
again because they are interrupted by a call from Ember.
(01:15:49):
I know none of you can see me right now but my eye is fucking twitching because I saved
I specifically did not text you about this because I wanted to I wanted to yell at you
in front of an entire audience for the first time.
You wanted a witness.
(01:16:10):
I wanted everyone to know just how mad I am at you for doing this to me.
Because I wasn't even given a warning.
Okay I need smut.
At the risk of spoiling there is pickles in the next book.
(01:16:36):
There better be.
We do eventually get put out of our misery.
There better be.
Okay I'm gonna need like all of them in the next book.
I need to be bombarded with smut.
I almost went and reread one of the ritual books just to satisfy smut need.
(01:17:06):
That's valid and I was outraged whenever I read this book and I realized we were not
like because you know where you're at in the book at this point and you know like if it
doesn't happen right now it's not gonna happen in this book and I just she knows how to keep
us coming back doesn't she?
(01:17:30):
She knows that we have to see that scene like we have to see what it's what what it's like
when they finally get together what hunt is like.
This is on the same level of sexual frustration as the scene in Kingdom of the Wicked.
(01:17:56):
Those books were only like 300 pages.
That's fair but it's the it's right up there with the because that one was the worst I
had ever experienced in my life.
I was like literally gonna punch someone and well they had a lot of like sexual tension
(01:18:17):
like it was just constantly like sexcapating without actual sex.
Yeah.
This was the worst edging I've ever experienced in my life.
I am all down for some masochist type shit okay but this was evil.
(01:18:40):
Destiny used the safe word.
It's official.
She has used the safe word.
It wasn't even because it was too much.
It was too little.
Yeah.
Well.
I'm gonna write a letter.
I'm gonna have a bf.
I'm gonna write a letter.
There J Ma's count your fucking days.
(01:19:01):
It's coming.
It's coming.
As soon as I find your PO box.
So the epilogue of this book.
Love this little snippet moment.
It adds this another layer to all these mysterious characters and interactions and connections
(01:19:26):
but our epilogue of this book is a conversation between Jess and AIDIS.
This I did not expect and for some reason in my mind when I first read like the first
paragraph of this I don't know why I didn't read Jess for some reason in my head it was
(01:19:46):
fury.
It's obviously even more confused.
Oh yeah.
That would even.
I think that being Jessica really clears it up but we obviously know that Jessica and
AIDIS are like.
Some posh res.
Somehow and there's all this mystique that's been created around Jessica because Jessica
(01:20:08):
is a sorceress but she broke with the witch clan and is part of the house of flame and
shadow.
She has some kind of connection or whatever friendship whatever with the under king which
is like this really ominous thing about her.
(01:20:30):
So lots of mystery around Jessica.
I also am really ready to dive into the second book just to figure out what's going to happen
to Jessica now that it's been exposed that she had all of these illegal artifacts.
I mean a trove of illegal artifacts and it was exposed to everyone.
(01:20:53):
Yeah I am dying to know what comes of that.
So okay I'm excited interested ready to hear your ratings now that you've read the whole
book.
My overall rating is I'm going to say a 8 out of 10.
(01:21:18):
It's pretty good.
That's pretty good considering you didn't get a pickle.
You'll see why it's an 8 out of 10.
So I am going to say it's a 10 out of 10.
This is one of my favorite series.
This is one of my favorite.
(01:21:39):
Like this book is so good.
But that's probably not a surprise.
Yeah but the way you've talked it up for the last couple years I'm not surprised by that
rating at all.
And then just to follow that up for me the content of this was also a 10 out of 10.
(01:22:02):
For me the content was a 9 and a half out of 10.
There were a couple of things that I would have been like okay but the reason...
(01:22:23):
Listen guys the spice.
This may be the lowest rating on spice that I ever give but this was like a one and a
half a two out of ten maybe.
Yeah that's fair.
There was like nothing.
Nothing in there.
(01:22:45):
There was hardly even sexual attention.
There were a couple of scenes where there was sexual tension and you got a little something
out of it.
But for 800 pages there was probably collectively 20 pages of spice and it wasn't even like
two jalapeno spice okay.
(01:23:08):
I disagree.
I think there was sexual tension for me.
So I actually put this at a seven out of ten because of the sexual tension and because of
just how Hunt is and how Bryce is and I really like their connection and so that played into
(01:23:35):
it for me obviously.
But the romance which is probably going to be shocking who everyone I also rated a 10
out of 10.
See that's why I say that like there was no sexual tension because for me it was all the
(01:23:55):
way it came across it was all romantic.
It wasn't it was like I said it was probably about 20 pages collectively of lust and desire
and passion.
But there was a whole lot of romance.
It just wasn't a whole lot of sexual tension.
So I gave romance a nine out of 10 because there was a whole lot of that despite all
(01:24:22):
of the grieving that was going on.
Yeah there just wasn't smut.
That's a fair distinction.
Now the writing I give a 10 out of 10.
Same.
I outdid herself once again props to Moss because that she hit it on the head.
(01:24:43):
Yeah I like this series even better than Akatar and I love Akatar.
It was like my gateway drug and I think it has to do with the characters in this one.
I think they're put in a I don't know they're just so relatable more more relatable than
(01:25:07):
the Akatar characters.
So shocker they also got a 10 out of 10 for me on this.
Characters I'm going to also give a 10 out of 10 and here's my reasoning for that.
It's not necessarily because I just love all of the characters but I typically do not like
(01:25:30):
third person point of views.
Not a fan of it.
I can't connect with the characters the way that I can in a first person point of view.
But it's also because when there's so many characters and it's third person point of
views I have a hard time keeping up with whose head I'm technically in because even in third
(01:25:54):
person you're still viewing it from somebody's point of view.
Sure somebody's inner thoughts but the distinction is so little with third person point of view.
But with this book I didn't even need to go back to see like reread the first paragraph
to see whose point of view we're looking through.
(01:26:18):
It was the characters were so well defined that just by them speaking by the way the
dialogue and the inner dialogue was written you knew who it was.
I agree.
I and I'm not usually like if I had to choose I wouldn't choose third person but this is
the best I've ever seen it done.
(01:26:38):
Yeah I have to agree with that.
And the only other book that I was able to get through that was third person point of
view is The Witcher.
Really yeah but again it's one of those books that's it's third person point of view but
it's always in the witcher's point of view.
(01:27:00):
Sure.
So you're following him around you're not following the whole cast around like this
book is.
Yeah well and in addition for you know just my general is that the characters are so well
developed and you equally want to know what's going to happen in their story as to Bryson
(01:27:23):
Hunt's story and I love that.
I think that that's hard to do.
There's inevitably when you have this many characters it's hard to make them all so robust
and that was really well done here.
That is a wrap for this episode.
(01:27:48):
As always thanks for listening we hope you enjoyed our take on this steamy read and we
will see you all next week on A Novel Affair.
Where we will be discussing the next book in the Crescent City series House of Sky and
Breath.
Don't forget to head over to our podcast to listen to a full breakdown of this book and
(01:28:08):
many others with spoilers and discussions and you can find that link in the comments.
Be sure to like and follow us on social media and hit that subscribe button before you go.
We'll see you all soon.
Bye!
Hey guys, welcome to A Novel Affair, the bookish podcast where we kiss and tell about our torrid
(00:13):
affairs with fictional characters.
So grab a drink and get ready for some pure unadulterated fun.
Today we are covering part two of Crescent City House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J.
Moss.
And remember to get the in-depth uncensored version of our review.
Be sure to check out our podcast and learn about all of our favorite scenes, especially
(00:38):
the steamy one.
Just look for the link below.
So we are jumping right into the middle of everything, this investigation, and we...
(00:58):
I love the second half of this book because this second half is when we start to really
get into all the other characters that have really robust side stories that don't feel
like side stories.
(01:22):
When we meet Therian, he ends up...
We learn more about him in later books, but I love Therian.
He is one of my favorite characters.
He's a big flirt.
He's a mare, which is basically a man mermaid.
A merman.
(01:42):
A merman.
Merman and Barnacle Boy.
Yes.
Except there's no Barnacle Boy.
And this one's hotter.
He is hot.
In my head, he's super hot.
And I love the flirty chemistry between him and Bryce.
And I also love how Hans all annoyed by it.
(02:06):
It's ideal.
And...
In my head, he is Aquaman with Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool personality.
That's what I get from him.
Okay.
Sure.
I can get behind that.
I'm not mad about it.
(02:27):
Not at all.
Not at all.
You're picturing it.
I'm totally picturing it right now.
And I'm happy.
I'm happy we're here.
But in this scene, I think the next best thing besides Therian is when we get to meet the
otter for the first time.
(02:50):
And I love it.
I am obsessed.
And the fact that Bryce squeals like a giant girl, like, endears her to me so much because
she's like, oh, it's so cute.
Which I can totally relate.
So of course, because TikTok listens to us, after reading this and all of our text conversations
(03:14):
about it, I started getting like fan art for Crescent City.
And the otter was by far my favorite fan art.
It's so cute.
It was adorable as I imagined.
A universal like, if you are not here for the otters, then what are you doing?
(03:35):
Honestly.
I think the funniest thing about how classically like romanticy that this book is, and it's
Sarah J. Moss, you know, to a T.
But like we're on it's at chapter 47 of this book, where we get our very first kiss between
(04:02):
Hunt and Bryce.
As a dark romance girly, even the slow burns in those books, we at least get the first
kiss in like the first 10 to 15 chapters on a slow burn.
Maybe 20.
For sure.
47 chapters just to get a kiss.
(04:23):
This is one of the most frustrating slow burns in existence, I'm pretty sure.
I am legit getting lady blue balls over here.
And I it's like this, they're on the rooftop, they just came from, I think almost dying,
(04:46):
you know, it has one of those moments that have a tendency to kind of like.
Listen this ride after the Christalos attack.
Yes.
Yes.
And like she shoot, he kills it, she shoots it for good measure, and then he chops it
up into little pieces for good measure.
And then it's turned to ash.
(05:07):
Yeah.
And it's like super duper dead.
I was like, okay, that's not coming back.
Yeah.
And in true like slow burn fashion, their kiss gets interrupted by.
So irritated.
Sabine the thunder cunt.
Who's the worst?
(05:28):
She's absolute worst.
Listen here.
Listen here, Miss Moss, I'm going to need more pickles in this book.
Something better make up for all of this torture.
Yeah.
Agreed.
And this is where we find out.
It's like the first record scratch moment of the book where we find out it was Danica
(05:49):
that stole the horn.
I had a suspicion that it was Danica.
Did you?
It just there were there were too many dots that connected for it to be her.
But granted, I didn't see what was coming later on.
But this the horn, the horn part, I was like, it was that bitch.
Why else would she randomly get attacked?
(06:11):
Why would the Kristalos be following her?
Like why would it come to her if it's attracted to the horn?
If she didn't have the horn?
Yeah.
Great.
I didn't know everything I knew now that I back then, but I wondered.
I did wonder.
I had suspicions.
(06:32):
That through this part of the book where their investigation is like progressing, but the
facts change.
Every chapter, we either learn something new that we didn't know that puts everything
else into a different light, or we learn something we thought we knew wasn't in fact the case.
(06:55):
So then it's like, I can rely on absolutely nothing that I've been told at this point.
I think it's hilarious because when we read Flock, we realized that Cecilia was an unreliable
narrator.
Right.
So when you jump into this book and it's third POV and you're getting all these different
(07:19):
point of views, not just from the main character, you're like, OK, somebody here has got to
be reliable.
You're not expecting none of them.
None of them.
Yes, exactly.
Everyone is lying and being lied to completely.
My next exciting side character, Hear Me Out Cake, is when we get to meet Adis, one of
(07:52):
the princes of hell.
Everyone is a fan of Rune Danon.
I'm sure there are some simps for Therian.
Adis was...
I shouldn't be fangirling over a demon, but...
(08:16):
The fan group gets narrower and narrower as you go throughout these side characters.
So tons of people are here for Rune Danon.
There's probably a smaller set of people that are here for Therian.
But then there's that really dark sub sub group that we belong to that's like, did you
(08:38):
say prince of hell?
Right?
Go on.
Pick me, kingdom of the wicked.
Yeah.
Exactly.
I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed him.
Everything about his personality.
The fact that he's literally a prince of hell.
(08:59):
Like powerful.
Duh.
And then he had a funny demeanor and attitude.
And he's so cryptic and annoying at the same time.
And I'm like, I just, I have issues.
I just love, I think it's the mystery.
(09:19):
But the fact that the room is cold because hell is freezing.
I don't know.
I love that.
It just kind of adds to this like different.
It's just different.
I like it when it's something that we're not used to.
There's only one other time that I've seen hell being like a frozen wasteland in a book.
(09:40):
And that was kingdom of the wicked.
And I am here for that.
For sure.
Yeah.
It's just different.
Yeah, I like it.
It's like, and honestly, again.
I would rather.
If you're going to, if I'm going to go to hell, it's going to be cold because I'm this
(10:04):
tiny Texas woman.
I love the heat.
Yeah, we.
I can't do the cold.
We drive way too well in like burning flames.
So the real punishment would be to be like cold for all of eternity.
We would still be sitting there with heating blankets in a fiery hell.
The next morning that hunt is a whole chef.
(10:27):
And I just have to say, I love a man that can cook like such a attractive quality.
Jesse can cook.
He does most of the cooking.
Not that I can't cook, but when I cook, it's like a full on big ass meal.
Jesse on the other hand, can just find three random ingredients and make like a big ass
(10:50):
dinner out of it.
Oh my gosh.
And he plays chopped.
You know, the show where you like, here's some random ingredients, make a meal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He can make like the, you know, 45 cent ramen noodles taste like they just came from like
an actual ramen house.
So it got me.
(11:11):
I'm a good man because the way to wait on my heart is definitely through my stomach.
I love it.
So we're having like all these moments, you know, where they've obviously become friends
and they're starting to understand each other and they Bryce's like softening up a little
(11:35):
bit.
But the basic big event that precedes this is that because, well that, but when Micah
(12:01):
calls hunt into for another assassination that he has to do, it's like a punishment
because they're not solving the, all these mysteries fast enough.
And he like even says that he's not allowed to use guns.
(12:24):
So like he's trying to make it as hard on hunt as possible.
And we see this moment where we see the toll that all these murders takes on hunt and he
like comes back to the apartment and he is in the shower, like under scalding water and
(12:44):
it's like burning him and then his body's healing.
And then it's like a cycle and she goes in there and she finds him and she like literally
bathes him, gets him out of the shower, like puts him in his-
The whole time she's trying not to look at his junk, but she does very much look at his
(13:07):
ass.
Yes, which I just thought that this was one of those moments where it's like, normally
I think you would see it the other way around, but it's like such a cool, like where she's
taking care of this big, like the umbra mortis and she's literally putting him in his underwear
and putting him to bed.
(13:28):
So it's like this really like heart wrenching like moment where you're like, oh my gosh,
like this is such an intimate moment, even though it's not sexual in any way.
But then-
I thought my favorite thing about this entire part was when she's trying to dress him and
(13:49):
then she's like looking at the t-shirt with the slats in the back and she's trying to
figure out how to put it on him and she's like, okay, we're just not going to do a shirt
tonight because she can't figure out how to get his wings through it.
I laughed so hard because I was like, that would have been me.
Oh yeah.
Not worth the effort.
Oh yeah, 100%.
It's fine.
We'll just look at you naked from the top.
Yeah, you don't even need a shirt.
I would never put a shirt on Hunt, but that's just me.
(14:13):
I mean, fair.
Not to say she didn't have like an ulterior motive of not really trying.
She didn't try for very long.
She did not try very hard.
But then, so she's in his- she puts on his shirt because he wants her to stay.
She basically like, they sleep in the bed together that night and he's like getting
(14:37):
comfort from her.
But then the next day she's like literally in his t-shirt and nothing else.
And there's this-
I really thought I might get a pickle here.
Yeah, this sexual tension.
I thought I was going to.
And what is it about?
This is such a fantasy romance trope that I don't know why it works, but it totally
(15:05):
does.
But in every book where people have magic, there is this way that the men can sense the
women's arousal and it always works for the moment because he can tell she's turned on
(15:34):
and so then he's turned on and then everybody's turned on.
And so it's like, this was one of those moments and I just was thinking, why does that work
so well?
But it totally does.
So in my opinion, when this happens in these books, I may be the one person on the planet
(15:56):
who would hate to have this sense of smell for that reason.
Because that does not need to be common knowledge, like between me and a partner, sure, but everyone
can smell it.
Everyone's gonna know.
And I'm sorry, there are too many masked men on my TikTok.
(16:17):
I don't need to be walking around with people knowing what I'm watching on TikTok.
Yeah, that would be a problem.
Like how would you imagine listening to an audiobook at work?
That's exactly what I was just going to say.
How would I ever get away with listening to my smut books while I'm working in my corporate
day job?
(16:39):
It would not work for us book girlies.
It would be horrible, like all the women who take their books on airplane rides, the whole
freaking cabin's gonna know what you're doing.
Could not.
I see how it works for the books, but if that was like a thing in real life, I would demand
(17:01):
to like have the glands removed or something.
Yeah, like seriously.
I don't need all my secrets out there guys.
Something about this book, the building of Bryce and hunts relationship, I love this
(17:24):
balance that she has created where they have these like sexy tense moments, the sexual
tension moments.
And then right after this in the chapters that follow, we have the very realistic domestic
(17:44):
he does the whole meet the parents thing, which they do over a video call.
But it's like everything that you typically would imagine, like protective stepdad is
like assessing hunt like soldier to soldier and embers like asking all the questions,
(18:04):
trying to like get all the details and obviously just they even bring up jelly jubilee, which
I love in this moment.
And I have to say that the whole jelly jubilee thing cracks me up because it's just so Bryce.
(18:32):
So side note, and we can cut this later if we determine that we should.
The first time that somebody ever met my parents, so this was not supposed to like happen.
I was supposedly like just hanging out on the steps of our apartment and just listening
(18:56):
music and reading books because I'm a nerd.
And I had invited a guy and we were going to hang out in the parking lot and my mother,
somebody snitch.
OK, somebody ratted my ass out.
Rude.
Yeah, horrible.
And she brings him inside and I don't know because I had been out there for a while,
(19:20):
so I don't know if this was planned or not or if it just happened to coincide.
But my stepfather was cleaning his AK in the living room.
And I have no idea like how long he had actually been like sitting there doing it or if he
just like went ahead and brought that out as soon as he brought the guy inside.
(19:43):
He didn't say anything to him about it.
He didn't like threaten him with it or make any like awkward comments about the gun sitting
right there.
But yeah, that happened first time.
That's so classic Texas.
That's like a rite of passage experience in our youth, because I guarantee you this has
(20:05):
happened in my lifetime before.
Yeah, it was a while before I brought anybody around after that.
Understandable.
And to be honest, he never came back to the parking lot.
How weird.
To hang out.
It's so weird.
OK.
Sorry, that was a side note.
(20:28):
The Meet the Parents thing is so relatable.
But then when I have these like swoon moments that are just not your typical fantasy romance
swoon moments.
And when they're watching reality TV together and like binging like this totally lowbrow
(20:53):
show, like I love this moment.
Like it's so it's so freaking cute.
I love how the Umbra Mortis is binging reality TV with Bryce.
And that's what I love is that Hunt does not buy his own hype.
(21:16):
Like he's badass when he needs to be badass.
But he's not above sitting there watching like ridiculous TV shows.
And he's he just doesn't have to.
He's a real alpha male and he doesn't have to constantly tell people and remind people
and protect this image.
(21:36):
And I really it's what endears Hunt to me, but also reminds me of my husband's.
Because Joe looks like mean, but he's really just like this down to earth, like goofy,
friendly dude.
And I feel like that that is Hunt.
(21:59):
Yeah, Joe looks like for those of you listening, he looks like he if you walked up to him,
he would just punch you in the throat for no fucking reason.
But that couldn't be further from the truth.
He's so fucking wacky.
And sometimes I forget that.
(22:20):
And then you'll send me like this random photo of him doing something weird.
And I'm like, ah, there's Joe.
There he is.
Almost forgot.
Yes.
My moment with this, though, with like the unconventional swoon, it was similar to yours,
but it was when he turned on the Sunball game.
(22:41):
And he was like just being a typical dude with like the backwards hat.
Yeah.
His sports game.
Why?
And the fan art with the backwards hat.
Why is the backwards hat so attractive?
Hey, honestly, I don't know.
It was so.
Oh, my God.
I'm probably going to age myself here.
(23:02):
But the song snapbacks and tattoos.
Yes.
And they made a whole song about this.
So I need to add that to my library.
I totally co-sign this moment because I agree.
And the fact that like she's kind of teasing him about it, like I just this backwards hat
(23:24):
and a Sunball game is totally not the Umber Mortis like image that that she had in her
head.
Yeah, I didn't see it coming either.
I was on the same page as her.
I was like, wait.
What?
Yeah, no, I love that also.
And the fan art of it popped up and I was like, oh, God bless fan art.
(23:49):
I just have to say all the book nerds out there that also have the ability to draw more
than a stick figure.
Bless you, because I totally dig it.
As much as I like the fan art, I am getting tired of seeing like the AI generated fan
art.
(24:10):
Yeah, because a lot of it's not accurate.
Like a lot of it of Bryce.
She's so skinny in the AI fan art.
And that's not Bryce.
Bryce is curvy, which adds to her appeal.
Exactly.
So AI needs to get it together with being more accurate.
(24:30):
They focus more on abs.
They should have to read the book.
Okay, is all I'm saying.
You would think.
You know, this is another moment where we really get to see the processing of grief
and like what it's like and how hard it can be.
(24:50):
And Bryce makes a comment here that's like, it sucks that everyone just moves on and forgets.
And that's such an accurate, like heart punch moment, because anybody who's ever lost anyone,
you have that feeling of like, why isn't the world just stopping to like, you know, this
(25:15):
major event happened and everybody's moving on like nothing happened.
And so that's so and then because of this, you know, she's kind of pouring her heart
out about Danica and Hunt actually shares and is like, I get it.
That's how I felt losing Shahar.
(25:38):
And Bryce says, keep going.
I'll add my comment when you're done.
Bryce says, I never realized it.
You and I are mirrors.
And it doesn't.
It takes a lot for me to like clutch my pearls.
(26:03):
But this was one of those moments because that's such a good feeling to have in your
partner.
So I love this moment.
Well, and then so we have this sweet emotional connection moment.
And then she opens the box of croissants and sees that somebody wrote trash and icing on
(26:29):
one of them.
And then we we walk right into my next swoon moment, which is Bryce go I mean, Hunt goes
full protective mode and like hauls us out of there immediately goes to confront the
(26:52):
bitch wolf that clearly did this.
And you know, it's like I will kill you basically.
Stay away from Bryce.
You know, the whole angry, protective, just yum is what I have to say about that.
(27:13):
I loved it.
It was very much giving who did this to you.
Yes.
Yes.
Just just another we got like my dark romance moment.
Yes.
Amelie, right?
I loved it.
Amelie.
Raven's Croft is who this is and obviously.
(27:43):
It's just satisfying because nobody in this world stands up for Bryce.
I mean, you've got Danica and her two close friends, but she's really not like respected
the way that she totally should be just in general.
(28:03):
Well, at this point, too, she's lost Danica.
Fury is like never around and Juniper hardly talks to her anymore.
So she for two years, she's been dealing with this all by herself with nobody to stand up
for her.
And she's not going to stand up for herself because again, she's taking her punishment.
(28:25):
Yep.
So it was nice because whenever he did this, that was my first thought was finally somebody's
going to stand up for her.
Somebody is going to do something.
Yeah.
But then I was so mad right after all this.
When Bryce and Hunt are called into Micah's office where Sabine and Amelie are, where
(28:49):
Sabine is basically throwing a wall-eyed fit over Hunt and Amelie's like butting heads
over what she did to Bryce.
And Hunt's punishment is what they call the living death, which is Hunt gets his.
(29:17):
Heartbreaking wings cut off.
That's what it is.
And at the beginning of the scene, I didn't realize they would grow back.
So I'm like, how, how is this possible?
This can't be happening.
I forgot about the regenerative properties that they had.
Yeah.
(29:38):
And I was thinking the same thing.
I was like, no, no, no, somebody's got to stop this.
Yeah.
Somebody's going to burst in and save him from losing his wings because they cannot
do this to a main character.
And then on the other hand, I was like, okay, but this is Sarah J Maas.
Right, right.
This is the same woman who killed the serial.
(29:58):
So who knows?
So then, of course, he's like massively injured.
It's this like dramatic moment.
Bryce is like letting all her feelings show.
(30:18):
And why is it that there's always got to be some massive like battle or injury.
And one of the two characters has to be like having almost just died and we get like a
smut scene.
(30:41):
Have you noticed that?
It's for dramatic purposes.
And I will say it mostly happens in either dark romance or romance.
You're not going to get this in the cliche.
Yeah, yeah.
Romantic stuff.
That's fair.
But basically, this is the first little bit of action that we get.
(31:07):
And I remember when I read this for the first time, I was so excited because I was like,
yes, yes, yes, this is happening.
This is happening.
And then he's like bleeding all over the place because he just underwent like this massive
trauma and she's like.
(31:30):
And then it's like, he can't have sex until he's fully healed.
Yeah, during this scene, when all this like ended and there still wasn't anything, I turned
into freaking bubble bass from SpongeBob.
Still no pickles.
I was literally yelling at the book and then I was immediately texting Tara, you guys.
(31:54):
I was like, how dare they?
It's rude.
It was.
This one was the totally rude one because like.
You know, slowest slow burn I have ever read in my life.
You at least got a little I'm going to call this foreplay.
I'm going to call this foreplay, but it's not enough.
(32:14):
I'm calling this edging.
OK, that's probably better.
That's probably a way better.
Foreplay is enjoyable.
Edging is torture.
That's what this is.
So on top of the fact that we, you know.
(32:34):
Know that like the smut is off the table for until he heals.
This is the giant.
What the fuck moment.
The first of many in the second half of this book.
(32:55):
This is obviously right after this is when we find out that.
Well I guess we I should say we catch hunt.
In a synth deal with the Viper Queen.
(33:16):
And I'm just going to go ahead and let you scream for five minutes because I know you
need to get it out.
When she rolled up in the in the boat thingy with Therian.
And it was so dramatic and she's like he turns around and I can't believe it in my head.
(33:40):
I was like it's going to be Micah or Sabine.
I was not expecting hunt and I immediately again I'm going to talk to the audience here
because I'm not talking to your ass right now.
I immediately texted Tara.
It was like no not hunt not hunt no.
(34:03):
I my heart sank.
I was like this cannot be right.
And then if I remember correctly.
I was already like in denial about it.
If I remember correctly this is when you decided you needed to fight someone.
Yeah.
What was it that I said exactly.
Hold on I will tell you guys exactly what the fuck I said.
(34:26):
I am ready to fucking fight somebody.
I don't know who but somebody is going to fucking get it.
And then you sit laughing faces and I said I'm not even kidding and you said I know that's
why it's so funny that I called you a bitch.
I love this feeling of you've read a book and you have your book bestie reading it for
(34:49):
the first time and you're like anticipating all these moments that you know that they're
going to hit.
And this was one that I knew I was going to get a text message about.
And this is good.
This is another something that we've talked about with Sarah J Maas before is there is
some real like what moments in her series in terms of didn't see this coming.
(35:16):
In this scene with all this everything about it pissed me off.
Like her reaction Micah's reaction Fury's reaction hunts reaction the fucking serpent
queen's reaction or the viper queen's reaction everyone just pissed me off.
(35:41):
And then I was reeling in my head like thinking about all of Bryce's point of views when he
would like randomly dip out.
And I'm like is this what he's been doing every time he dipped out like I was piecing
it together my head I was like how did I not see that I was so mad that it didn't strike
me as concerning.
(36:02):
I will say this when I this was my third reread of this for our episodes and this reread I
saw all of the little breadcrumbs and the foreshadowing and how brilliantly it all comes
out here.
(36:24):
And so this was a really like good plot twist moment and there it kind of sets off this
chain of events which is basically like the fallout from this event.
(36:46):
Okay so this book so we go from this ongoing investigation this moment totally redirects
like the action moving forward because what we're seeing now is the fallout from this
plot twist Hunt and his two Justinian and Victoria the wraith were his co-conspirators
(37:16):
in this and you know Hunt does say that like he was trying he had a change of heart and
tried to back out of it and couldn't but when Micah chooses their punishments when Victoria
(37:43):
the wraith she basically gets removed from her human body and put into like a glass box
and then they throw her into the bottom of the river or the ocean where she's never gonna
die so she's gonna go insane.
(38:05):
Can you imagine being trapped with nothing but your thoughts for like all of eternity?
I mean I can't imagine it for all of eternity but I don't have to imagine what it's like
to be trapped alone with my thoughts and that's it's horrifying on a short-term scale.
(38:26):
This is my literal nightmare like worst punishment I've seen in a book in a while.
Yeah.
Yeah that was like whoa.
I would figure out a way to off myself at some point.
Dude I mean I probably wait a while to see if anybody comes to rescue me but.
(38:48):
But she has no physical form so she can't even do that.
She's just an essence.
Yeah.
No thank you.
Well she's got all of eternity to try to figure it out.
Right.
My hope would be when an octopus comes by and opens the lid and I just drown.
Yeah same same same.
(39:09):
The autumn king goes and pays a visit to Bryce and I am judging myself.
This seems to be conflicted.
I was super conflicted and I my first thought was I clearly have some issues here right.
Tara I think we all have daddy issues I'm pretty sure that's why we're reading these
(39:32):
books.
And the thing is that the autumn king comes to her and in his own way is kind of like
reaching out to her.
I still don't trust his motives completely I'm not saying he's like being a good guy
here but he is trying to help her understand that he actually did love her mother and didn't
(40:03):
like he's like I was I would have married her I would have made her my queen even though
she was human.
And she wanted to be married to him too.
He made it a point to say that she won't she wanted to marry him as well.
But that was like an important thing.
Here's what doesn't jive with that is that he hit her.
(40:28):
Yeah.
And so I'm like okay cool so you loved her but you still hit her and that she like had
good reason.
Yeah I mean she did what you should do in that situation which is to flee to leave.
(40:55):
Yeah and if she's protecting her baby but Bryce I feel like if I had been in this situation
I would have been pretty quick to be like I don't know I feel like I could have pretty
easily fallen for it and been like oh my god maybe he's not as bad as I thought because
(41:20):
that's what I want to believe.
Not Bryce Adelaide Quinlan no sir she was like cool story bro.
Yeah.
Basically not here for it.
This little slideshow of their moments together and you are panicking you're like this is
(41:45):
a farewell.
This is a like montage moment of nothing's gonna ever be okay again.
I was looking because I read the physical copy I didn't listen to the audiobook or do
the ebook.
So when this is happening I'm looking at the pages that I have left and I'm like there's
(42:07):
still time.
There is still time.
I'm like this cannot be a tragedy if Tara gave me a tragedy I am going to kill her.
Yeah but also like knowing that this is gonna be a series I'm like I have this question
(42:29):
with Sarah J Maas oh my gosh what if Hunt is not like endgame.
Like what if he was the stepping stone to get her out of the Danica shit to something
else and it's like yeah you know you start to question everything.
I had that thought for a second too.
I had that thought that's also why I asked you if each book was technically a standalone
(42:54):
in the same world.
But when you said that it was like a complete trilogy I was like oh fuck anything is possible.
I was like this she's gonna pull something out of her ass at the very last minute.
And she does she pulls so much.
(43:17):
My anxiety was so volatile like a stock market chart throughout the rest of this book.
She said I'm on an emotional roller coaster right now and it's going to make me vomit.
That is exactly what I texted you.
(43:38):
So granted that was after the other comment that I made but we'll get to that because
I'm embarrassed.
The honestly the last sweet moment that I can share before things get like super intense
for a while is we do find out one we we finally get a conversation between Bryce and Fury
(44:00):
where Fury kind of explains like everybody deals with grief differently and she kind
of explains that it was hard for her to talk to Bryce because of the guilt she felt that
Fury was out partying with Bryce that night and just all the what ifs and dangers and
(44:28):
felt like she should have protected them etc.
And I love getting that extra layer right to this character.
You start to get more dimensions of Fury but then you also find out that Fury and Juniper
are in love and that is I loved this which they're so perfect for each other and I love
(44:53):
that you know all of these stories rune story and rune story and Therian story and the Viper
Queens world even and the wolf pack with the Sabine and all of them like these all continue
(45:15):
throughout the next three books and we get to know them more and we get to see all these
different sides of them and so I love getting this like and Juniper is a ballet dancer and
Fury is a mercenary badass famous assassin and so it's like this you know I don't know
(45:37):
it's just really cool and I love these characters for it.
When I found that out my like the first thing I thought of are those TikToks where they're
like me walking through you know a con with what am I trying to say?
(46:03):
It's like they're walking through some kind of like book con, comic con and they're like
worry free and then it shows why they're worried free because there's the big dog behind them.
Oh yeah.
They're scary guard dog.
Exactly.
And that was like the first thing that popped into my mind was I'm a big dog.
(46:26):
I love it.
But then we take a turn for like she tells Bryce and I loved it because she was like
I'm going to tell you this but I need you to please promise me you are not going to
do something stupid.
I am serious Bryce.
(46:49):
And Bryce is not taking this serious at all.
Bryce later goes I told her I wouldn't do anything stupid but I didn't say I wouldn't
do anything smart and I'm like oh she's about to do something that's definitely not smart.
She's going to be so fucking stupid and she was absolutely.
Yeah so.
And at first she tried to play us smart.
(47:11):
She tries to buy Hunt then she tries to trade herself for Hunt.
And there's the stupid part.
Yeah and you know it's interesting because in this moment where Bryce is making a whole
scene and Rune shows up to save her ass and it's kind of interesting because Bryce has
(47:41):
had all of these frustrations and issues because truths keep being kept from her but in this
moment we have this big secret that Bryce has been keeping is unveiled to Hunt and even
(48:02):
like Rune's closest friends.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Bryce is actually Rune's sister and that makes Bryce a fae princess.
Yeah and Hunt is in shock.
(48:23):
He's like what the fuck.
Yeah but he and Rune have this moment of solidarity where like they're both going to do whatever
it takes to save Bryce from herself in this moment.
And even though it's annoying and I understand why Bryce is mad because Rune uses the whole
(48:46):
as an unmarried woman she is the property of her dad and brother until she's married
to save her from herself which it's like ew that's really gross but also.
I hated it but I loved it.
It was this unnecessary evil.
This was about to go so bad because Sandra was thinking about it.
(49:09):
Yeah.
She was looking at Hunt like oh this really would hurt you Hunt maybe.
Yeah.
I'll take her.
For sure.
And she would have done unspeakable things to Bryce.
But then we start getting like Declan and the other guy that are Rune's best friends.
(49:33):
I read too many books and they all start to run together.
Especially when they're all like random names not common names.
Correct.
Correct.
That they're like she's our princess and it's just wild to hear that reference to Bryce
because she's so not a princess.
(49:57):
She even makes like pretty much the same comment.
She's like I am not a fucking princess.
Exactly.
No not my title.
I loved in the summit how there were only two people who did not back down from the
Asteri stare.
(50:21):
And I loved who she chose to be those two people.
Hunt being one of them.
He just straight up eye contacted that motherfucker.
Even when Sabine was or Sandriel was like giving him gusts of wind to look away.
It's like he's like he's like what have I got to lose right now?
Right.
(50:42):
Like what are you gonna do?
Kill me?
Cool.
Put me out of my misery so I don't have to go back with this bitch.
But the other person is actually who I wanted to talk about next.
Because we find out that right here in this moment the medwitch that Rune has been kind
(51:03):
of crushing on I think.
Yeah.
A little bit definitely intrigued by is Hypoxia the new queen of the witches.
The witches yeah.
And she's the other person that is not intimidated.
(51:24):
Which is so weird because she was so young and was like kept hidden from the world and
has like no experience with people that somehow she's got so much fucking backbone like the
balls on this chick.
And in the audiobooks both the original audiobook and in the graphic audio her voice is done
(51:50):
with a British accent.
A very posh proper British accent.
And it's such a cool like juxtaposition because she's very composed and very proper and very
soft spoken but yet she's got this inner strength that is impressive truly.
(52:16):
She was giving Julie Andrews Mary Poppins.
Yes that's a great.
Very stern very well spoken but stood on fucking business.
Yeah yeah yes.
And I mean here at this point we're gonna slide right into the first.
(52:42):
My favorite scene.
Ultimate reveal which is Mike is a douchebag which we already knew to a certain point but
he's like the douchebag of this book.
I was highly embarrassed at this part because.
The shame you guys the fucking shame I am so sorry.
(53:07):
My dark romance brain got me here.
Okay.
When he leaves the summit and it turns out he went to go see Bryce I thought it was like
he was gonna try to like come on to her like he had the hots for her.
So I thought like all this domineering like attitude and shit I was like oh dark romance
(53:32):
girly like and I texted Tara was like.
Am I sick like why is there this like attraction here and then I texted her two minutes later
and was like I take it all back I'm so sorry no no no no no no.
This was.
The shame.
(53:53):
Classic moment I loved it.
That's so hard.
This fucked me up you guys I legitimately for the first time ever reading any of these
books questioned my morals because I was like how did I let this just how did I not see
that.
This was one of those moments where we read we learn things that we had like we got one
(54:19):
story then it changed as it relates to you know we've just if you even take Danica and
we had learned that oh she's a synth addict she didn't want you to know to she was blackmailed
by Micah to.
(54:42):
Be involved in the first place and.
He was after the horn and all like all these revelations happen like boom boom boom boom
boom boom.
And.
In this moment it takes a second for you to realize what is happening because he and Bryce
(55:02):
are having this conversation that make you feel like they're a step ahead of where you're
at and you're you have to kind of piece it together after the fact.
Yeah.
That's what that's where my issue happened here okay you guys it was not immediately.
(55:23):
Revealed okay yeah just don't judge me too hard guys please.
But there's a moment in this scene that I felt like was just super uncalled for and
that is when syrinx gets tossed into the aquarium with the knock.
(55:44):
Piss me off and I'm like leave syrinx out of this.
I was heartbroken.
I definitely thought it was a goner I thought the the thing he was going to get it but then
you know.
(56:07):
In this book there's lots of emotional heart wrenching gut wrenching moments but when I
tell you that this moment.
That La Habba is what makes me cry in this book not just the first time not just the
(56:27):
first two times but all three times I cried when I get to the moment where La Habba all
in one moment decides she's gonna sacrifice herself to give Bryce enough time to do what
(56:54):
she needs to do.
And we find out that Bryce bargained with Jessaba to free La Habba that she's free.
And La Habba is like then let my first act as a free person be to save my friends and
(57:21):
I'm like just a sobbing mess because I love La Habba.
I know and everyone at the summit is watching and the part that got me is when she's ramming
into the glass of this freaking snake like thing over and over chanting to herself about
(57:42):
protecting her friend that's behind her and then everyone in the summit stands up and
puts their hand over their heart and I was like oh my god.
For I don't cry in books.
There's only one book I ever cried in but this made me tear up.
Considering the fact that she is a fire sprite which they as an entire like race species
(58:09):
whatever you want to call it were considered lowers which don't even justify like citizenship
status they can be bought and sold.
The fact that they're all it's just it's so much and she's you know saying like her heritage
she says and I am not afraid and you're just it's gut wrenching.
(58:35):
It's absolutely gut wrenching.
Reading this part was hard and made me a little teary eyed.
I didn't cry but I got teary eyed but I can only imagine how much worse that would have
been if I had listened to the audio of this.
Yes that would have been gut wrenching.
It's yes.
100% accurate.
(58:59):
I loved this this next part is just my absolute favorite scene.
How cool is my favorite.
How cool is the god slayer rifle just first of all.
I love it I loved everything about this everything I would not change one fucking detail about
(59:23):
this scene.
And you also texted me during this part because it's really here's what it is it's the first
of all it's called the god slayer rifle.
(59:44):
First of all she is assembling the rifle while she is in motion to get in position without
even looking at it it's muscle memory.
Yes.
And it's so badass.
(01:00:06):
Basically assembles the rifle gets to the vantage point aims and one shot instant like
headshot kill.
And I liked how it was planned she opened the front door to distracting so that she
(01:00:27):
could just get his ass and then time slows which makes this part to me just so much better
because the bullet is slowly going through him she jumps down as a fucking superhero
landing like and then she just starts going to town with Danica's sword and everyone at
(01:00:50):
the summit is just like I got in to be just like looking like that's where the fuck the
sword.
Yeah.
I like how she just hacks the shit out of him she hacks the shit out of him then God
Slayer was good hacking the shit out of him was my favorite part.
(01:01:12):
Well I'm going to say if if all of that was not badass enough in true irreverent Bryce
fashion she lights him on fire and vacuums the ashes like he's nothing more than she
took the time to go get the vacuum plug it in come over here and just back him up the
(01:01:40):
fucking ashes just throw the bag of ashes in the trash.
It was just schetskis like absolute cherry on top of a hot butch sundae of a kill.
And everyone at the summit is just watching this.
Which makes it even cooler because it's not just like everybody's getting to see what
(01:02:07):
a badass this half a half human is.
Yeah.
They even say like something to the effect of like the hysteria is going to kill her
because she's she just showed the world that a half human half fae and a fire sprite just
(01:02:29):
took down an archangel governor.
Yep.
But I.
Out of all the books I've read this is my favorite kill scene my favorite everything
about it was so perfectly written.
(01:02:50):
I'm going to say I agree with you.
I 100% agree it's so satisfying.
For me it wasn't just the fact that it was satisfying and that the bad guy was killed
but because I have a better satisfying death in this book.
(01:03:13):
But it was just so bad ass and the fact that everyone shit on her throughout this entire
book and she had finally had enough finally fought back did it in the most badass hottest
way possible because not going to lie crushing on Bryce right now for sure for sure.
(01:03:35):
But she also proved herself to everyone in that summit who had been shitting on her
for so long proving that just because she hasn't made the drop and she is half human
that she is not useless.
She is fucking powerful and she doesn't need magic to be that and I loved all of it.
(01:03:59):
Well and not to totally gloss over the fact that totally did not expect for Bryce to have
the horn tattooed into her back.
Yeah that was that was clever.
Shocking that was clever.
There was a moment where I was like is Bryce the horn but then I was like she can't be
(01:04:20):
the horn because the horn was an object that was stolen because usually in these books
when there's like a missing object it's the main character.
Sure sure.
Usually I and you know what I didn't even catch that or think of that so this one was
like a total totally didn't see this that particular thing coming but I thought it was
(01:04:43):
pretty cool and I liked it.
And so when Bryce gets trapped under the whatever she's trapped under and she calls hunt and
basically is giving her final goodbyes to everyone like I tell Rune I forgive him till
(01:05:04):
like she goes through this whole list.
It's another moment where it took me out of that.
Everything's gonna be okay.
Like it's an I don't know it was genuine even though you know like oh there's three books
and the main character still here.
You're not thinking that in this moment because it's so like intense and gut wrenching.
(01:05:26):
It's also something really hard about a third person point of view is that that point of
view can change so anybody is indispensable.
It doesn't have to stick with the main character because it's not wholly in their point of
view.
(01:05:47):
So the second book very well could have written her off just like any TV show could have written
a main character off.
Yeah.
So how shocked were you by the star born fey reveal and the whole story behind their light
(01:06:10):
it up catchphrase.
I can't say that I saw that exact thing coming but I definitely I didn't see the star born.
Let me put it clearly.
I didn't put the star born thing.
I didn't guess that I did guess that she was going to have more power than what the Oracle
(01:06:37):
or not the Oracle but the test that she did when she was younger said I knew she was going
to end up with way more power than what that test had said.
I didn't know it was going to be like a star born thing or that during the drop she was
going to gain all this power of everyone who touched the gates.
Yeah.
But I didn't know how it was going to happen.
(01:06:58):
I just knew she was going to end up with more power.
I thought it was interesting that the actual star born gift is what they call it of her
being able to literally like shine like starlight.
They said it didn't register on that magic test because it's not technically magic.
(01:07:24):
It's its own thing.
But then she does the drop and gets all of this power and how much do you love that she
increases past the Autumn King like just barely and the whole time he's like well she has
(01:07:51):
to survive it first.
This is like she's like whatever blah blah blah.
And I'm like uh huh you hope.
I liked that it wasn't overdone.
Like they didn't make her the most powerful thing in the land.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I liked that she just barely outranked her father.
(01:08:16):
It was spiteful.
Yes.
It wasn't overwhelming.
It was just pure fucking spite.
Like if nothing else I'm going to get just right above him by a decimal.
And I love that Ember.
I think it's the Autumn King that calls Ember.
(01:08:36):
But I love it.
She's like sit on that bitch.
Yes.
She tells the Autumn King all about himself.
Reads him for filth as they say.
Because she pretty much flipped him off and told him to sit on it and spin.
And I was oh I loved it.
(01:09:00):
And all at this moment while this is all happening one more time as if we haven't said it enough
Hypoxia is a fearless badass literally just removes Hunt's crown tattoo thing that's like
(01:09:23):
dampening his power.
This is my favorite kill scene.
Not in writing terms but in satisfaction.
There was just something so satisfying about this.
The instant that the crown is gone he's like literally electrocutes her basically.
(01:09:48):
And I love how everyone as soon as they see it happening like him in front of Sandriel
electrifying the air they all duck under the table and they're holding on for dear life
like fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would be too.
(01:10:08):
And then he just like rips her head off.
And everything slows.
Just like super caveman style.
Fucking smash.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're all next.
Okay but while that's all happening and Bryce is making the drop or no after that because
(01:10:31):
Hunt shows up.
Yeah.
Hunt's dying.
She decides to make the drop because Danica is on the other end.
This whole thing.
This got a tear for me.
This she does the drop and she's communicating with Danica's like spirit or whatever.
(01:10:54):
Like we've been through hell right now at this point and you're going to throw in like
a Danica's spirit from the afterlife at us.
When they were in the summit discussing it and they're like how is this even possible?
A ghost can't anchor you and they were like she's doing the drop by herself but then you
(01:11:18):
go back to her and she's doing it with Danica.
This got a tear from me.
I won't say that I balled like a baby because there's only one scene in book history that's
made me do that but I did have a tear.
It was her screaming through the thing just to light it up.
(01:11:40):
Bryce light it up and I was like oh my god.
Again emotional roller coaster that had me ready to vomit.
So do with that what you will.
Yeah.
Yeah for sure.
And the fact that there is a flashback to the first time Bryce used her starlight and
(01:12:09):
that whole flashback scene in the middle of this intense like is Hunk going to die?
Are they all going to get blown apart by bombs?
You know what I mean?
Like and like oh we're doing a flashback right now.
Oh my god.
I had the same reaction.
I was like are you kidding me?
This is not the time.
I did like that we learned that the first like real time that she used her star born
(01:12:37):
magic was with her mom and her stepdad when they were fleeing the temple.
Yep.
And then you find out from Ember her mother that she was like well how else do you think
that we defeated your fucking little minions?
We were held at gunpoint like you thought we were going to be able to take them out?
(01:13:00):
Nah your daughter killed your man.
I love it.
She buried their ass.
Yeah.
Well and then okay so she makes the drop and Hunt has been like giving her CPR to keep
her body alive so she could like come back and this drop is still like a very abstract
(01:13:22):
concept.
Like it's just not very clear exactly but it's like happening like in her head slash
soul.
I don't know.
I was trying to picture the runway because she's like you have to run down the runway
fast enough to make the jump up to Ascension to get out of this like tunnel but like how
(01:13:48):
are you going to run straight down a runway and then vertically jump up?
Like how physics does not work that way?
Yeah I don't know.
I mean you can run and jump further but that's not Ascension unless the runway is like vertical.
This part confused me.
A ramp?
I don't know.
(01:14:09):
I was kind of not in a physical plane so I don't know.
I don't know.
You got me.
I was highly confused.
If anybody has more clarification please let us know.
But I love the levity in this moment as you know Hunt is doing CPR and he tells her that
(01:14:33):
she waited until he was almost dead to tell him that or until he was like unconscious
to tell him that she loved him and he's like you fucking coward and the first thing she
says is did you call me a fucking coward?
I loved that he was like come back here and say it to my face.
(01:14:58):
Yes.
Yes.
It's just so I love their like witty banter back and forth.
I mean if anything was going to get her to come back it was not going to be sweet words
it was going to be a challenge.
Sure.
For sure.
And that's exactly what that was.
Which I love.
I did too.
And then as if we haven't been through enough we think we're about to get rewarded with
(01:15:24):
some hot and steamy Bryce just saved the world sex and we get Sarah J Moss blue balls once
again because they are interrupted by a call from Ember.
(01:15:49):
I know none of you can see me right now but my eye is fucking twitching because I saved
I specifically did not text you about this because I wanted to I wanted to yell at you
in front of an entire audience for the first time.
You wanted a witness.
(01:16:10):
I wanted everyone to know just how mad I am at you for doing this to me.
Because I wasn't even given a warning.
Okay I need smut.
At the risk of spoiling there is pickles in the next book.
(01:16:36):
There better be.
We do eventually get put out of our misery.
There better be.
Okay I'm gonna need like all of them in the next book.
I need to be bombarded with smut.
I almost went and reread one of the ritual books just to satisfy smut need.
(01:17:06):
That's valid and I was outraged whenever I read this book and I realized we were not
like because you know where you're at in the book at this point and you know like if it
doesn't happen right now it's not gonna happen in this book and I just she knows how to keep
us coming back doesn't she?
(01:17:30):
She knows that we have to see that scene like we have to see what it's what what it's like
when they finally get together what hunt is like.
This is on the same level of sexual frustration as the scene in Kingdom of the Wicked.
(01:17:56):
Those books were only like 300 pages.
That's fair but it's the it's right up there with the because that one was the worst I
had ever experienced in my life.
I was like literally gonna punch someone and well they had a lot of like sexual tension
(01:18:17):
like it was just constantly like sexcapating without actual sex.
Yeah.
This was the worst edging I've ever experienced in my life.
I am all down for some masochist type shit okay but this was evil.
(01:18:40):
Destiny used the safe word.
It's official.
She has used the safe word.
It wasn't even because it was too much.
It was too little.
Yeah.
Well.
I'm gonna write a letter.
I'm gonna have a bf.
I'm gonna write a letter.
There J Ma's count your fucking days.
(01:19:01):
It's coming.
It's coming.
As soon as I find your PO box.
So the epilogue of this book.
Love this little snippet moment.
It adds this another layer to all these mysterious characters and interactions and connections
(01:19:26):
but our epilogue of this book is a conversation between Jess and AIDIS.
This I did not expect and for some reason in my mind when I first read like the first
paragraph of this I don't know why I didn't read Jess for some reason in my head it was
(01:19:46):
fury.
It's obviously even more confused.
Oh yeah.
That would even.
I think that being Jessica really clears it up but we obviously know that Jessica and
AIDIS are like.
Some posh res.
Somehow and there's all this mystique that's been created around Jessica because Jessica
(01:20:08):
is a sorceress but she broke with the witch clan and is part of the house of flame and
shadow.
She has some kind of connection or whatever friendship whatever with the under king which
is like this really ominous thing about her.
(01:20:30):
So lots of mystery around Jessica.
I also am really ready to dive into the second book just to figure out what's going to happen
to Jessica now that it's been exposed that she had all of these illegal artifacts.
I mean a trove of illegal artifacts and it was exposed to everyone.
(01:20:53):
Yeah I am dying to know what comes of that.
So okay I'm excited interested ready to hear your ratings now that you've read the whole
book.
My overall rating is I'm going to say a 8 out of 10.
(01:21:18):
It's pretty good.
That's pretty good considering you didn't get a pickle.
You'll see why it's an 8 out of 10.
So I am going to say it's a 10 out of 10.
This is one of my favorite series.
This is one of my favorite.
(01:21:39):
Like this book is so good.
But that's probably not a surprise.
Yeah but the way you've talked it up for the last couple years I'm not surprised by that
rating at all.
And then just to follow that up for me the content of this was also a 10 out of 10.
(01:22:02):
For me the content was a 9 and a half out of 10.
There were a couple of things that I would have been like okay but the reason...
(01:22:23):
Listen guys the spice.
This may be the lowest rating on spice that I ever give but this was like a one and a
half a two out of ten maybe.
Yeah that's fair.
There was like nothing.
Nothing in there.
(01:22:45):
There was hardly even sexual attention.
There were a couple of scenes where there was sexual tension and you got a little something
out of it.
But for 800 pages there was probably collectively 20 pages of spice and it wasn't even like
two jalapeno spice okay.
(01:23:08):
I disagree.
I think there was sexual tension for me.
So I actually put this at a seven out of ten because of the sexual tension and because of
just how Hunt is and how Bryce is and I really like their connection and so that played into
(01:23:35):
it for me obviously.
But the romance which is probably going to be shocking who everyone I also rated a 10
out of 10.
See that's why I say that like there was no sexual tension because for me it was all the
(01:23:55):
way it came across it was all romantic.
It wasn't it was like I said it was probably about 20 pages collectively of lust and desire
and passion.
But there was a whole lot of romance.
It just wasn't a whole lot of sexual tension.
So I gave romance a nine out of 10 because there was a whole lot of that despite all
(01:24:22):
of the grieving that was going on.
Yeah there just wasn't smut.
That's a fair distinction.
Now the writing I give a 10 out of 10.
Same.
I outdid herself once again props to Moss because that she hit it on the head.
(01:24:43):
Yeah I like this series even better than Akatar and I love Akatar.
It was like my gateway drug and I think it has to do with the characters in this one.
I think they're put in a I don't know they're just so relatable more more relatable than
(01:25:07):
the Akatar characters.
So shocker they also got a 10 out of 10 for me on this.
Characters I'm going to also give a 10 out of 10 and here's my reasoning for that.
It's not necessarily because I just love all of the characters but I typically do not like
(01:25:30):
third person point of views.
Not a fan of it.
I can't connect with the characters the way that I can in a first person point of view.
But it's also because when there's so many characters and it's third person point of
views I have a hard time keeping up with whose head I'm technically in because even in third
(01:25:54):
person you're still viewing it from somebody's point of view.
Sure somebody's inner thoughts but the distinction is so little with third person point of view.
But with this book I didn't even need to go back to see like reread the first paragraph
to see whose point of view we're looking through.
(01:26:18):
It was the characters were so well defined that just by them speaking by the way the
dialogue and the inner dialogue was written you knew who it was.
I agree.
I and I'm not usually like if I had to choose I wouldn't choose third person but this is
the best I've ever seen it done.
(01:26:38):
Yeah I have to agree with that.
And the only other book that I was able to get through that was third person point of
view is The Witcher.
Really yeah but again it's one of those books that's it's third person point of view but
it's always in the witcher's point of view.
(01:27:00):
Sure.
So you're following him around you're not following the whole cast around like this
book is.
Yeah well and in addition for you know just my general is that the characters are so well
developed and you equally want to know what's going to happen in their story as to Bryson
(01:27:23):
Hunt's story and I love that.
I think that that's hard to do.
There's inevitably when you have this many characters it's hard to make them all so robust
and that was really well done here.
That is a wrap for this episode.
(01:27:48):
As always thanks for listening we hope you enjoyed our take on this steamy read and we
will see you all next week on A Novel Affair.
Where we will be discussing the next book in the Crescent City series House of Sky and
Breath.
Don't forget to head over to our podcast to listen to a full breakdown of this book and
(01:28:08):
many others with spoilers and discussions and you can find that link in the comments.
Be sure to like and follow us on social media and hit that subscribe button before you go.
We'll see you all soon.
Bye!
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