February 13, 2025 • 59 mins
This episode embarks on an exploration of *A Throne in the Dark* by AK Caggiano, where dark romances clash with comedic undertones, leading characters on an unexpected journey of self-discovery and emotional growth. We dissect the book's intricate world-building, character dynamics, and the balance of fantasy and romance, while expressing our varied ratings and thoughts on where the characters’ relationships might head next.
What happens when you mix the thrill of Kickstarter with the world of romantic fiction? We kick off this episode with our own adventures in backing creative projects, featuring a book-themed board game that promises to charm bibliophiles and board game fans alike. Unpacking the latest from Publishers Weekly, we celebrate the rebound in print book sales, with fantasy fiction spearheading this revival.
As we get psyched for Ramsay Con, we reveal a tantalizing cover for "Sin: The News Alchemized," slated for a 2025 release with captivating Geiger-style artwork. We're buzzing about a flurry of upcoming book releases and an armful of pre-orders that promise to keep our shelves busy. From Juliet Cross to RF Kuang, this episode is a testament to our fervor for new stories and our ongoing discussion about the romantic tension and spice in "A Throne in the Dark" by AK Casiano. It's a book that’s got us all sharing laughs and debating its pacing quirks, especially when the audiobook serves up accents that are comically unexpected.
And if you think Dungeons & Dragons is just a game, think again! We draw parallels between the character arcs in our campaigns and those in our fantasy reads, pondering the effectiveness of world-building and romance. Join our community as we champion diversity in literature and celebrate Black history, embracing stories that enrich our understanding and appreciation of the world.
- Links from the News Segment and Show (not all were discussed):
- A Place for All My Books boardgame Kickstarter
- Link to KickStarter
- 1-4 players ages 10+ and 60 min play time
- After 2 years of declines, print book sales increased in 2024
- Link to story
- Fantasy up 35.8%, led by Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros
- SenLin Yu’s Alchemized Cover Reveal
Follow us:
Instagram - @ofswordsandsoulmates
Goodreads - http://www.goodreads.com/ofswordsandsoulmates
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ashley (00:00):
Views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the
participants.
The hosts make no claim to beliterary experts and their
opinions are exactly thatopinions.
All creative works discussed orreviewed are the intellectual
property of the creators of saidstories and is being used under
the Fair Use Doctrine.
Mari (00:30):
Hello and welcome to Of Swords and Soulmates, a podcast
where we read, watch and discussromanticist stories.
I'm one of your hosts, mari,and with me I have Kelly.
Kelly (00:34):
Hey everyone, it's Kelly and, like always, we have Ashley
.
Ashley (00:38):
Hey guys, it's Ashley.
We also have Jonathan.
Mari (00:40):
Hey, what's up?
It's JP.
We're gangs all back together.
Today we're going to bediscussing A Throne in the Dark
by AK Caggiano, but first, asalways, we're going to go over
some news.
The first thing I had is not100% book related, but there's a
(01:00):
Kickstarter board game that Ibelieve closes today, the date
that this podcast airs.
It's called A Place for All myBooks and it's basically a board
game for like book people.
It's one to four players ages10 and up, and it's like a 60
minute gameplay and you'rebasically collecting books,
(01:24):
rearranging books, books andlike there's something about
like it recharges your socialbattery and then you can go get
more books.
Yeah, it sounds like a fun,like nerdy bookish, like generic
book.
It's just not like you have toknow anything about any
particular genre or book orwhatever.
A fun little game.
So if anyone likes books andboard games, that would be
potentially worth checking outhave you ever done a kickstarter
(01:47):
?
Ashley (01:48):
yeah, I've done a few one yeah, interesting like been
part of one or made one likelike done one, like like paid
into one yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mari (01:59):
Um, we have a few board games we've done through
kickstarter, trying to thinkwhat else we may have done
through Kickstarter.
Oh, I have a travel toothbrushthat I supported on Kickstarter.
That's like still being made,but it's like you do the little
toothpaste in the handle of thetoothbrush and it's like all in
one, it was really neat, reallyneat idea for, like, compact
(02:21):
travel.
I mean, it's an interestingconcept because you're helping,
you know, and if it's somethingyou're interested in, you get it
.
Yeah, but it's not the same asbuying it, because there is that
whole potential that it neverfully gets funded or fully gets
made, do you?
Ashley (02:35):
get your money back if it doesn't yeah they don't.
Mari (02:39):
I'm trying to remember.
They don't charge you until.
Kelly (02:42):
Unless it reaches the funding goal.
I'm trying to remember theydon't charge you until, unless
it reaches the funding goal.
So if they say we need $100,000for this project, if they raise
enough supporters to meet thatamount, then it'll get funded
and you'll get charged for it,and if they don't reach the goal
, then your credit card orwhatever never gets charged.
Ashley (02:58):
Interesting.
Mari (03:00):
So it's a bit of a gamble.
The other news I have isPublishers Weekly dropped some
stats of 2024.
And after two years of printbook sales being in decline,
2024 was the first year that ithas gone up.
I mean it didn't go upsignificantly, but it's not
dropped.
And adult fiction category waswhat basically bumped that up.
(03:25):
Fantasy had the biggestincrease and there's a quote I
had from the article that saidFantasy had the biggest increase
in the adult segment, up 35.8%.
Sarah J Maas and Rebecca Yaroswere the queens of romancy in
the year, with each landing twobooks among a year's top sellers
.
Maas' A Court of Thorns andRoses and A Court of Mist and
Fury moved about 1.3 million and791,000 copies respectively,
(03:48):
while Sales of Yarrows' IronFlame and Fourth Wing sold
nearly 1.7 million copiescombined last year.
Hot dog Mm-hmm.
Jonathan (03:55):
What do you think, what percentage of profits do
you think she sees from that?
Ashley (03:58):
Which she.
Jonathan (03:59):
Rebecca.
Ashley (04:00):
Oh Well, seeing as how those two books only recently
moved to Kindle Unlimited, itwas probably a decent turnaround
.
Kindle Unlimited you get paidby the page read, not by the
book borrowed.
Mari (04:15):
Oh, interesting.
I didn't know how that worked.
Ashley (04:17):
Yeah, it's an interesting concept.
Kelly (04:19):
It says traditional publishers and print generally
5%, fifteen percent of sales,and so I guess it would be 15
percent if you're like stephenking and five percent if you're
less well, less well-knownauthor I'm gonna guess that she
didn't have such.
Ashley (04:38):
She probably didn't have an amazing deal for fourth wing
, although she's a well-knowncontemporary romance writer,
right romanticist like this washer first official romanticist
book, but she probably brokeredherself a better deal.
I'm hoping for iron flame foryeah if she didn't, she needs to
get her people on it well thefact that they, like they, came
(05:00):
to her.
Mari (05:01):
They wanted her to write like her publisher wanted her to
write, in the genre.
I would think they would havehad to offer her something good
right.
Ashley (05:07):
Yeah, I think it was something.
I believe I read or sawsomething at some point where
she had been wanting to do thisfor quite some time and she
couldn't get buy-in from her,her publisher or whatever for a
very long time.
She's got a number ofcontemporary romances out there,
right.
And then I guess, justeventually it was all right, you
(05:28):
know, let's hear your pitch,yeah, um, and she had to come
with like five fully formedpitches, beginning, middle and
end, basically.
And I think I had also readthat violet getting spoiler,
spoiler here, that violetgetting two dragons was actually
a compromise with her um, agentor publisher or whatever that.
(05:52):
Because you know, I thinkoriginally she had these, these
two ideas, but she was anglingtowards like andarna being the
only dragon and publisher waslike not really sure how that's
going to be perceived.
And then they were like okay,well, what about a really,
really bad-ass dragon and andArna, and that's how she got to.
(06:13):
That was not the original plan.
Mari (06:15):
See, now that gives me a little bit of heart palpitations
, for all the theories that arelike Taryn's going to die before
the series is over with.
And, like Taryn's, gonna diebefore the series is over with,
and I'm like you, shut yourmouth.
There is a cult following.
Oh, oh, I gotta say for forAgatar being a 15, no, a 10 year
(06:37):
old book which still be rightin the top 10.
Ashley (06:40):
Yeah, wolf, that's pretty damn good that's all
social media, in my very humbleopinion.
I think the power of socialmedia for Rebecca and for Sarah
J Maas has been probably prettylife-changing.
I think Sarah had a cult of herown before BookTalk, but if
(07:00):
they're in the last two years Imean before Fourth Wing came out
it was definitely like Sarah JMass and Jennifer Armentrout, I
think, is how you pronounce herlast name and I've not read any
of her books, but she hasseveral series out and she
actually runs Polycon.
I think it's a Polycon.
Mari (07:21):
Yeah, jlm, and those were the two really really, really
big authors that just flooded myFor you page on TikTok, so big,
big names with lots of booksline of readers.
You know you have people whoyou know maybe got into some
(07:43):
voracious reading with likehunger games and stuff in that
era, right and there wasn'tright as much that captured that
group of people or maybebrought them back to reading.
Until some of some of thisagatar, fourth wing, throne of
glass, like this whole new waveof whatever, um, wave of romancy
or whatever, yeah, I think hasbrought some people back into
(08:06):
reading For sure.
Ashley (08:08):
My sister, you know, was never a reader.
She had always, just neverreally had.
She never thought she could doit, almost right, like she
didn't have the time, she didn'thave like the bandwidth, you
know, to just sit down and readin the way that one can just sit
down and watch, you know, fivehours of television.
Yeah, um, she never reallybelieved that it was for her and
(08:30):
then and then she did.
You know, it was just, I think,the exposure on social media
and the hype and the excitementfor the storytelling, um, it
finally just spoke to her andyou know she sat down and she
read a book and she was like,well, fuck, this was amazing,
this is for me.
And now she has a bookshelfwith books on them, she has a
(08:53):
Kindle and a whole little setup.
Mari (08:55):
And I think that's another thing and my little reader
heart is so excited for her.
I think that's another thingtoo.
Like, I think some things thatare making reading easy as a
whole are also leading towardspeople buying print books, even
if they didn't necessarily readit that way.
So you have the moreavailability of audiobooks and
better quality audiobooks, andyou have, yeah, e-readers that
are, you know, pretty highquality and more affordable than
(09:18):
they used to be.
Ashley (09:19):
Oh yeah, and I well, you can decorate them trophies.
Mari (09:22):
You know you might read it on on your e-reader or listen
to it or whatever.
And then you're like, well, nowI want it for my bookcase.
Ashley (09:29):
Correct.
Yeah, she started with a tinylittle shelf like that was
mounted on her wall and then shehad to invest in an actual like
book shelf with, you know,tiers, like five tiers.
So it's been exciting for me towatch that growth for her.
Like she came to the, to theromance, the Romantici con last
year and she had a blast andthat was, I mean, arguably all
(09:53):
of our first times going to acon of that nature.
But like to see her be excitedand you know buy books and she
sent me a picture the other dayof like her decorated Kindle.
You know she got like a clearcase and she put stickers on
picture the other day of likeher decorated kindle.
You know she got like a clearcase and she put stickers on the
back and I think, jonathan, yougave her the stickers.
She was very excited.
She's gonna switch out herstickers based on her mood or
(10:15):
the season or whatever it's awhole thing.
Mari (10:18):
Is she coming back, uh, for ramsay con this year?
Ashley (10:22):
so I'm unclear.
The kids are bigger.
Um, would you think it wouldmake it slightly easier, but I'm
not sure.
Jonathan and I also invested intwo days and she was.
She likes a plan, but gettingher to commit 10 months in
advance is hard sometimes, yeah,so we bought the tickets and we
were like hey, if you want todo one day or both days, like
(10:44):
you know, let us know coordinate.
Yeah, but we we bought thetickets in fear that they might
sell out.
Yeah, but she has not purchasedher ticket or tickets yet.
Mari (10:55):
Okay, I hope she comes.
Yeah, for sure.
The last little bit of tidbitnews I have is that, uh, the
cover was revealed, the imagewas revealed for sin, the news
alchemized, yeah did I breakyour radar because I just
screamed was that too high pitch?
Ashley (11:13):
okay, because we practiced this.
And I got frustrated because hekept asking me to test my sound
and I was like I'm not gonnayell in podcast but I didn't
realize that we had the coverreveal on our talking points, so
it's going to be releasedOctober 30th 2025.
Mari (11:31):
The cover is gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, I mean.
It's very gothy.
It's very like line drawingetching, almost like a Geiger
style.
Yeah.
Ashley (11:49):
Yeah, I'm excited I hope I heard there was like some
disappointment that the umartist for the cover was not the
artist that had kind of donethe fan fiction um prints.
But my understanding is thatthere are uh pages perhaps
inside the book that does haveimages from the fan fiction
(12:11):
artist.
That'll be good.
I might be tripping this up, um, and I forget their names and
that's my fault for not doingresearch in advance.
Um, listeners, forgive me, butyeah, there's.
I read the synopsis for thebook and I'm excited.
My sister was like well, whatdo you think?
Like is this?
Is this, you know, close to thefan fiction?
And I was like, honestly, Idon't.
This sounds pretty close, likepretty on par.
(12:34):
Yeah, um, I wasn't disappointedat all by what I read and what
I saw, so I'm hyped.
Yeah, I think I sent it to you,right?
Mari (12:43):
Like you got me turned onto this for sure.
Yeah, I read it so we arepre-ordered.
Yes, same, we are pre -ordered.
All 976 pages coming this way.
Ashley (12:53):
Somebody pray for us, please.
The damage from the fan fictionwas real.
Mari (12:59):
Yeah, what will you be doing in October?
Crying my eyes out.
Ashley (13:03):
Wait, yeah, just destroyed.
Yeah, just destroyed.
And I do appreciate how shemade it one complete book
instead of, like, forcing us towait for, you know multiple, you
know like a series?
Yeah, because that's not howthe fan fiction reads.
So I think her fan base isreally excited, and they should
(13:26):
be, because it was justphenomenal writing.
Kelly (13:29):
Yeah.
Ashley (13:31):
In my very humble opinion.
So I'm stoked.
There's a lot of books comingout this year that I'm stoked
about.
I don't think I've everpre-ordered so many books.
Mari (13:38):
I was about to say that exact same sentence.
I have never in my life had somany books pre-ordered.
Ashley (13:46):
And I've been careful, I've been selective, selective,
but there must be five or six ondeck for me this year yeah, uh,
I've got nine so I'm actuallyscared to look now that I said
it out loud.
I'm hoping it's just five.
Oh, I'm hoping it's just five.
Mari (14:05):
I've got the compendium of lost tales coming out this
month, which is a third in theEmily wilds series.
I've got the new cover of swordheart that's being released
coming out this month.
Juliet cross is releasing abook in April that I have
pre-ordered.
Ashley (14:19):
Is that the firebird Is?
It firebird, I want to, butit's like $30.
Yeah, gosh dang, it's realpretty.
It is.
There are no $30.
Yeah, gosh dang, it's realpretty.
I hope it's good it is thereare no lies.
Mari (14:34):
Yeah, I really hope it's good.
I mean, it's got the picturethat extends along the painted
edges.
Don't peer pressure me, don'tdo it, you don't need it, you're
okay.
Ashley (14:46):
Five, six.
Yeah, it's like six yeah, it's.
Mari (14:51):
The enchanted greenhouse, which is a sequel to spell shop,
is coming out in july.
Accomplice to the villain iscoming out in august.
Unlock and silver the new teakingfisher, is coming out in
august.
Um rf quang has a book comingout in august that I've heard
people say is her first going tobe her first foray into
romanticism Catabases.
Ashley (15:10):
Yes, it's.
Yeah.
You might've gotten that fromme.
I'm not even sure.
Mari (15:14):
Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe , um, yep, Uh, the things God's
break, which is the sequel to,you know, our Abigail Owens
stories coming out in Septemberand then alchemized.
Ashley (15:25):
So yes, all the pre-orders oh so, ma'am, you are
missing.
Um, where is it?
Rebel without a cause?
No, uh-uh, hold please.
Uh, I'm starting to panic nowbecause the second cali heart
book is supposed to come outthis year, I thought yeah, uh
the, the sequel to quicksilver.
Mari (15:46):
Yeah, actually I did pre-order that one, but I
pre-ordered that one on adifferent website.
I think I did the BritishWaterstones because they're the
first one I did Waterstones, soI wanted them to match and
there's been a title reveal onthat one Brimstone.
Yes.
Ashley (16:02):
November 18th.
Yes, so I think, the only onethat you're missing, not to add
to poor Kelly's debt.
Mari (16:12):
Oh no, it's all my debt.
Okay, good, it's all my debt.
Crisis averted.
Ashley (16:17):
So in July I don't know if you have this.
One is the other Dramini fanfiction.
I thought I mentioned it lasttime the Irresistible Urge to
Fall for your Enemy.
Mari (16:27):
I wanted to read it before I pre-ordered it, but maybe I
just need to pre-order it.
Ashley (16:31):
You know, I don't know if it's still available now.
That might make the choice forme then yeah, if you didn't
download it before the end ofthe year, I'm pretty sure it's
gone off of AO3.
Mari (16:42):
Okay.
Well then I may just have topre-order that one.
Oh, I've got two more.
Two more on pre-order.
Yeah, I've got the faithbreaker, which is the third um
fallen gods trilogy by hannahkaner, the she wrote god killer.
That third one is coming out.
And then I have the ballad offalling dragons, which is the
sequel to when the moon hatched.
Ashley (17:01):
So I need to read that.
That was a massive tangent onour news list.
Sorry guys, but it felt likeimportant.
I feel like we should do apre-order catch up every quarter
.
Mari (17:13):
I agree.
Hey, listeners, what do we haveon deck?
Yes, listeners, tell us whathave you pre-ordered?
Ashley (17:17):
Because we want to know what are we missing, guys?
We?
Mari (17:20):
need to know On to why we're here, which is to talk
about.
Well, I mean, we talked aboutbooks, but also talking about A
Throne, and I've had the hardesttime remembering the name of
this book.
No shade on the author oranything.
I enjoyed the book, but forsome reason, the name would not
stick in my head.
So, throne in the Dark by AKCasiano.
(17:42):
I think I'm the one whosuggested it.
I couldn't remember, but Ithink I suggested it.
Yeah, I don't know how we gothere.
Okay, it I couldn't remember,but I think I suggested it.
Yeah, I don't know how we gothere.
Okay, if I'm the one thatsuggested, I think I remember
first hearing about it on likereddit.
There was a, um, a chat thingwhere people were talking about
books that are like sword heartby teaking fisher, that I really
liked, and this was recommendedby several people, so it was on
my list to read because of that.
(18:04):
So, and it's like, oh, it'svalentine's day is, you know,
it's February, so we'll read it.
So let me talk a little bitabout it and then we'll get into
talking about the book and ouropinions.
This book is self-publishedSeptember 28th 2022.
I was looking through herwebsite, the author's website
and she credits her illustratorsand stuff on there.
And Angeo Art, a-n-g-e-o Art isthe artist who did the covers
(18:31):
for all three books in thistrilogy.
So the synopsis dark, lord demonspawn, prophesied realm
destroyer with a demon for afather, damien maleficus
bloodthorn's destiny could benothing but nefarious.
And with the compelling excuseme, and with the completion of
his most vicious spell, damien'son the cusp of fulfilling the
(18:53):
evil inevitability all of hisdark machinations have led to.
And then her Bubbly, obnoxiousblonde Harboring secrets of her
own.
A tiny yet troublesome thiefcalling herself Ama completely
upsets Damien's malevolent planswhen she mistakenly gets
chained to his side throughmagic, forcing him to drag her
across the realm.
Killing her would fix things,of course, but the nauseatingly
(19:16):
sweet Ama proves herself usefulon Damien's unholy crusade and
then proves herself the sourceof something even more sinister,
feelings, feelings.
Will Damien be forced to abandonhis villainous birthright to
help the tender thorn in hisside, or will he manage to
overcome the virtue Ama insistson inspiring and instead cut it
out at the heart?
So we're going to get into thebook discussion.
(19:39):
This is, you know, we starteddoing it this way this year.
It's all spoilers, so we arenot limiting ourselves, and if
you've not read the book, maybepause it.
So what do we think likeoverall rating.
Ashley (19:50):
I'll go first, I listen.
I started chuckling in thefirst chapter.
I was interested, I just alsocould not speed through it.
I struggled to finish the bookand I don't think it had
anything to.
I can't figure out why I likethe story, I think just maybe
there was a lot of it.
I'm questioning my sanity here,but it was funny, it was quirky
(20:14):
.
There was some slow burn stuffhappening.
I thought there was a realattempt at world building and
character building, at least forwhat I got through, because,
full transparency, I didn'tfinish.
So sorry guys, I think this ismy first.
I didn't get through it book.
All good, all good.
(20:34):
So it was like a three and ahalf for me because I didn't not
like it.
I've definitely read books onthis podcast that I didn't like.
I just man, I just couldn'tfinish it in time.
Mari (20:44):
Telly or Jonathan.
Jonathan (20:45):
I thought it was like a sm smoldering, not not like a
I wouldn't even call like a slowburn, like a, just a light
smolder um with uh and I I itwas interestingly light like
there were.
I guess it was just there werejust hints of hints of spice or
hints of action that you thoughtmaybe would be around the next
(21:08):
chapter.
Um, and I just didn't.
I didn't find them, but I think,if I kept deluding you because
I was reading it in the if I hadto like change my perspective.
So initially I thought, oh, I'mgonna read this as like, as
monster spice.
And I think once I changed myperspective to and started
(21:30):
looking at it through the lensof like, why a monster romance?
Then I started seeing itdifferently.
It wasn't.
I didn't find, I didn't get thechuckles like you got the
chuckles oh, I like the banter.
I thought it was cute with theaudio book was interesting, so
maybe that took away from it,because when they changed
(21:50):
perspectives you heard the, like, the, the, when you are in the,
in the masculine tone, and themasculine tone impersonated the
feminine tone.
It was very it wasn't done well.
Ashley (22:04):
Tell them about Kaz.
Guys, how did you hear Kaz'svoice in your heads?
Um kind of Okay.
Tell them about Kaz.
Mari (22:10):
Guys, how did you hear Kaz's voice in your heads?
Kind of Okay.
So for me Kaz was basically afire imp version of Kaz Brekker
from Vilea Bardugo book, so kindof older and like ornery kind
of over it, Like Kaz Brekker ifhe'd never had his crew, and
older.
That's how I.
Jonathan (22:30):
Tell them, tell them, tell them over it like kaz
brekker if he never had his crewand older.
That's how I tell.
Yeah, tell them, tell them,tell them.
The voice selection in theaudiobook was like a new york
asshole.
Ashley (22:36):
Yes, basically yeah, yes , the new york accent for me
just made it so much better.
Jonathan (22:42):
You got to do the imitation, do it hey, forget it,
get out of my way, you whore.
It was like I was like that,wow, I was like came out of left
field, like what the fuck thechuckle.
Ashley (22:54):
I chuckled when he told me that tonight because we
hadn't really talked about you,and that's something I should do
more frequently is ask if thereare any interesting quirks
about the voices.
Right, because the pirates werewhat like a scottish accent or
something like that when we didthe pirate book and that was
like why, but Kaz being soornery, but also a New York
(23:15):
accent in this?
Jonathan (23:16):
fantasy.
It's like an idiot, like anidiot, Like, like, just like
real, like you know, like a walkin here.
Mari (23:24):
Yeah, real abrasive.
Jonathan (23:26):
Yeah, like everything, it's like instead of a period.
It was just like, your was justlike, and that's how we would
in the, that's how they wouldsay it like, anytime he was,
ever, whatever terms he like, hecouldn't.
It was just reflex that hecouldn't not call her some sort
of derogatory name but in thenew york accent like for me,
that's the icing on the cakelike.
Ashley (23:45):
It just makes it a thousand times better.
Jonathan (23:47):
And for some reason, I think only from the feminine
perspective was he voiced um, soit was like so they were, so
you never heard it in amasculine, you heard it, but
when he was doing, because hehad.
Sometimes, when they do theselike demons, it's all.
It's oftentimes like a veryformal, like accent, like
english uk kind of accent, andthen, um, she's very
(24:11):
americanized.
And then kaz is just like hey,I'm walking here, yeah, yeah
literally cannot contain myself.
I need a bagel.
You trollop, get out of my way.
Um the um.
(24:31):
Yeah, anyway, it was.
Uh, it was.
It was interesting.
I did go down a rabbit hole ofum mar marquis verse.
No, marquis, marquis, marquis.
I went.
This is what made me go downthis rabbit hole, because in the
book they pronounce it.
In the audio it's marquis, yeah.
So I was like.
I was like, okay, so why arethey saying?
(24:51):
Why are they saying it that way.
So then I went and looked it up.
Uh, marquis is a male lord.
Marquis is a female lord or alady look at this and I was like
, well, maybe they're just wrong, maybe just maybe just caught
fire, maybe like they're in theaudio booth.
And then I was like give it tome phonetically.
And they were like we'retalking about an audio booth.
And then I was like give it tome phonetically.
And they were like are wetalking about a dude Marquise?
(25:11):
And it was like I don't evenknow if they pronounce the R in
the book, but in the phoneticversion they don't pronounce the
R.
I'm going to open a can.
Let me mute myself.
Ashley (25:23):
That was terrible timing , sir.
What's your rating?
Jonathan (25:26):
Five stars Okay timing , sir.
What's your rating um?
Five stars okay, all of that itwas you know once you, once I
changed my perspective on it.
Ashley (25:34):
Five stars, okay, I wanted to like it.
Jonathan (25:35):
I just there was just so much of it I would give this
to, uh, my 16 year old, if Idon't have a 16 year old, but if
I have one, give it to a 16year old.
Okay, this is, this is right upyour alley, understood?
I kept waiting for them to saythe word cock and they got like
halfway cocks, no, and they gotlike halfway they're cocks, no.
They said cock.
They got CO, yeah, they're halfcocks.
She held one, but it was dead.
Oh, it was a dead one, she waslike yeah, but they don't
(26:01):
address it, they just allude toit.
They're like that's what.
That was Okay, cool.
But they don't say it All right, they're like it's just like
Hmm, so which one did you?
They were like which one shouldwe choose?
This, this one?
And she like, pulled out like afloppy one, again, that's the
one I would use.
So that's like I.
At that point I was like herewe go but I'm okay with that
(26:25):
Once you, like I said, once youlook at it from that lens for
what?
Ashley (26:29):
for changing your perspective.
Jonathan (26:31):
Interesting, interesting.
Kelly (26:32):
Kelly what did you think?
I thought it was a decent book.
I enjoyed it.
It reminded me a lot ofassistant to the villain.
Yeah, overall I would say threeand a half stars.
I think what really pushed itdown from being like a four was
it just seemed to drag out a lotof things that didn't need to
be dragged out, and there were alot of parts there where the
(26:52):
book was unnecessarily long Iagree with you on that.
Jonathan (26:55):
It's like it was like they got caught.
They get caught in some somechapters longer than they should
like in some situations waylonger than they should depth
side quests yeah, the whole bookfelt like a cyclone.
Mari (27:08):
Yeah, I was looking at her website.
See, to me the book felt like aD&D, like a Dungeons Dragons
game, and I was like this reallyfeels like a campaign somebody
had and then turned it into abook or story.
And she actually does on herwebsite and on her Instagram
feed and whatnot she plays D&D.
So I'm like, hmm, like I wondershe's playing the long game yeah
(27:29):
, I wonder if this was like acampaign and that's why some of
these things drag, because whenyou're if you've never played
dnd it's not a set script, it'snot like you're following a
movie or reading a book, it's.
You know, however many peopleare in your party and sometimes
someone wants to go look at theshiny object over there and so
you're side questing to go lookat some random shiny object.
That means nothing in the grandscheme of things.
(27:52):
So kelly knows kelly runs ourcampaign and uh, yeah, we do a
lot of side and not doing whatyou thought we were going to do,
don't we kelly?
Ashley (28:03):
yep gotta keep him on his toes.
What's the?
Jonathan (28:05):
camp.
What's it like?
I will define it.
Can you define a campaign?
Mari (28:08):
yeah, yeah.
So a campaign is basically thewhole game.
So like, if you are, if you'replaying dungeon dragons, you're
gonna get together, you're gonnaplay.
And so you have, you are thesame character pretty much the
entire time, like, say, maybeI'm a, I'm a fighter and maybe,
um, jonathan you're like awizard and Ash you're like a
(28:29):
cleric or whatever.
Then we all are going to go doa thing Like, let's say, this
time we get together, we'regoing to play for four hours or
whatever, and we're going tofree somebody, and then they're
going to give us like a littleclue as to something else.
(28:53):
And so you get together and allthese games that you play over,
however long it takes, are thewhole campaign, the whole story
or the whole story arc, and yourcharacters level up almost like
a video game.
Really, video games are likeD&D, I guess.
Their characters level up andget better at what they do as
the game goes on.
So maybe your wizard will getmore spells, maybe your cleric
will be blessed more by theirgod, maybe your fighter will,
like I don't know get a betterweapon or something, and so you
have different levels until youreach the end of your story, the
(29:16):
end of your campaign, whateverthat may be, whether that's
reaching level 20, whetherthat's getting a particular goal
, whether it's slaying a big bador you know whatever.
Okay.
Jonathan (29:24):
Interesting, interesting, slaying a big bad
or you know whatever.
Mari (29:26):
Okay interesting, interesting, but yeah, so she
plays.
So the the author plays.
I'm like, oh yeah, that'sdefinitely, definitely a was a
um, an influence I it's a highfour star read for me.
Um, I almost gave it five andI'm I will read the rest, I plan
to read the rest and I may bumpup the series as a whole to a
five, but for right now thisparticular book I would say is a
(29:47):
four.
I enjoyed it.
I laughed a good bit.
I like laughed out loud a goodbit, like even from the
beginning, like I think thefirst time I remember laughing
was probably chapter one whereDamien's like oh, you know, I've
done my life goal becausecomplete, and then it's like he
was 27.
He because complete, and thenit's like he was 27, he's sweet
(30:11):
summer child, okay, um, so, yeah, I pretty much got the tone
early on, um, and there was yeah, there were plenty of parts
where I laughed out loud.
I agree with kelly, it'sdefinitely more comp to like
assistance of the villain interms of like the tone and the
comedy.
Which comedy is hard.
Comedy may not hit the same foreverybody, but it worked for me
.
(30:32):
The main reason why I didn'tgive it a full five was because
I felt like Damien's characterhad a really good character
growth or at least a characterarc.
There was a story.
He started in one place and hefinished somewhere else and I
felt like we went along withthat.
We're along for that ride.
But I felt like ama's entirecharacter growth happened off
(30:56):
screen, like when she realizedeverything that was going on in
her realm and decided to go onthis journey.
And I don't feel like shereally changed or progressed a
whole lot, um, from thebeginning of story to the end.
And I don't feel like shereally changed or progressed a
whole lot, um, from thebeginning of story to the end.
And I would have.
It would have been like a fullfive to me if they both like
felt like they went somewhere.
So I mean, maybe in the otherbooks it'll, it'll change, but
(31:17):
overall a definite four, a solidfour, and I really enjoyed it.
Jonathan (31:21):
Yeah, I would recommend this the comedy did
not land with me.
Ashley (31:24):
I was like I was hoping the big bad daddy with the it
didn't the super bro chat.
Jonathan (31:31):
He didn't sound broey to you, kiddo, that's the other
thing that I left darkestoverlord is calling his son
kiddo buddy, yeah, oh, I meanlike, yeah, I got that.
Give me a hug.
It wasn't him hugging, it waslike he was.
He's stuck in that crystalpiece of crystal.
Yeah, yeah, crystal shard.
Mari (31:50):
He's like my kid for me personality versus who the
character is supposed to be, itwas such a small part of the
book so here's what I think,though I think it's actually a
bigger part of the book becauseI think it's a way of showing
and this is another thing Iliked about it I think damien is
an unreliable narrator.
I think it's like because it'slike oh, his dad's is, you know,
(32:11):
horrible, whatever horrible orrenowned demon of darkness and
blah, blah, blah.
And then he's like, hey, buddy,how you doing, you know?
And then it makes you questionother things because, like,
there's certain points where hetalks about him being all dark
and bad or whatever, and I'malmost like, oh yeah, sure, this
is one of those times whereyou're like I'm so bad.
So she calls him out on hislike, evilness or whatever
(32:33):
multiple times and it makes mewonder if all the characters
from his perspective is just himbeing kind of deluded or or
just an unreliable narrator.
Jonathan (32:42):
You know his version of things at the time yeah, it
kind of it almost felt like he'slike programmed to feel yes
like a certain type of way from,I think.
So he's gonna constantly seethings through this lens and I
think that his father so the wayI saw his father was like
almost reformed, like I took awhole bunch of shit for granted.
(33:03):
I was a real, real piece ofshit and now I'm stuck in, stuck
in this like Mason jar prisonkind of thing, and can't get out
.
And now that I'm here, I've hada whole bunch of time to
reflect and I don't want to haveto sit back and reflect for
eternity.
So if my son can get me out,I'm already happy.
I'm just happy with therelationships that I have now
(33:24):
and we'll just keep rollingforward on this.
And his son is just like yeah,I have this quest and it's
undeniable, like this is just,this is what I have to do.
I'm driven to do this.
I have an on off switch andit's on and this is now.
I'm gonna go do this and thisis here we go, kind of thing.
And I think he's almostwrestling with.
Well, he is wrestling with itlike how you know, these are
(33:45):
strange feelings, like the, thegrinch kind of feeling.
Um, I think that ama is kind ofin that same boat too, like
where she's sort of she.
She left on a singular questand found something I don't
think she intended to find.
I think she just kind of sherelegatedated herself to that
(34:08):
betrothed role and then becamesaw a different pathway that had
presented itself.
That I don't think she sawinitially and she thought I'd
kind of like to take thatpathway.
I just hope that she had foundthat pathway earlier in the book
.
I think we'll get a bangening.
But I don't think we're goingto get a bangening until
sometime in the book.
I think we'll.
I think we'll get a bangeningbut I don't think we're going to
(34:28):
get a bangening until sometimein the next book, assuming that
it follows their uh, their storyas far as I know it does, it's
all.
Mari (34:35):
Three books are their story, as far as I know um
that's I.
Jonathan (34:40):
I would I imagine that if it's a, if it's still
smoldering, it may, now thatthey're, if it's still
smoldering, it may, now thatthey're off and on their own,
they may find themselves in aspace where they can be free
with each other.
And um, there's got to be somesort of like pain point right in
story two, like at the act, thesecond act, where they're she
(35:03):
wants she leaves him to go backto see something or save, or
save her land or something, saveher parents, like something's
got to happen.
Mari (35:10):
Yeah, there's got to be some blowback from it.
I actually had a question sinceyou brought it up.
I was going to ask you later,but since you brought it up, I
saw that on Tome that youmentioned, and you mentioned it
here too, that you saw this bookas a monster romance.
So for me and I know everyone'sgot their own version of it
(35:31):
from for me I I don't count itas a monster romance.
I know this is different thanthe crew at hissing and kissing
um, but I don't count it as amonster romance if the person
can pass as like human.
Um, so like, it's not like hehad wings or tail or scales,
whatever, like, unless he didmagic, no one would know that he
was a blood mage, bad boy yeah,so do um.
Jonathan (35:54):
Do vampires count?
Mari (35:55):
it depends on if they can pass, you know.
So if they're day walkers,maybe you know, if they like, if
they combust in in the daylightand you know, can't stand to be
around humans without, um, uh,having a, a blood capri sun, um,
then maybe not, you know.
So it yeah, like I think, ifthey can pass in society, I, I
(36:17):
don't know that I personallylook at those as monster
romances I started to qualifymonster romance, as is the
entirety of every character inthe book.
Jonathan (36:33):
Is there a multitude of beings, whether it's a witch
or a wizard or a minotaur or analien, and if there's more than,
and then it only gets.
They get from zero to threepoints based on, um, how many
you have.
So if there are, if there'snone, then you're not going to
(36:55):
get a point right.
If it's just, if it's justhuman on human, you're just
going to get a point or nopoints, um, but if there's one
additional species, then there'sa, then you get one point.
Then, if there, if you get likemultiple, and we're going up to
two and three, um, and so Ithink with that I had, I
definitely went back and forthin the, the, the calculator,
(37:18):
when I was, I went back andre-examine the formula and, uh,
as I was kind of going throughit, I was like you know, how do
we want to, how do I want toassign points to this?
So if there's none, one, acouple and then like multiple
species.
So when I, when I looked atthis book, I thought I can't.
(37:38):
Well, I came out with multiplespecies.
So if I had humans and then Ihad the blood mage, and then I
had imps, um and that, and thenthere was another.
There was like that fourth orthat, an additional type of
magic um, that was kind of thatwas popping out.
So there were multiple umspecies of sorts that were
(38:01):
popping out.
So I was like, okay, then I haveto take that box honestly the
same way.
It's like you know, there's ahow do I, how do I feel about
spice or how do I feel aboutother things popping up?
And it's just that, when, whenI tipped the scales over towards
multiple species, that's whatmoves it, that's what flips it
(38:23):
into monster romance.
For me, if I eliminate thatquestion, it just takes it down
to romance.
But the outcomes are I are forevery, for every type of spice
level.
There's a you can end up into awith, either like a rom-com or
(38:46):
a monster rom-com, or like Ithink in the extreme it's like
funny fuckery or funny monsterfuckery, I don't know, like all
sorts of stuff, or just we'rejust this is, if it's just
straight up, fuckery yeah, yeahno, which happens from time to
time.
Yeah, I it's.
It's ever evolving.
I see what you're saying.
I also think he could be.
(39:07):
He used magic to hide.
Mari (39:11):
Right, he could change his appearance and that of others.
Jonathan (39:16):
And then and he was able to stave off the I forget
the guy's name now, the Marquis.
Mari (39:21):
Oh, I wrote it down because I could never Cedric.
Jonathan (39:23):
Cedric.
He was able to, he used magicto like stave off the um, the
spell that he was trying, yeah,yeah, well, the spell that he
was trying to when they were inthere, when they were having
their one-on-one.
I also saw this as like, verylike, like, business oriented,
like amas.
Amas kingdom has a very limitedresource thing.
(39:47):
Yeah, I mean, they're built onequity too.
It's like they're.
Her parents were like, yeah,profit sharing, you know, we're
going to, we're going to workhard, but we're going to, we're
going to have gains together andthat's going to be cool.
In exchange for that, we don'thave defenses, we have minimal
defenses, so buy defenses.
(40:08):
So they went to uh, made a dealwith um cedric's family, like,
hey, you guys have a military,that's cool.
We're going to give you productat cost, so you'll have your
cost of goods sold is going tobe as low as possible in
exchange for militaryreinforcement, and that's cool.
But the issue then is, if youswing defensive power over to
one side now, though, that guy,that guy's family, is cedric's
(40:29):
angle is why the hell?
Why the hell should I wait forthem to sell me stuff at at uh
at cost, when I can just go takeover that kingdom, install my
military uh systematically andmake them work twice as hard for
half as much?
And I think that Ama's parentswere basically like, hey, let's
(40:52):
squash this.
Here's my daughter.
Mari (40:54):
Yeah.
Bargaining tool yeah Can.
I interest you in selling mydaughter to you.
So what do we think of theworld building?
Oh, I went first last right.
Ashley (41:08):
Um, there was so much of it, there was there was a lot
of building.
There was a lot of building,there were a lot of side quests.
I don't think it was bad, Ijust think it was a little bit
too much for me.
Um, so, again like it, it waslike a three and a half.
Like.
Again, like it was like a threeand a half.
Like I wasn't uninterested.
I just think I was overwhelmedand it just I detached a little
(41:30):
bit, like I was just like, oh,like I was, I was really
skimming and I was like, oh, Ican skip this, oh, I can get
this, oh, this is important.
No, I can skip this.
So I think it was only a threeand a half for me.
I just couldn't, I couldn'tlock in't, lock in like I was
entertained.
I really, you know, it was awhole.
I liked how they it wasn't evena deep dive, it was just like a
(41:52):
, how they explained, like thelayers of the different oh god,
what did she call them?
And I think what struck me toowas like they used imperia or
imperian, and of course, it wasvery like fourth wing mindset.
So, like you know, the heavenswere layer one, and then, you
know, some the Fae were likelayer two, but only because they
(42:15):
wouldn't, you know, catchthemselves below humans or
something like that.
And then the human realm waslayers of realms.
There were the different layersof realms and how it wasn't
necessarily a specific order andthey were all kind of existing
at once.
I really liked that explanation.
Um, I thought that gave a lotof insight too and, you know,
forewarning as to probablywhat's coming next, like we're
(42:36):
probably going to see otherrealms, right.
So I really liked that.
It was like it was like a threeand a half for me, like it
didn't suck.
There was.
It was very good explanation.
There was a lot of charactersthat were interesting, like
what's his name?
Mari (42:50):
and not was it anomalous, am I saying the alchemist louis,
yes, she called the hag calledhim louis.
Ashley (42:58):
I love a good nickname um, I liked it a lot.
It was just a lot of it Ithought it was.
Jonathan (43:03):
I thought I there's.
I want to learn more about someof the, some of the side quests
.
Like they, they move throughdifferent worlds, different
lands.
I would have liked to have alittle bit more knowledge, but
at a faster pace, if that makessense.
Yeah, for like Damien's, likehome and going through like the
(43:24):
swamp area and like thewerewolves and stuff like that
you could.
I feel like you could skip thatand cut that out because they
weren't.
I don't know if they had asignificant impact on the story.
There was some fluff built inand then kind of understanding
the pathway to the.
I guess the library or therestricted section was
(43:45):
interesting to me.
I guess the library or therestricted section was
interesting to me.
So when she got into, theimagery that she was using there
in that space was I felt wasmore appropriate, but I don't
know.
I think there was a bunch ofmisplaced world building and
maybe some missed opportunitiesfor it as well.
So she built what she shouldn'thave and neglected things that
(44:09):
she could have gone deeper in.
If that makes sense, I'dprobably give it a three.
The space was there in the book.
It was just misused in myhumble opinion.
Kelly (44:20):
I think I agree with Ashley there was a lot of world
building and the way it was kindof piled in just felt excessive
.
There was a lot of worldbuilding and the way it was kind
of piled in just felt excessive.
There was a lot of worldbuilding, lore that we didn't
need to know, that was put inthere and maybe that'll play out
later in the series or whatever, but I think there was just a
little bit too much.
I think there was someinteresting stuff that was done.
(44:43):
That was done.
I really liked the concept ofthe trees in Ama's realm and how
that played into being kind ofa big part of the story and I
think it's obvious that that'sgoing to be something to look
into further, especially becausesince Damien didn't know
anything about them.
So I would say a three and ahalf.
Mari (45:04):
Okay For me.
I said a four.
It was deeper than I expectedit to be and it felt, like I've
already said, it felt like a D&Dcampaign or D&D world.
I play D&D but I haven't likeplayed it my whole life or since
it started or read every singlebook out.
So often when I'm playing D&Dthere's a lot I don't know
(45:26):
that's going on in the world andI'm just kind of rolling with
it and figuring it out, and so alot of times I feel like I
think I felt reading this bookwhere it's like, oh, there's a
swamp thing over there, and thenthere's this realm over here
and then there's like, okay,well, we'll see which way we're
going to go.
I enjoyed.
I think there are two mainthings that stood out to me from
the world building other thanit being very D&D-like.
(45:48):
The first thing was I reallyenjoyed the snippet in the
middle with the elves, becauseyou had these elves in so much
of the fantasy I've read andwatched are very hoity-toity,
for lack of a better word, andso for them to be like, ooh, we
go away, it felt very like whatwe do in the shadows or
(46:10):
something like.
It felt like it humanized them.
You know it's like oh wait,they have something to learn and
they're not.
You know they're not like thethe be all and end, all most
powerful, you know, abovehumanity, kind of thing.
Yeah, I really enjoyed the waythat the elves were, that she
basically kind of made fun ofelves.
And then the other thing thingthat I stood out to me in the
world building was, although theidea of a blood mage is not
(46:33):
super original, I don't thinkI've ever read a story where one
of the main characters was ablood mage.
So for me, like the whole magictied to cutting yourself and
having to, like you know, giveof your blood to have this thing
happen was kind of interesting.
Ashley (46:50):
so and sometimes exhaustively right like that
first scene in chapter one, Iwas like whoa, where are we
going?
Right here like how does it,how does this get like, if he
dies and he's like on the cuspof death here?
Yeah, I, I, I would agree.
I don't think I've read a bloodmage in the as the primary
(47:11):
character before.
Jonathan (47:12):
Yeah, I certainly haven't.
I do wish that while they werein like with the, with the elves
in the cage, I thought likehere we go.
I thought it was like for sure,here we go, they're doing some
bindings oh yeah, I have notes.
Mari (47:24):
I have notes on that.
I specifically chapter 21 wasjust a straight up bdsm scene
period.
Jonathan (47:34):
No notes that's what I wrote, but then then they did
somebody like walk in, turn thelights on those darn elves had
to come in.
Mari (47:44):
It's too human in here.
It's too human in here.
All right, moving on to romance.
What do we think of the romanceash Romance.
Ashley (47:57):
I feel like there was a lot of individual growth more
than a romantic growth.
I don't think we're at thepoint of romance, I just think
it was very midline for me, likea three was doing a fantastic
(48:21):
job for someone who's neverreally experienced feelings
before, just kind of like ohshit, this is happening.
You know, like he did, heresisted it a little bit but he
wasn't like disgusting about it.
He is what he is and you knowhe was.
He was not the worst he couldbe just for the sake of being
worst or for the sake of gettingthe job done.
He took criticism, you know,when she was like try being nice
(48:42):
to Kaz, like the next day hetried and the stupid little imp
was just like like this isglorious, his whole life had
changed for the better.
I don't know, it was just athree for me, I don't.
There wasn't anything thatreally struck out other than his
desire to find a differentsolution and not kill her in a
(49:03):
very short amount of time.
Jonathan (49:06):
Romance.
Ashley (49:08):
That's where we are.
Jonathan (49:09):
Yeah, so I would say it was there.
Ashley (49:14):
It was there, it existed , we saw it.
Jonathan (49:16):
There were wisps of the smolder that was happening
and like it, kind of you knowwhat's coming.
It could have been around anyquarter, any corner, at any
point in the book, but you knowthis and this and maybe this
plays on the spice.
So I would say I'll give itfour because you felt the
tension.
(49:36):
There was tension.
Yeah, you're right, it was.
It was I don't know if it's onit what it wasn't, uncomfortable
, didn't have me.
I wasn't longing for it, but itwas apparent and because of
that I'll give it a four.
Kelly (49:51):
I thought the romance wasn't too bad.
I thought it was a nice, a nicechange to the usual approach of
romantic books where there's abig bad shadow daddy.
So it was nice that he actuallyhad a nice soft side that
developed and we saw that fromhis perspective.
Ashley (50:07):
Like a mediocre shadow daddy.
Kelly (50:09):
Yeah.
Ashley (50:11):
Just mid-level.
Kelly (50:13):
Overall I didn't think the romance was too bad.
I thought there was a lot offun little things in their
relationship that you could seewhere there was some romance.
The way they sort of wouldirritate each other made it seem
very realistic.
So overall I think the romancewas actually pretty decent in
this book compared to some otherbooks.
So I would say it's a four.
Mari (50:33):
I basically agree with Kelly.
For me, the romance was a fourit it was a slow burn.
I feel like he fell first andhe was very like, confused, and
it it changed him.
I I don't know if it's justbecause I've been listening to
so much of the wicked soundtrackor because I watched the movie
this year, but there were somany instances of this where I
was like, because he met her, hewas changed for good well, shit
(50:59):
, when you put it that way Isthat what happened to?
Ashley (51:03):
you, baby?
Is that what happened to you?
Because he met her, he waschanged for good.
Jonathan (51:08):
No, I'm still an asshole.
This is true.
Mari (51:13):
And there's the song in the Wicked soundtrack, loathing,
which is the way the song isput together.
It's almost to a T, it's like aclassic love song, except it's
about them hating each other.
And I feel like that was thebeginning of them, where she's
blonde, she's perky, she's goodwhy did she bandage my hand,
(51:38):
which I also wrote for thatscene, total beauty and the
beast vibes as I was readingthat, that chapter, and then
they, they get to become youknow.
Oh well, maybe we're friendsand then maybe we're more than
friends and I do feel like hefell first and then she did not
trust him and that kind kind ofhurt him and I don't think she
(51:58):
really got there till the veryend.
But it was a.
I felt like it was a good ride.
So, yeah, I thought the romancewas good.
I think it would have been afive if I had felt I could
connect to her side of thingsmore.
Like I said, I overall I felt alittle flat from her side of
her perspective, so it was afour for me, very good.
Looking forward to the rest ofthe of the series.
(52:21):
Now, what do we think about thespice?
Ashley (52:23):
there was.
There was very minimal spice.
For me it's like a two and ahalf.
I'd say two and a half forspice.
There was a lot of.
There was a lot of tension andthere was a lot of.
There was a lot of maybe andthen there was a close maybe,
but then some shit went sideways, right.
So I think there's going to bespice later.
I didn't find any spice.
(52:44):
You didn't find any.
Jonathan (52:45):
It was salt.
Yeah, I didn't go with a one.
Kelly (52:48):
I mean there was very minimal spice.
I think there was, like youknow, same thing.
There were suggestions of spice.
It was definitely the Spicesuggestion did tend to seem like
it was more of the BDSM typestuff.
It was pretty obvious that Amadefinitely has some kind of a
fetish for being tied up.
Mari (53:16):
But overall I feel like the Spice was like I don't know,
maybe a one and a half or a two.
I was going to say probably aone and a half or two for Spice
until it got to that chapter 21with the rope scene in the cage,
and I was like, oh okay, Ithought that was super well done
.
I mean, I think overall, asthey got to where they liked
each other, there was someflirtation.
(53:36):
That was very well done.
I mean, I think overall, asthey got to where they liked
each other, there was someflirtation.
That was very well done.
And there was some suggestion.
That was pretty well done.
It was very much a.
It was more of a PG book than Iwas originally expecting it to
be too.
But then that one scene bumpedit to a three for me because I
thought it was very well done.
I thought that it portendspotential really good scenes for
(54:01):
the next two books which aretheir story, and I think there's
like another two books that areside characters.
I think one of them is from,like, xander's perspective, so
we're going to get to guess astory about him.
Yeah, so Spice for me is athree.
So do we think it's a kissingbook?
Ashley (54:20):
So I feel like I have to sit this one out just cause I
haven't.
I'm down to like the last five.
I'm I'm in the last fivechapters, but I think I have
like two or three left.
Okay, so I'm going to sit thisone out and I will.
I will come back.
Jonathan (54:35):
I'm going to say no, I don't think this one's not a
kissing book.
I think the whole story has thepotential to be a kissing book,
but I mean realistically.
She fucked everything up fromthe beginning.
Ashley (54:52):
I'm not there yet.
I'll take your word for it.
So no for you.
Kelly (54:56):
No for me.
I actually think this is akissing book because while she
monkey wrenched Damien'soriginal plan to be sure he
could have just at any point,just killed her, but the slow
building romance and his slowlyrealizing feelings for meant
that he just decided he wasn'tgoing to kill her at first and
(55:18):
then eventually, once all ofthat got realized, I think it
made it clear that the main plotof the book, of this book,
could not have happened if hehadn't had a romantic attachment
to her it's a kissing book forthe same reason, like I think
(55:40):
that if he had not developedthings for her, he would have
never gone to get that book totry and like, get it out, get
the talisman out of her withoutkilling her, so they would have
never been in her town, um, soit would have been a different
story, um.
Mari (55:52):
So I don't think it would have happened the way it did
without the feelings, theromantic entanglement if she
hadn't tried to steal from himno and touch the talisman.
Jonathan (56:03):
Would it be?
Uh?
Would it be a?
Would it like, if she wasn'tthere, everything would have
just gone to plan?
Mari (56:09):
right, yeah, that's what I'm saying like, which is the
whole story would have been himgoing to like free his dad,
which is a totally differentstory, so yeah yeah.
So this book wouldn't havehappened like the things that
happen in this book, the mainplot points, wouldn't have
happened without them gettingromantically entangled.
You know, one thing that Icaught on to was that basically
(56:30):
Damien's father and all thoseand I'm doing air quotes here
bad gods or bad demons orwhatever, were imprisoned
because supposedly they're evil,because they couldn't feel like
, they couldn't feel love.
That's why they were judged tobe the evil.
But is that true?
Because who?
Who made that judgment?
Like the king and the peoplewho are looting these trees and
(56:54):
and who may be the big bad bythe end of the second and third
books?
Um, and the way that you know,damien's dad was portrayed,
doesn't?
I don't know, maybe he'schanged, but maybe he was this
way the whole time, like heisn't portrayed like an
unfeeling person, like anunfeeling parent.
He calls his son buddy, buddy,like I mean.
Yeah and he's like oh, you don'thave to go today, rest up, you
gotta take care of yourself.
(57:15):
Yeah, you don't have to do italone.
Yeah, I'm like that doesn'tsound like an unfeeling entity,
but I mean, I don't know, maybewe're all being fooled, who
knows?
But to me I'm just like Ireally wonder if it's.
The whole thing is like youknow, none of them, none of the
bad guys, were actually bad guys.
You know what I mean.
So I don't know, we'll see.
I plan on reading the rest, soI'll let you guys know.
(57:36):
Alright, anything else you wantto say about this book?
Jonathan (57:41):
Are you going to read part two?
Mari (57:42):
Yes, that's what she?
Jonathan (57:43):
said Ash, are you going to read part two?
Are you going to read part one?
Mari (57:49):
Damn.
Jonathan (57:50):
Kelly, are you going to read part two?
Just throw Ash right under thatbus.
I don't know if she'll evercrack this puppy open again.
I'm not going to read part two,I'll be honest.
Mari (57:58):
That's fine.
Jonathan (57:59):
This is up to you.
Mari (58:00):
The burden lies with you.
I will accept that mission 100%.
I will carry that talisman tothe end point.
Thanks for listening to OfSwords and Soulmates.
Before we go, make sure tocheck the show notes, rate,
review and subscribe to us onyour podcast app of choice.
And subscribe to us on yourpodcast app of choice If it's an
(58:20):
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Reach out to us on any of thosemessages or email.
If you want to read along withus as we prep for a new episode,
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(58:42):
chapter by chapter interactionon the Fable app at the of
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two weeks for our next episode,when we will be discussing that
Time I Got Drunk and Saved aDemon by Kimberly Lemming.
(59:03):
In the face of global andnational forces to stifle
diversity celebration.
We choose to celebrate Blackhistory.
Bye, bye.
Thanks for watching.
Views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the
participants.
The hosts make no claim to beliterary experts and their
opinions are exactly thatopinions.
All creative works discussed orreviewed are the intellectual
property of the creators of saidstories and is being used under
the Fair Use Doctrine.
Mari (00:30):
Hello and welcome to Of Swords and Soulmates, a podcast
where we read, watch and discussromanticist stories.
I'm one of your hosts, mari,and with me I have Kelly.
Kelly (00:34):
Hey everyone, it's Kelly and, like always, we have Ashley
.
Ashley (00:38):
Hey guys, it's Ashley.
We also have Jonathan.
Mari (00:40):
Hey, what's up?
It's JP.
We're gangs all back together.
Today we're going to bediscussing A Throne in the Dark
by AK Caggiano, but first, asalways, we're going to go over
some news.
The first thing I had is not100% book related, but there's a
(01:00):
Kickstarter board game that Ibelieve closes today, the date
that this podcast airs.
It's called A Place for All myBooks and it's basically a board
game for like book people.
It's one to four players ages10 and up, and it's like a 60
minute gameplay and you'rebasically collecting books,
(01:24):
rearranging books, books andlike there's something about
like it recharges your socialbattery and then you can go get
more books.
Yeah, it sounds like a fun,like nerdy bookish, like generic
book.
It's just not like you have toknow anything about any
particular genre or book orwhatever.
A fun little game.
So if anyone likes books andboard games, that would be
potentially worth checking outhave you ever done a kickstarter
(01:47):
?
Ashley (01:48):
yeah, I've done a few one yeah, interesting like been
part of one or made one likelike done one, like like paid
into one yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mari (01:59):
Um, we have a few board games we've done through
kickstarter, trying to thinkwhat else we may have done
through Kickstarter.
Oh, I have a travel toothbrushthat I supported on Kickstarter.
That's like still being made,but it's like you do the little
toothpaste in the handle of thetoothbrush and it's like all in
one, it was really neat, reallyneat idea for, like, compact
(02:21):
travel.
I mean, it's an interestingconcept because you're helping,
you know, and if it's somethingyou're interested in, you get it
.
Yeah, but it's not the same asbuying it, because there is that
whole potential that it neverfully gets funded or fully gets
made, do you?
Ashley (02:35):
get your money back if it doesn't yeah they don't.
Mari (02:39):
I'm trying to remember.
They don't charge you until.
Kelly (02:42):
Unless it reaches the funding goal.
I'm trying to remember theydon't charge you until, unless
it reaches the funding goal.
So if they say we need $100,000for this project, if they raise
enough supporters to meet thatamount, then it'll get funded
and you'll get charged for it,and if they don't reach the goal
, then your credit card orwhatever never gets charged.
Ashley (02:58):
Interesting.
Mari (03:00):
So it's a bit of a gamble.
The other news I have isPublishers Weekly dropped some
stats of 2024.
And after two years of printbook sales being in decline,
2024 was the first year that ithas gone up.
I mean it didn't go upsignificantly, but it's not
dropped.
And adult fiction category waswhat basically bumped that up.
(03:25):
Fantasy had the biggestincrease and there's a quote I
had from the article that saidFantasy had the biggest increase
in the adult segment, up 35.8%.
Sarah J Maas and Rebecca Yaroswere the queens of romancy in
the year, with each landing twobooks among a year's top sellers
.
Maas' A Court of Thorns andRoses and A Court of Mist and
Fury moved about 1.3 million and791,000 copies respectively,
(03:48):
while Sales of Yarrows' IronFlame and Fourth Wing sold
nearly 1.7 million copiescombined last year.
Hot dog Mm-hmm.
Jonathan (03:55):
What do you think, what percentage of profits do
you think she sees from that?
Ashley (03:58):
Which she.
Jonathan (03:59):
Rebecca.
Ashley (04:00):
Oh Well, seeing as how those two books only recently
moved to Kindle Unlimited, itwas probably a decent turnaround
.
Kindle Unlimited you get paidby the page read, not by the
book borrowed.
Mari (04:15):
Oh, interesting.
I didn't know how that worked.
Ashley (04:17):
Yeah, it's an interesting concept.
Kelly (04:19):
It says traditional publishers and print generally
5%, fifteen percent of sales,and so I guess it would be 15
percent if you're like stephenking and five percent if you're
less well, less well-knownauthor I'm gonna guess that she
didn't have such.
Ashley (04:38):
She probably didn't have an amazing deal for fourth wing
, although she's a well-knowncontemporary romance writer,
right romanticist like this washer first official romanticist
book, but she probably brokeredherself a better deal.
I'm hoping for iron flame foryeah if she didn't, she needs to
get her people on it well thefact that they, like they, came
(05:00):
to her.
Mari (05:01):
They wanted her to write like her publisher wanted her to
write, in the genre.
I would think they would havehad to offer her something good
right.
Ashley (05:07):
Yeah, I think it was something.
I believe I read or sawsomething at some point where
she had been wanting to do thisfor quite some time and she
couldn't get buy-in from her,her publisher or whatever for a
very long time.
She's got a number ofcontemporary romances out there,
right.
And then I guess, justeventually it was all right, you
(05:28):
know, let's hear your pitch,yeah, um, and she had to come
with like five fully formedpitches, beginning, middle and
end, basically.
And I think I had also readthat violet getting spoiler,
spoiler here, that violetgetting two dragons was actually
a compromise with her um, agentor publisher or whatever that.
(05:52):
Because you know, I thinkoriginally she had these, these
two ideas, but she was anglingtowards like andarna being the
only dragon and publisher waslike not really sure how that's
going to be perceived.
And then they were like okay,well, what about a really,
really bad-ass dragon and andArna, and that's how she got to.
(06:13):
That was not the original plan.
Mari (06:15):
See, now that gives me a little bit of heart palpitations
, for all the theories that arelike Taryn's going to die before
the series is over with.
And, like Taryn's, gonna diebefore the series is over with,
and I'm like you, shut yourmouth.
There is a cult following.
Oh, oh, I gotta say for forAgatar being a 15, no, a 10 year
(06:37):
old book which still be rightin the top 10.
Ashley (06:40):
Yeah, wolf, that's pretty damn good that's all
social media, in my very humbleopinion.
I think the power of socialmedia for Rebecca and for Sarah
J Maas has been probably prettylife-changing.
I think Sarah had a cult of herown before BookTalk, but if
(07:00):
they're in the last two years Imean before Fourth Wing came out
it was definitely like Sarah JMass and Jennifer Armentrout, I
think, is how you pronounce herlast name and I've not read any
of her books, but she hasseveral series out and she
actually runs Polycon.
I think it's a Polycon.
Mari (07:21):
Yeah, jlm, and those were the two really really, really
big authors that just flooded myFor you page on TikTok, so big,
big names with lots of booksline of readers.
You know you have people whoyou know maybe got into some
(07:43):
voracious reading with likehunger games and stuff in that
era, right and there wasn'tright as much that captured that
group of people or maybebrought them back to reading.
Until some of some of thisagatar, fourth wing, throne of
glass, like this whole new waveof whatever, um, wave of romancy
or whatever, yeah, I think hasbrought some people back into
(08:06):
reading For sure.
Ashley (08:08):
My sister, you know, was never a reader.
She had always, just neverreally had.
She never thought she could doit, almost right, like she
didn't have the time, she didn'thave like the bandwidth, you
know, to just sit down and readin the way that one can just sit
down and watch, you know, fivehours of television.
Yeah, um, she never reallybelieved that it was for her and
(08:30):
then and then she did.
You know, it was just, I think,the exposure on social media
and the hype and the excitementfor the storytelling, um, it
finally just spoke to her andyou know she sat down and she
read a book and she was like,well, fuck, this was amazing,
this is for me.
And now she has a bookshelfwith books on them, she has a
(08:53):
Kindle and a whole little setup.
Mari (08:55):
And I think that's another thing and my little reader
heart is so excited for her.
I think that's another thingtoo.
Like, I think some things thatare making reading easy as a
whole are also leading towardspeople buying print books, even
if they didn't necessarily readit that way.
So you have the moreavailability of audiobooks and
better quality audiobooks, andyou have, yeah, e-readers that
are, you know, pretty highquality and more affordable than
(09:18):
they used to be.
Ashley (09:19):
Oh yeah, and I well, you can decorate them trophies.
Mari (09:22):
You know you might read it on on your e-reader or listen
to it or whatever.
And then you're like, well, nowI want it for my bookcase.
Ashley (09:29):
Correct.
Yeah, she started with a tinylittle shelf like that was
mounted on her wall and then shehad to invest in an actual like
book shelf with, you know,tiers, like five tiers.
So it's been exciting for me towatch that growth for her.
Like she came to the, to theromance, the Romantici con last
year and she had a blast andthat was, I mean, arguably all
(09:53):
of our first times going to acon of that nature.
But like to see her be excitedand you know buy books and she
sent me a picture the other dayof like her decorated Kindle.
You know she got like a clearcase and she put stickers on
picture the other day of likeher decorated kindle.
You know she got like a clearcase and she put stickers on the
back and I think, jonathan, yougave her the stickers.
She was very excited.
She's gonna switch out herstickers based on her mood or
(10:15):
the season or whatever it's awhole thing.
Mari (10:18):
Is she coming back, uh, for ramsay con this year?
Ashley (10:22):
so I'm unclear.
The kids are bigger.
Um, would you think it wouldmake it slightly easier, but I'm
not sure.
Jonathan and I also invested intwo days and she was.
She likes a plan, but gettingher to commit 10 months in
advance is hard sometimes, yeah,so we bought the tickets and we
were like hey, if you want todo one day or both days, like
(10:44):
you know, let us know coordinate.
Yeah, but we we bought thetickets in fear that they might
sell out.
Yeah, but she has not purchasedher ticket or tickets yet.
Mari (10:55):
Okay, I hope she comes.
Yeah, for sure.
The last little bit of tidbitnews I have is that, uh, the
cover was revealed, the imagewas revealed for sin, the news
alchemized, yeah did I breakyour radar because I just
screamed was that too high pitch?
Ashley (11:13):
okay, because we practiced this.
And I got frustrated because hekept asking me to test my sound
and I was like I'm not gonnayell in podcast but I didn't
realize that we had the coverreveal on our talking points, so
it's going to be releasedOctober 30th 2025.
Mari (11:31):
The cover is gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, I mean.
It's very gothy.
It's very like line drawingetching, almost like a Geiger
style.
Yeah.
Ashley (11:49):
Yeah, I'm excited I hope I heard there was like some
disappointment that the umartist for the cover was not the
artist that had kind of donethe fan fiction um prints.
But my understanding is thatthere are uh pages perhaps
inside the book that does haveimages from the fan fiction
(12:11):
artist.
That'll be good.
I might be tripping this up, um, and I forget their names and
that's my fault for not doingresearch in advance.
Um, listeners, forgive me, butyeah, there's.
I read the synopsis for thebook and I'm excited.
My sister was like well, whatdo you think?
Like is this?
Is this, you know, close to thefan fiction?
And I was like, honestly, Idon't.
This sounds pretty close, likepretty on par.
(12:34):
Yeah, um, I wasn't disappointedat all by what I read and what
I saw, so I'm hyped.
Yeah, I think I sent it to you,right?
Mari (12:43):
Like you got me turned onto this for sure.
Yeah, I read it so we arepre-ordered.
Yes, same, we are pre -ordered.
All 976 pages coming this way.
Ashley (12:53):
Somebody pray for us, please.
The damage from the fan fictionwas real.
Mari (12:59):
Yeah, what will you be doing in October?
Crying my eyes out.
Ashley (13:03):
Wait, yeah, just destroyed.
Yeah, just destroyed.
And I do appreciate how shemade it one complete book
instead of, like, forcing us towait for, you know multiple, you
know like a series?
Yeah, because that's not howthe fan fiction reads.
So I think her fan base isreally excited, and they should
(13:26):
be, because it was justphenomenal writing.
Kelly (13:29):
Yeah.
Ashley (13:31):
In my very humble opinion.
So I'm stoked.
There's a lot of books comingout this year that I'm stoked
about.
I don't think I've everpre-ordered so many books.
Mari (13:38):
I was about to say that exact same sentence.
I have never in my life had somany books pre-ordered.
Ashley (13:46):
And I've been careful, I've been selective, selective,
but there must be five or six ondeck for me this year yeah, uh,
I've got nine so I'm actuallyscared to look now that I said
it out loud.
I'm hoping it's just five.
Oh, I'm hoping it's just five.
Mari (14:05):
I've got the compendium of lost tales coming out this
month, which is a third in theEmily wilds series.
I've got the new cover of swordheart that's being released
coming out this month.
Juliet cross is releasing abook in April that I have
pre-ordered.
Ashley (14:19):
Is that the firebird Is?
It firebird, I want to, butit's like $30.
Yeah, gosh dang, it's realpretty.
It is.
There are no $30.
Yeah, gosh dang, it's realpretty.
I hope it's good it is thereare no lies.
Mari (14:34):
Yeah, I really hope it's good.
I mean, it's got the picturethat extends along the painted
edges.
Don't peer pressure me, don'tdo it, you don't need it, you're
okay.
Ashley (14:46):
Five, six.
Yeah, it's like six yeah, it's.
Mari (14:51):
The enchanted greenhouse, which is a sequel to spell shop,
is coming out in july.
Accomplice to the villain iscoming out in august.
Unlock and silver the new teakingfisher, is coming out in
august.
Um rf quang has a book comingout in august that I've heard
people say is her first going tobe her first foray into
romanticism Catabases.
Ashley (15:10):
Yes, it's.
Yeah.
You might've gotten that fromme.
I'm not even sure.
Mari (15:14):
Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe , um, yep, Uh, the things God's
break, which is the sequel to,you know, our Abigail Owens
stories coming out in Septemberand then alchemized.
Ashley (15:25):
So yes, all the pre-orders oh so, ma'am, you are
missing.
Um, where is it?
Rebel without a cause?
No, uh-uh, hold please.
Uh, I'm starting to panic nowbecause the second cali heart
book is supposed to come outthis year, I thought yeah, uh
the, the sequel to quicksilver.
Mari (15:46):
Yeah, actually I did pre-order that one, but I
pre-ordered that one on adifferent website.
I think I did the BritishWaterstones because they're the
first one I did Waterstones, soI wanted them to match and
there's been a title reveal onthat one Brimstone.
Yes.
Ashley (16:02):
November 18th.
Yes, so I think, the only onethat you're missing, not to add
to poor Kelly's debt.
Mari (16:12):
Oh no, it's all my debt.
Okay, good, it's all my debt.
Crisis averted.
Ashley (16:17):
So in July I don't know if you have this.
One is the other Dramini fanfiction.
I thought I mentioned it lasttime the Irresistible Urge to
Fall for your Enemy.
Mari (16:27):
I wanted to read it before I pre-ordered it, but maybe I
just need to pre-order it.
Ashley (16:31):
You know, I don't know if it's still available now.
That might make the choice forme then yeah, if you didn't
download it before the end ofthe year, I'm pretty sure it's
gone off of AO3.
Mari (16:42):
Okay.
Well then I may just have topre-order that one.
Oh, I've got two more.
Two more on pre-order.
Yeah, I've got the faithbreaker, which is the third um
fallen gods trilogy by hannahkaner, the she wrote god killer.
That third one is coming out.
And then I have the ballad offalling dragons, which is the
sequel to when the moon hatched.
Ashley (17:01):
So I need to read that.
That was a massive tangent onour news list.
Sorry guys, but it felt likeimportant.
I feel like we should do apre-order catch up every quarter
.
Mari (17:13):
I agree.
Hey, listeners, what do we haveon deck?
Yes, listeners, tell us whathave you pre-ordered?
Ashley (17:17):
Because we want to know what are we missing, guys?
We?
Mari (17:20):
need to know On to why we're here, which is to talk
about.
Well, I mean, we talked aboutbooks, but also talking about A
Throne, and I've had the hardesttime remembering the name of
this book.
No shade on the author oranything.
I enjoyed the book, but forsome reason, the name would not
stick in my head.
So, throne in the Dark by AKCasiano.
(17:42):
I think I'm the one whosuggested it.
I couldn't remember, but Ithink I suggested it.
Yeah, I don't know how we gothere.
Okay, it I couldn't remember,but I think I suggested it.
Yeah, I don't know how we gothere.
Okay, if I'm the one thatsuggested, I think I remember
first hearing about it on likereddit.
There was a, um, a chat thingwhere people were talking about
books that are like sword heartby teaking fisher, that I really
liked, and this was recommendedby several people, so it was on
my list to read because of that.
(18:04):
So, and it's like, oh, it'svalentine's day is, you know,
it's February, so we'll read it.
So let me talk a little bitabout it and then we'll get into
talking about the book and ouropinions.
This book is self-publishedSeptember 28th 2022.
I was looking through herwebsite, the author's website
and she credits her illustratorsand stuff on there.
And Angeo Art, a-n-g-e-o Art isthe artist who did the covers
(18:31):
for all three books in thistrilogy.
So the synopsis dark, lord demonspawn, prophesied realm
destroyer with a demon for afather, damien maleficus
bloodthorn's destiny could benothing but nefarious.
And with the compelling excuseme, and with the completion of
his most vicious spell, damien'son the cusp of fulfilling the
(18:53):
evil inevitability all of hisdark machinations have led to.
And then her Bubbly, obnoxiousblonde Harboring secrets of her
own.
A tiny yet troublesome thiefcalling herself Ama completely
upsets Damien's malevolent planswhen she mistakenly gets
chained to his side throughmagic, forcing him to drag her
across the realm.
Killing her would fix things,of course, but the nauseatingly
(19:16):
sweet Ama proves herself usefulon Damien's unholy crusade and
then proves herself the sourceof something even more sinister,
feelings, feelings.
Will Damien be forced to abandonhis villainous birthright to
help the tender thorn in hisside, or will he manage to
overcome the virtue Ama insistson inspiring and instead cut it
out at the heart?
So we're going to get into thebook discussion.
(19:39):
This is, you know, we starteddoing it this way this year.
It's all spoilers, so we arenot limiting ourselves, and if
you've not read the book, maybepause it.
So what do we think likeoverall rating.
Ashley (19:50):
I'll go first, I listen.
I started chuckling in thefirst chapter.
I was interested, I just alsocould not speed through it.
I struggled to finish the bookand I don't think it had
anything to.
I can't figure out why I likethe story, I think just maybe
there was a lot of it.
I'm questioning my sanity here,but it was funny, it was quirky
(20:14):
.
There was some slow burn stuffhappening.
I thought there was a realattempt at world building and
character building, at least forwhat I got through, because,
full transparency, I didn'tfinish.
So sorry guys, I think this ismy first.
I didn't get through it book.
All good, all good.
(20:34):
So it was like a three and ahalf for me because I didn't not
like it.
I've definitely read books onthis podcast that I didn't like.
I just man, I just couldn'tfinish it in time.
Mari (20:44):
Telly or Jonathan.
Jonathan (20:45):
I thought it was like a sm smoldering, not not like a
I wouldn't even call like a slowburn, like a, just a light
smolder um with uh and I I itwas interestingly light like
there were.
I guess it was just there werejust hints of hints of spice or
hints of action that you thoughtmaybe would be around the next
(21:08):
chapter.
Um, and I just didn't.
I didn't find them, but I think,if I kept deluding you because
I was reading it in the if I hadto like change my perspective.
So initially I thought, oh, I'mgonna read this as like, as
monster spice.
And I think once I changed myperspective to and started
(21:30):
looking at it through the lensof like, why a monster romance?
Then I started seeing itdifferently.
It wasn't.
I didn't find, I didn't get thechuckles like you got the
chuckles oh, I like the banter.
I thought it was cute with theaudio book was interesting, so
maybe that took away from it,because when they changed
(21:50):
perspectives you heard the, like, the, the, when you are in the,
in the masculine tone, and themasculine tone impersonated the
feminine tone.
It was very it wasn't done well.
Ashley (22:04):
Tell them about Kaz.
Guys, how did you hear Kaz'svoice in your heads?
Um kind of Okay.
Tell them about Kaz.
Mari (22:10):
Guys, how did you hear Kaz's voice in your heads?
Kind of Okay.
So for me Kaz was basically afire imp version of Kaz Brekker
from Vilea Bardugo book, so kindof older and like ornery kind
of over it, Like Kaz Brekker ifhe'd never had his crew, and
older.
That's how I.
Jonathan (22:30):
Tell them, tell them, tell them over it like kaz
brekker if he never had his crewand older.
That's how I tell.
Yeah, tell them, tell them,tell them.
The voice selection in theaudiobook was like a new york
asshole.
Ashley (22:36):
Yes, basically yeah, yes , the new york accent for me
just made it so much better.
Jonathan (22:42):
You got to do the imitation, do it hey, forget it,
get out of my way, you whore.
It was like I was like that,wow, I was like came out of left
field, like what the fuck thechuckle.
Ashley (22:54):
I chuckled when he told me that tonight because we
hadn't really talked about you,and that's something I should do
more frequently is ask if thereare any interesting quirks
about the voices.
Right, because the pirates werewhat like a scottish accent or
something like that when we didthe pirate book and that was
like why, but Kaz being soornery, but also a New York
(23:15):
accent in this?
Jonathan (23:16):
fantasy.
It's like an idiot, like anidiot, Like, like, just like
real, like you know, like a walkin here.
Mari (23:24):
Yeah, real abrasive.
Jonathan (23:26):
Yeah, like everything, it's like instead of a period.
It was just like, your was justlike, and that's how we would
in the, that's how they wouldsay it like, anytime he was,
ever, whatever terms he like, hecouldn't.
It was just reflex that hecouldn't not call her some sort
of derogatory name but in thenew york accent like for me,
that's the icing on the cakelike.
Ashley (23:45):
It just makes it a thousand times better.
Jonathan (23:47):
And for some reason, I think only from the feminine
perspective was he voiced um, soit was like so they were, so
you never heard it in amasculine, you heard it, but
when he was doing, because hehad.
Sometimes, when they do theselike demons, it's all.
It's oftentimes like a veryformal, like accent, like
english uk kind of accent, andthen, um, she's very
(24:11):
americanized.
And then kaz is just like hey,I'm walking here, yeah, yeah
literally cannot contain myself.
I need a bagel.
You trollop, get out of my way.
Um the um.
(24:31):
Yeah, anyway, it was.
Uh, it was.
It was interesting.
I did go down a rabbit hole ofum mar marquis verse.
No, marquis, marquis, marquis.
I went.
This is what made me go downthis rabbit hole, because in the
book they pronounce it.
In the audio it's marquis, yeah.
So I was like.
I was like, okay, so why arethey saying?
(24:51):
Why are they saying it that way.
So then I went and looked it up.
Uh, marquis is a male lord.
Marquis is a female lord or alady look at this and I was like
, well, maybe they're just wrong, maybe just maybe just caught
fire, maybe like they're in theaudio booth.
And then I was like give it tome phonetically.
And they were like we'retalking about an audio booth.
And then I was like give it tome phonetically.
And they were like are wetalking about a dude Marquise?
(25:11):
And it was like I don't evenknow if they pronounce the R in
the book, but in the phoneticversion they don't pronounce the
R.
I'm going to open a can.
Let me mute myself.
Ashley (25:23):
That was terrible timing , sir.
What's your rating?
Jonathan (25:26):
Five stars Okay timing , sir.
What's your rating um?
Five stars okay, all of that itwas you know once you, once I
changed my perspective on it.
Ashley (25:34):
Five stars, okay, I wanted to like it.
Jonathan (25:35):
I just there was just so much of it I would give this
to, uh, my 16 year old, if Idon't have a 16 year old, but if
I have one, give it to a 16year old.
Okay, this is, this is right upyour alley, understood?
I kept waiting for them to saythe word cock and they got like
halfway cocks, no, and they gotlike halfway they're cocks, no.
They said cock.
They got CO, yeah, they're halfcocks.
She held one, but it was dead.
Oh, it was a dead one, she waslike yeah, but they don't
(26:01):
address it, they just allude toit.
They're like that's what.
That was Okay, cool.
But they don't say it All right, they're like it's just like
Hmm, so which one did you?
They were like which one shouldwe choose?
This, this one?
And she like, pulled out like afloppy one, again, that's the
one I would use.
So that's like I.
At that point I was like herewe go but I'm okay with that
(26:25):
Once you, like I said, once youlook at it from that lens for
what?
Ashley (26:29):
for changing your perspective.
Jonathan (26:31):
Interesting, interesting.
Kelly (26:32):
Kelly what did you think?
I thought it was a decent book.
I enjoyed it.
It reminded me a lot ofassistant to the villain.
Yeah, overall I would say threeand a half stars.
I think what really pushed itdown from being like a four was
it just seemed to drag out a lotof things that didn't need to
be dragged out, and there were alot of parts there where the
(26:52):
book was unnecessarily long Iagree with you on that.
Jonathan (26:55):
It's like it was like they got caught.
They get caught in some somechapters longer than they should
like in some situations waylonger than they should depth
side quests yeah, the whole bookfelt like a cyclone.
Mari (27:08):
Yeah, I was looking at her website.
See, to me the book felt like aD&D, like a Dungeons Dragons
game, and I was like this reallyfeels like a campaign somebody
had and then turned it into abook or story.
And she actually does on herwebsite and on her Instagram
feed and whatnot she plays D&D.
So I'm like, hmm, like I wondershe's playing the long game yeah
(27:29):
, I wonder if this was like acampaign and that's why some of
these things drag, because whenyou're if you've never played
dnd it's not a set script, it'snot like you're following a
movie or reading a book, it's.
You know, however many peopleare in your party and sometimes
someone wants to go look at theshiny object over there and so
you're side questing to go lookat some random shiny object.
That means nothing in the grandscheme of things.
(27:52):
So kelly knows kelly runs ourcampaign and uh, yeah, we do a
lot of side and not doing whatyou thought we were going to do,
don't we kelly?
Ashley (28:03):
yep gotta keep him on his toes.
What's the?
Jonathan (28:05):
camp.
What's it like?
I will define it.
Can you define a campaign?
Mari (28:08):
yeah, yeah.
So a campaign is basically thewhole game.
So like, if you are, if you'replaying dungeon dragons, you're
gonna get together, you're gonnaplay.
And so you have, you are thesame character pretty much the
entire time, like, say, maybeI'm a, I'm a fighter and maybe,
um, jonathan you're like awizard and Ash you're like a
(28:29):
cleric or whatever.
Then we all are going to go doa thing Like, let's say, this
time we get together, we'regoing to play for four hours or
whatever, and we're going tofree somebody, and then they're
going to give us like a littleclue as to something else.
(28:53):
And so you get together and allthese games that you play over,
however long it takes, are thewhole campaign, the whole story
or the whole story arc, and yourcharacters level up almost like
a video game.
Really, video games are likeD&D, I guess.
Their characters level up andget better at what they do as
the game goes on.
So maybe your wizard will getmore spells, maybe your cleric
will be blessed more by theirgod, maybe your fighter will,
like I don't know get a betterweapon or something, and so you
have different levels until youreach the end of your story, the
(29:16):
end of your campaign, whateverthat may be, whether that's
reaching level 20, whetherthat's getting a particular goal
, whether it's slaying a big bador you know whatever.
Okay.
Jonathan (29:24):
Interesting, interesting, slaying a big bad
or you know whatever.
Mari (29:26):
Okay interesting, interesting, but yeah, so she
plays.
So the the author plays.
I'm like, oh yeah, that'sdefinitely, definitely a was a
um, an influence I it's a highfour star read for me.
Um, I almost gave it five andI'm I will read the rest, I plan
to read the rest and I may bumpup the series as a whole to a
five, but for right now thisparticular book I would say is a
(29:47):
four.
I enjoyed it.
I laughed a good bit.
I like laughed out loud a goodbit, like even from the
beginning, like I think thefirst time I remember laughing
was probably chapter one whereDamien's like oh, you know, I've
done my life goal becausecomplete, and then it's like he
was 27.
He because complete, and thenit's like he was 27, he's sweet
(30:11):
summer child, okay, um, so, yeah, I pretty much got the tone
early on, um, and there was yeah, there were plenty of parts
where I laughed out loud.
I agree with kelly, it'sdefinitely more comp to like
assistance of the villain interms of like the tone and the
comedy.
Which comedy is hard.
Comedy may not hit the same foreverybody, but it worked for me
.
(30:32):
The main reason why I didn'tgive it a full five was because
I felt like Damien's characterhad a really good character
growth or at least a characterarc.
There was a story.
He started in one place and hefinished somewhere else and I
felt like we went along withthat.
We're along for that ride.
But I felt like ama's entirecharacter growth happened off
(30:56):
screen, like when she realizedeverything that was going on in
her realm and decided to go onthis journey.
And I don't feel like shereally changed or progressed a
whole lot, um, from thebeginning of story to the end.
And I don't feel like shereally changed or progressed a
whole lot, um, from thebeginning of story to the end.
And I would have.
It would have been like a fullfive to me if they both like
felt like they went somewhere.
So I mean, maybe in the otherbooks it'll, it'll change, but
(31:17):
overall a definite four, a solidfour, and I really enjoyed it.
Jonathan (31:21):
Yeah, I would recommend this the comedy did
not land with me.
Ashley (31:24):
I was like I was hoping the big bad daddy with the it
didn't the super bro chat.
Jonathan (31:31):
He didn't sound broey to you, kiddo, that's the other
thing that I left darkestoverlord is calling his son
kiddo buddy, yeah, oh, I meanlike, yeah, I got that.
Give me a hug.
It wasn't him hugging, it waslike he was.
He's stuck in that crystalpiece of crystal.
Yeah, yeah, crystal shard.
Mari (31:50):
He's like my kid for me personality versus who the
character is supposed to be, itwas such a small part of the
book so here's what I think,though I think it's actually a
bigger part of the book becauseI think it's a way of showing
and this is another thing Iliked about it I think damien is
an unreliable narrator.
I think it's like because it'slike oh, his dad's is, you know,
(32:11):
horrible, whatever horrible orrenowned demon of darkness and
blah, blah, blah.
And then he's like, hey, buddy,how you doing, you know?
And then it makes you questionother things because, like,
there's certain points where hetalks about him being all dark
and bad or whatever, and I'malmost like, oh yeah, sure, this
is one of those times whereyou're like I'm so bad.
So she calls him out on hislike, evilness or whatever
(32:33):
multiple times and it makes mewonder if all the characters
from his perspective is just himbeing kind of deluded or or
just an unreliable narrator.
Jonathan (32:42):
You know his version of things at the time yeah, it
kind of it almost felt like he'slike programmed to feel yes
like a certain type of way from,I think.
So he's gonna constantly seethings through this lens and I
think that his father so the wayI saw his father was like
almost reformed, like I took awhole bunch of shit for granted.
(33:03):
I was a real, real piece ofshit and now I'm stuck in, stuck
in this like Mason jar prisonkind of thing, and can't get out
.
And now that I'm here, I've hada whole bunch of time to
reflect and I don't want to haveto sit back and reflect for
eternity.
So if my son can get me out,I'm already happy.
I'm just happy with therelationships that I have now
(33:24):
and we'll just keep rollingforward on this.
And his son is just like yeah,I have this quest and it's
undeniable, like this is just,this is what I have to do.
I'm driven to do this.
I have an on off switch andit's on and this is now.
I'm gonna go do this and thisis here we go, kind of thing.
And I think he's almostwrestling with.
Well, he is wrestling with itlike how you know, these are
(33:45):
strange feelings, like the, thegrinch kind of feeling.
Um, I think that ama is kind ofin that same boat too, like
where she's sort of she.
She left on a singular questand found something I don't
think she intended to find.
I think she just kind of sherelegatedated herself to that
(34:08):
betrothed role and then becamesaw a different pathway that had
presented itself.
That I don't think she sawinitially and she thought I'd
kind of like to take thatpathway.
I just hope that she had foundthat pathway earlier in the book
.
I think we'll get a bangening.
But I don't think we're goingto get a bangening until
sometime in the book.
I think we'll.
I think we'll get a bangeningbut I don't think we're going to
(34:28):
get a bangening until sometimein the next book, assuming that
it follows their uh, their storyas far as I know it does, it's
all.
Mari (34:35):
Three books are their story, as far as I know um
that's I.
Jonathan (34:40):
I would I imagine that if it's a, if it's still
smoldering, it may, now thatthey're, if it's still
smoldering, it may, now thatthey're off and on their own,
they may find themselves in aspace where they can be free
with each other.
And um, there's got to be somesort of like pain point right in
story two, like at the act, thesecond act, where they're she
(35:03):
wants she leaves him to go backto see something or save, or
save her land or something, saveher parents, like something's
got to happen.
Mari (35:10):
Yeah, there's got to be some blowback from it.
I actually had a question sinceyou brought it up.
I was going to ask you later,but since you brought it up, I
saw that on Tome that youmentioned, and you mentioned it
here too, that you saw this bookas a monster romance.
So for me and I know everyone'sgot their own version of it
(35:31):
from for me I I don't count itas a monster romance.
I know this is different thanthe crew at hissing and kissing
um, but I don't count it as amonster romance if the person
can pass as like human.
Um, so like, it's not like hehad wings or tail or scales,
whatever, like, unless he didmagic, no one would know that he
was a blood mage, bad boy yeah,so do um.
Jonathan (35:54):
Do vampires count?
Mari (35:55):
it depends on if they can pass, you know.
So if they're day walkers,maybe you know, if they like, if
they combust in in the daylightand you know, can't stand to be
around humans without, um, uh,having a, a blood capri sun, um,
then maybe not, you know.
So it yeah, like I think, ifthey can pass in society, I, I
(36:17):
don't know that I personallylook at those as monster
romances I started to qualifymonster romance, as is the
entirety of every character inthe book.
Jonathan (36:33):
Is there a multitude of beings, whether it's a witch
or a wizard or a minotaur or analien, and if there's more than,
and then it only gets.
They get from zero to threepoints based on, um, how many
you have.
So if there are, if there'snone, then you're not going to
(36:55):
get a point right.
If it's just, if it's justhuman on human, you're just
going to get a point or nopoints, um, but if there's one
additional species, then there'sa, then you get one point.
Then, if there, if you get likemultiple, and we're going up to
two and three, um, and so Ithink with that I had, I
definitely went back and forthin the, the, the calculator,
(37:18):
when I was, I went back andre-examine the formula and, uh,
as I was kind of going throughit, I was like you know, how do
we want to, how do I want toassign points to this?
So if there's none, one, acouple and then like multiple
species.
So when I, when I looked atthis book, I thought I can't.
(37:38):
Well, I came out with multiplespecies.
So if I had humans and then Ihad the blood mage, and then I
had imps, um and that, and thenthere was another.
There was like that fourth orthat, an additional type of
magic um, that was kind of thatwas popping out.
So there were multiple umspecies of sorts that were
(38:01):
popping out.
So I was like, okay, then I haveto take that box honestly the
same way.
It's like you know, there's ahow do I, how do I feel about
spice or how do I feel aboutother things popping up?
And it's just that, when, whenI tipped the scales over towards
multiple species, that's whatmoves it, that's what flips it
(38:23):
into monster romance.
For me, if I eliminate thatquestion, it just takes it down
to romance.
But the outcomes are I are forevery, for every type of spice
level.
There's a you can end up into awith, either like a rom-com or
(38:46):
a monster rom-com, or like Ithink in the extreme it's like
funny fuckery or funny monsterfuckery, I don't know, like all
sorts of stuff, or just we'rejust this is, if it's just
straight up, fuckery yeah, yeahno, which happens from time to
time.
Yeah, I it's.
It's ever evolving.
I see what you're saying.
I also think he could be.
(39:07):
He used magic to hide.
Mari (39:11):
Right, he could change his appearance and that of others.
Jonathan (39:16):
And then and he was able to stave off the I forget
the guy's name now, the Marquis.
Mari (39:21):
Oh, I wrote it down because I could never Cedric.
Jonathan (39:23):
Cedric.
He was able to, he used magicto like stave off the um, the
spell that he was trying, yeah,yeah, well, the spell that he
was trying to when they were inthere, when they were having
their one-on-one.
I also saw this as like, verylike, like, business oriented,
like amas.
Amas kingdom has a very limitedresource thing.
(39:47):
Yeah, I mean, they're built onequity too.
It's like they're.
Her parents were like, yeah,profit sharing, you know, we're
going to, we're going to workhard, but we're going to, we're
going to have gains together andthat's going to be cool.
In exchange for that, we don'thave defenses, we have minimal
defenses, so buy defenses.
(40:08):
So they went to uh, made a dealwith um cedric's family, like,
hey, you guys have a military,that's cool.
We're going to give you productat cost, so you'll have your
cost of goods sold is going tobe as low as possible in
exchange for militaryreinforcement, and that's cool.
But the issue then is, if youswing defensive power over to
one side now, though, that guy,that guy's family, is cedric's
(40:29):
angle is why the hell?
Why the hell should I wait forthem to sell me stuff at at uh
at cost, when I can just go takeover that kingdom, install my
military uh systematically andmake them work twice as hard for
half as much?
And I think that Ama's parentswere basically like, hey, let's
(40:52):
squash this.
Here's my daughter.
Mari (40:54):
Yeah.
Bargaining tool yeah Can.
I interest you in selling mydaughter to you.
So what do we think of theworld building?
Oh, I went first last right.
Ashley (41:08):
Um, there was so much of it, there was there was a lot
of building.
There was a lot of building,there were a lot of side quests.
I don't think it was bad, Ijust think it was a little bit
too much for me.
Um, so, again like it, it waslike a three and a half.
Like.
Again, like it was like a threeand a half.
Like I wasn't uninterested.
I just think I was overwhelmedand it just I detached a little
(41:30):
bit, like I was just like, oh,like I was, I was really
skimming and I was like, oh, Ican skip this, oh, I can get
this, oh, this is important.
No, I can skip this.
So I think it was only a threeand a half for me.
I just couldn't, I couldn'tlock in't, lock in like I was
entertained.
I really, you know, it was awhole.
I liked how they it wasn't evena deep dive, it was just like a
(41:52):
, how they explained, like thelayers of the different oh god,
what did she call them?
And I think what struck me toowas like they used imperia or
imperian, and of course, it wasvery like fourth wing mindset.
So, like you know, the heavenswere layer one, and then, you
know, some the Fae were likelayer two, but only because they
(42:15):
wouldn't, you know, catchthemselves below humans or
something like that.
And then the human realm waslayers of realms.
There were the different layersof realms and how it wasn't
necessarily a specific order andthey were all kind of existing
at once.
I really liked that explanation.
Um, I thought that gave a lotof insight too and, you know,
forewarning as to probablywhat's coming next, like we're
(42:36):
probably going to see otherrealms, right.
So I really liked that.
It was like it was like a threeand a half for me, like it
didn't suck.
There was.
It was very good explanation.
There was a lot of charactersthat were interesting, like
what's his name?
Mari (42:50):
and not was it anomalous, am I saying the alchemist louis,
yes, she called the hag calledhim louis.
Ashley (42:58):
I love a good nickname um, I liked it a lot.
It was just a lot of it Ithought it was.
Jonathan (43:03):
I thought I there's.
I want to learn more about someof the, some of the side quests
.
Like they, they move throughdifferent worlds, different
lands.
I would have liked to have alittle bit more knowledge, but
at a faster pace, if that makessense.
Yeah, for like Damien's, likehome and going through like the
(43:24):
swamp area and like thewerewolves and stuff like that
you could.
I feel like you could skip thatand cut that out because they
weren't.
I don't know if they had asignificant impact on the story.
There was some fluff built inand then kind of understanding
the pathway to the.
I guess the library or therestricted section was
(43:45):
interesting to me.
I guess the library or therestricted section was
interesting to me.
So when she got into, theimagery that she was using there
in that space was I felt wasmore appropriate, but I don't
know.
I think there was a bunch ofmisplaced world building and
maybe some missed opportunitiesfor it as well.
So she built what she shouldn'thave and neglected things that
(44:09):
she could have gone deeper in.
If that makes sense, I'dprobably give it a three.
The space was there in the book.
It was just misused in myhumble opinion.
Kelly (44:20):
I think I agree with Ashley there was a lot of world
building and the way it was kindof piled in just felt excessive
.
There was a lot of worldbuilding and the way it was kind
of piled in just felt excessive.
There was a lot of worldbuilding, lore that we didn't
need to know, that was put inthere and maybe that'll play out
later in the series or whatever, but I think there was just a
little bit too much.
I think there was someinteresting stuff that was done.
(44:43):
That was done.
I really liked the concept ofthe trees in Ama's realm and how
that played into being kind ofa big part of the story and I
think it's obvious that that'sgoing to be something to look
into further, especially becausesince Damien didn't know
anything about them.
So I would say a three and ahalf.
Mari (45:04):
Okay For me.
I said a four.
It was deeper than I expectedit to be and it felt, like I've
already said, it felt like a D&Dcampaign or D&D world.
I play D&D but I haven't likeplayed it my whole life or since
it started or read every singlebook out.
So often when I'm playing D&Dthere's a lot I don't know
(45:26):
that's going on in the world andI'm just kind of rolling with
it and figuring it out, and so alot of times I feel like I
think I felt reading this bookwhere it's like, oh, there's a
swamp thing over there, and thenthere's this realm over here
and then there's like, okay,well, we'll see which way we're
going to go.
I enjoyed.
I think there are two mainthings that stood out to me from
the world building other thanit being very D&D-like.
(45:48):
The first thing was I reallyenjoyed the snippet in the
middle with the elves, becauseyou had these elves in so much
of the fantasy I've read andwatched are very hoity-toity,
for lack of a better word, andso for them to be like, ooh, we
go away, it felt very like whatwe do in the shadows or
(46:10):
something like.
It felt like it humanized them.
You know it's like oh wait,they have something to learn and
they're not.
You know they're not like thethe be all and end, all most
powerful, you know, abovehumanity, kind of thing.
Yeah, I really enjoyed the waythat the elves were, that she
basically kind of made fun ofelves.
And then the other thing thingthat I stood out to me in the
world building was, although theidea of a blood mage is not
(46:33):
super original, I don't thinkI've ever read a story where one
of the main characters was ablood mage.
So for me, like the whole magictied to cutting yourself and
having to, like you know, giveof your blood to have this thing
happen was kind of interesting.
Ashley (46:50):
so and sometimes exhaustively right like that
first scene in chapter one, Iwas like whoa, where are we
going?
Right here like how does it,how does this get like, if he
dies and he's like on the cuspof death here?
Yeah, I, I, I would agree.
I don't think I've read a bloodmage in the as the primary
(47:11):
character before.
Jonathan (47:12):
Yeah, I certainly haven't.
I do wish that while they werein like with the, with the elves
in the cage, I thought likehere we go.
I thought it was like for sure,here we go, they're doing some
bindings oh yeah, I have notes.
Mari (47:24):
I have notes on that.
I specifically chapter 21 wasjust a straight up bdsm scene
period.
Jonathan (47:34):
No notes that's what I wrote, but then then they did
somebody like walk in, turn thelights on those darn elves had
to come in.
Mari (47:44):
It's too human in here.
It's too human in here.
All right, moving on to romance.
What do we think of the romanceash Romance.
Ashley (47:57):
I feel like there was a lot of individual growth more
than a romantic growth.
I don't think we're at thepoint of romance, I just think
it was very midline for me, likea three was doing a fantastic
(48:21):
job for someone who's neverreally experienced feelings
before, just kind of like ohshit, this is happening.
You know, like he did, heresisted it a little bit but he
wasn't like disgusting about it.
He is what he is and you knowhe was.
He was not the worst he couldbe just for the sake of being
worst or for the sake of gettingthe job done.
He took criticism, you know,when she was like try being nice
(48:42):
to Kaz, like the next day hetried and the stupid little imp
was just like like this isglorious, his whole life had
changed for the better.
I don't know, it was just athree for me, I don't.
There wasn't anything thatreally struck out other than his
desire to find a differentsolution and not kill her in a
(49:03):
very short amount of time.
Jonathan (49:06):
Romance.
Ashley (49:08):
That's where we are.
Jonathan (49:09):
Yeah, so I would say it was there.
Ashley (49:14):
It was there, it existed , we saw it.
Jonathan (49:16):
There were wisps of the smolder that was happening
and like it, kind of you knowwhat's coming.
It could have been around anyquarter, any corner, at any
point in the book, but you knowthis and this and maybe this
plays on the spice.
So I would say I'll give itfour because you felt the
tension.
(49:36):
There was tension.
Yeah, you're right, it was.
It was I don't know if it's onit what it wasn't, uncomfortable
, didn't have me.
I wasn't longing for it, but itwas apparent and because of
that I'll give it a four.
Kelly (49:51):
I thought the romance wasn't too bad.
I thought it was a nice, a nicechange to the usual approach of
romantic books where there's abig bad shadow daddy.
So it was nice that he actuallyhad a nice soft side that
developed and we saw that fromhis perspective.
Ashley (50:07):
Like a mediocre shadow daddy.
Kelly (50:09):
Yeah.
Ashley (50:11):
Just mid-level.
Kelly (50:13):
Overall I didn't think the romance was too bad.
I thought there was a lot offun little things in their
relationship that you could seewhere there was some romance.
The way they sort of wouldirritate each other made it seem
very realistic.
So overall I think the romancewas actually pretty decent in
this book compared to some otherbooks.
So I would say it's a four.
Mari (50:33):
I basically agree with Kelly.
For me, the romance was a fourit it was a slow burn.
I feel like he fell first andhe was very like, confused, and
it it changed him.
I I don't know if it's justbecause I've been listening to
so much of the wicked soundtrackor because I watched the movie
this year, but there were somany instances of this where I
was like, because he met her, hewas changed for good well, shit
(50:59):
, when you put it that way Isthat what happened to?
Ashley (51:03):
you, baby?
Is that what happened to you?
Because he met her, he waschanged for good.
Jonathan (51:08):
No, I'm still an asshole.
This is true.
Mari (51:13):
And there's the song in the Wicked soundtrack, loathing,
which is the way the song isput together.
It's almost to a T, it's like aclassic love song, except it's
about them hating each other.
And I feel like that was thebeginning of them, where she's
blonde, she's perky, she's goodwhy did she bandage my hand,
(51:38):
which I also wrote for thatscene, total beauty and the
beast vibes as I was readingthat, that chapter, and then
they, they get to become youknow.
Oh well, maybe we're friendsand then maybe we're more than
friends and I do feel like hefell first and then she did not
trust him and that kind kind ofhurt him and I don't think she
(51:58):
really got there till the veryend.
But it was a.
I felt like it was a good ride.
So, yeah, I thought the romancewas good.
I think it would have been afive if I had felt I could
connect to her side of thingsmore.
Like I said, I overall I felt alittle flat from her side of
her perspective, so it was afour for me, very good.
Looking forward to the rest ofthe of the series.
(52:21):
Now, what do we think about thespice?
Ashley (52:23):
there was.
There was very minimal spice.
For me it's like a two and ahalf.
I'd say two and a half forspice.
There was a lot of.
There was a lot of tension andthere was a lot of.
There was a lot of maybe andthen there was a close maybe,
but then some shit went sideways, right.
So I think there's going to bespice later.
I didn't find any spice.
(52:44):
You didn't find any.
Jonathan (52:45):
It was salt.
Yeah, I didn't go with a one.
Kelly (52:48):
I mean there was very minimal spice.
I think there was, like youknow, same thing.
There were suggestions of spice.
It was definitely the Spicesuggestion did tend to seem like
it was more of the BDSM typestuff.
It was pretty obvious that Amadefinitely has some kind of a
fetish for being tied up.
Mari (53:16):
But overall I feel like the Spice was like I don't know,
maybe a one and a half or a two.
I was going to say probably aone and a half or two for Spice
until it got to that chapter 21with the rope scene in the cage,
and I was like, oh okay, Ithought that was super well done
.
I mean, I think overall, asthey got to where they liked
each other, there was someflirtation.
(53:36):
That was very well done.
I mean, I think overall, asthey got to where they liked
each other, there was someflirtation.
That was very well done.
And there was some suggestion.
That was pretty well done.
It was very much a.
It was more of a PG book than Iwas originally expecting it to
be too.
But then that one scene bumpedit to a three for me because I
thought it was very well done.
I thought that it portendspotential really good scenes for
(54:01):
the next two books which aretheir story, and I think there's
like another two books that areside characters.
I think one of them is from,like, xander's perspective, so
we're going to get to guess astory about him.
Yeah, so Spice for me is athree.
So do we think it's a kissingbook?
Ashley (54:20):
So I feel like I have to sit this one out just cause I
haven't.
I'm down to like the last five.
I'm I'm in the last fivechapters, but I think I have
like two or three left.
Okay, so I'm going to sit thisone out and I will.
I will come back.
Jonathan (54:35):
I'm going to say no, I don't think this one's not a
kissing book.
I think the whole story has thepotential to be a kissing book,
but I mean realistically.
She fucked everything up fromthe beginning.
Ashley (54:52):
I'm not there yet.
I'll take your word for it.
So no for you.
Kelly (54:56):
No for me.
I actually think this is akissing book because while she
monkey wrenched Damien'soriginal plan to be sure he
could have just at any point,just killed her, but the slow
building romance and his slowlyrealizing feelings for meant
that he just decided he wasn'tgoing to kill her at first and
(55:18):
then eventually, once all ofthat got realized, I think it
made it clear that the main plotof the book, of this book,
could not have happened if hehadn't had a romantic attachment
to her it's a kissing book forthe same reason, like I think
(55:40):
that if he had not developedthings for her, he would have
never gone to get that book totry and like, get it out, get
the talisman out of her withoutkilling her, so they would have
never been in her town, um, soit would have been a different
story, um.
Mari (55:52):
So I don't think it would have happened the way it did
without the feelings, theromantic entanglement if she
hadn't tried to steal from himno and touch the talisman.
Jonathan (56:03):
Would it be?
Uh?
Would it be a?
Would it like, if she wasn'tthere, everything would have
just gone to plan?
Mari (56:09):
right, yeah, that's what I'm saying like, which is the
whole story would have been himgoing to like free his dad,
which is a totally differentstory, so yeah yeah.
So this book wouldn't havehappened like the things that
happen in this book, the mainplot points, wouldn't have
happened without them gettingromantically entangled.
You know, one thing that Icaught on to was that basically
(56:30):
Damien's father and all thoseand I'm doing air quotes here
bad gods or bad demons orwhatever, were imprisoned
because supposedly they're evil,because they couldn't feel like
, they couldn't feel love.
That's why they were judged tobe the evil.
But is that true?
Because who?
Who made that judgment?
Like the king and the peoplewho are looting these trees and
(56:54):
and who may be the big bad bythe end of the second and third
books?
Um, and the way that you know,damien's dad was portrayed,
doesn't?
I don't know, maybe he'schanged, but maybe he was this
way the whole time, like heisn't portrayed like an
unfeeling person, like anunfeeling parent.
He calls his son buddy, buddy,like I mean.
Yeah and he's like oh, you don'thave to go today, rest up, you
gotta take care of yourself.
(57:15):
Yeah, you don't have to do italone.
Yeah, I'm like that doesn'tsound like an unfeeling entity,
but I mean, I don't know, maybewe're all being fooled, who
knows?
But to me I'm just like Ireally wonder if it's.
The whole thing is like youknow, none of them, none of the
bad guys, were actually bad guys.
You know what I mean.
So I don't know, we'll see.
I plan on reading the rest, soI'll let you guys know.
(57:36):
Alright, anything else you wantto say about this book?
Jonathan (57:41):
Are you going to read part two?
Mari (57:42):
Yes, that's what she?
Jonathan (57:43):
said Ash, are you going to read part two?
Are you going to read part one?
Mari (57:49):
Damn.
Jonathan (57:50):
Kelly, are you going to read part two?
Just throw Ash right under thatbus.
I don't know if she'll evercrack this puppy open again.
I'm not going to read part two,I'll be honest.
Mari (57:58):
That's fine.
Jonathan (57:59):
This is up to you.
Mari (58:00):
The burden lies with you.
I will accept that mission 100%.
I will carry that talisman tothe end point.
Thanks for listening to OfSwords and Soulmates.
Before we go, make sure tocheck the show notes, rate,
review and subscribe to us onyour podcast app of choice.
And subscribe to us on yourpodcast app of choice If it's an
(58:20):
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(58:42):
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And last but absolutely notleast, we hope you'll join us in
two weeks for our next episode,when we will be discussing that
Time I Got Drunk and Saved aDemon by Kimberly Lemming.
(59:03):
In the face of global andnational forces to stifle
diversity celebration.
We choose to celebrate Blackhistory.
Bye, bye.
Thanks for watching.
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