A Song of Saints and Swans by C Rochelle

This week the Traders chat talk about The Song of Saints and Swans by C. Rochelle. This is a unique and steamy take on shifters and gods/goddesses!

Note: this book is a novella from the Yaga’s Riders series (which we have not covered), so series spoilers are possible!

Triggers: mention of sexual assault (off page), mention of suicide (off page), loss of parents

Tropes: MFF menage, shifter romance, slavic mythology, friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, domme/sub dynamics

KU: Yes

Recommendation: Both Traders recommend and look forward to reading more from the author!

For more of the author, check out c-rochelle.com

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey friends, Liz here to invite you to check out our Patreon. That's where we publish

(00:05):
extra episodes every other week and that's also where we will continue any series we're
reading. So if you liked our coverage of Akatar, Guild, High Mountain Court, or Fourth Wing,
check out our Patreon to continue those series along with us. We also let you know what we're
reading each month in advance in case you want to read along with us too. There might
be a few other surprises throughout the year for our Patrons as well. You can get all of

(00:27):
this for just $3 a month, so check it out and we would really appreciate the support.
Anyway, on to today's episode.
And I can picture the Pendragon cover so clearly and the best part is that he doesn't even
have horns. It's just like a tree behind him that we saw as horns and it just stuck

(00:48):
in our brain holes for like 20 years. Yeah, and now we have a monster smud addiction.
I mean, we can blame Pendragon for that and it's not his fault because that's not even
what he was going for. But I was here for the horns.
Welcome to Your Safe Space. The podcast your partner, friends, parents, whoever thinks is

(01:09):
dirty. Don't have time to read books. Want to understand the jokes in the tics-hacks?
We got you, fam. We're the spice traders and we deal in spicy books. I'm Katie and
I need it to make sense.
I'm Liz and I'm hypercritical. As always, we start every episode with three things. The
first is a generic trigger warning. You can find specific triggers for this book in our
show notes, so please check those out. Also, we do use foul language and talk a lot about

(01:32):
sex. If you have sensitivity to any of this, please give this episode a skip.
Secondly, we talk about books, the whole book, nothing but the books that helped me goddess.
If you plan to read this book and don't want something spoiled right now, don't listen
to this episode.
Lastly, we acknowledge that a good book can hit you at the wrong time. The views expressed
in our discussion are our opinion and we absolutely don't want to diminish the work

(01:53):
and the talent of the authors in our community. That said, we have some notes.
So, Liz, what are we talking about today?
Today we're talking about a song of saints and swans by C. Rochelle. This was published

(02:16):
in 2023 and it is a novella that takes place after a completed series, The Yaga Writers.
To be clear, we have not covered this series. However, we are covering this novella.
Sure am.
We sure am. We'll talk about that experience. This book is 228 pages long and that's a shorty,

(02:38):
so it'll be a one-parter.
And that's why we're covering it.
That's why we're covering it because the problem with Romantic and fantasy is that they're
all series. It's hard to find a standalone.
Not only that, it's hard to find a book that's under 300 pages. Yeah, I get it. Fantasy is
complex but could you just throw us a bone here?

(03:00):
Yeah, it's very hard. If anyone knows of great standalone romances, send them our way.
The cover is not my favorite because it's just the picture of a woman's face. I guess
that's maybe meant to be feathers, but it just kind of looks like she's got weird hair

(03:21):
swiping in the breeze, but it's straight up black and white woman's face.
Yeah, it does feel like it's a hat situation.
Yeah, it looks like a hat to me.
And I think it's supposed to be reminiscent of feathers because she is a swan shifter,
which we'll talk about. This is a shifter series, but it's not my favorite. There's

(03:46):
really nothing like, nothing really stands out about this cover to me.
No, it does do that thing where it has a real person on the cover, but she's so stylized
that I don't actually hate that the most. It's really the feathers that look like a
hat thing.
Yeah.
And I think it is worth noting that this book is very much in the same style as the rest

(04:06):
of the books in this series. So like if you were to, I don't even know if this one's actually
bound, but if you were to have all of these in a physical copy, they would look the same,
which is nice.
I do appreciate that. Oh, I see that they are all kind of like people, although I will
say so I just clicked on the author and I did like Searish Al's writing, so I am intrigued

(04:26):
in looking for other things by her.
But the first book that comes up is called Not All Himbos Wear Capes.
Okay. Oh, putting out for a hero.
So is this like Superman's Mutt?
It sounds like it, but like really tongue in cheek.

(04:47):
Oh my God.
And I'm so this himbo is ruining my research. And if his firepower doesn't kill me, the
side of him in Lycra surely will.
Wow.
Yeah.
This is the start of my villain arc. I don't know what is.

(05:08):
I love this. Okay, but this too is 422 pages.
Like and it's the first in a series. So like, that's why we started this one. Now I'm going
to turn it over to Katie, but I will say that this book in the start does explicitly say,
hey, don't read this book if you haven't read the trilogy.

(05:29):
We ignored that instruction.
So drove right past it in our intro.
You know, don't listen if you don't want spoilers, but not only are we going to spoil
this book, but we're also going to give some spoilers for that trilogy that we never covered.
I just feel like it's important to point out.
It's a very good point.
However, I will say having read this book, even though we get a lot of spoilers on what

(05:53):
happens to some main characters in the trilogy, I'm not opposed to going back and reading
that trilogy.
So yeah, the novella did what it is intended to do. And I think it would still be a fun
ride.
I think so too. Yeah.
And we can cover that a little bit more in our readings, but I agree. Like, does it spoil
the like what happens at the end of the book? Yes, but it doesn't make me not want to read

(06:14):
them. If anything, it's a reading endorsement to read them.
Exactly.
And I do think and this is just based on our reading of this book and what I gather.
I think the main trilogy follows a different main character. I think this is a side character.
So even though we know how it ends for that main character, we don't know a lot of the
details there.
So right. Exactly.

(06:35):
It is a ringing endorsement. I'm intrigued by this author.
Me too.
All of that being said, Katie kick us off.
All right. So first and foremost, this book is on Kindle Unlimited. So that's fantastic
for you.
And then we get a lot of stuff in this book. It's a song of saints and swans, but there's

(06:56):
like other things in there.
So I'll talk about the other things that we're not going to cover. But first, before we get
into that, we get a list of trigger warnings.
And like, we'll put them in our show notes, but we were talking about this in our debrief.
And I have to say that like reading the list of trigger warnings is kind of as much like

(07:18):
detail as we get in the smud scenes themselves.
Like, do these things happen? Yes.
But there's not like a deep exploration of it. And we'll get into that a little bit more
when we get to the actual smud scenes themselves.
We also get interesting notes from the author about typos. She specifically asks people
not to report them to Amazon, which is a thing I did not know you could do me either.

(07:41):
But she has like a separate submission portal for typos to people for people to like send
to her, which I thought was interesting. I wish more authors did that.
Me too. And it is interesting though to do that. Like, it doesn't mean wonder what do
you do with those submissions? Like, you've already published it. So unless you're doing
future editions, like just for your own knowledge, I kind of I appreciate I respect her a lot

(08:06):
for putting that out there. But I'm curious as like, well, what do you do with that?
Yeah, like, do you edit, do you update the Kindle version more often than you would update
the printed version? I don't even know if there is a printed version of this book, like
I mentioned. So it's an interesting question. Yeah.
So I mentioned other things in this book, there are three bodies of work in this book,

(08:28):
but we're only reading the main like first one. There's also short stories, two of them,
one of them is called from the depths, a yoga writer's tale. And then the other one is called
it's just a bunch of va juju voodoo Halloween special. I think it's va juju voodoo. I don't
know why I said it weird the first time, but yeah, exactly va juju va juju. Clearly it's

(08:59):
been a morning for me. Anyway, we also get a couple of things. We also get a couple of
things at the end of the book. One of them is a playlist, which was interesting, but
not particularly useful. One thing that was useful is a glossary. This was especially
helpful since we are, as Liz mentioned, raw dogging this novella.
I was especially helpful and I was glad you pointed it out to me because I hadn't seen

(09:25):
it before. But it was quite nice considering, yeah, just going to this just raw dogging
it hardcore. Yeah, I've gotten a little bit more sensitive to actually reading the table
of contents in books because we have a pretty regular complaint that if there is a glossary,
we are unaware of it until the end of the book because Kindle dumps you on page one

(09:49):
of the book. Which is a problem. Start at the cover. And I do scroll back, but I should
get better at looking at the actual glossary because I don't. Well, we've been doing this
for how long now and I've just now started doing that. So we do learn. It just takes
a while. Get off. So one other thing that I'll say before we get into this book is that

(10:13):
this book is told from the first person perspective and we go through a rotation of three characters,
Anthea, Jorillo and Morena. And you'll learn who those are pretty shortly. Did you read
his name as Jorillo or Jorillo? I so I started reading as Jorillo. But then when he is saying

(10:33):
like, okay, so he calls the main character Angel, but on hell. And that to me was like,
Oh, you're Latin. You're Latin. Like this is because it's how you would pronounce it
if you were a Spanish speaker and that changed it to Jorillo for me. And then he was just
a Hispanic character, which was confusing because they're Slavic. Slavic. So the on

(10:58):
hell really fucked me for the rest of this book. Interesting. Okay, so I just looked
up a pronunciation and according to the internet, it's Jorillo. So neither of those are correct.
You know, you wouldn't let me lose some Jorillo. So I'll try my best to pronounce it like that,
but no promises. Jorillo. Jorillo. Anyway, so we start with a prologue and in this prologue,

(11:27):
we need a lot of characters. So hold on to your butts. First and foremost, we meet our
protagonist, Anthea, who is a swan shifter with long blonde curly hair and violet eyes.
Of course she's got fucking purple eyes. Get out of here with that. Get out. There are
other colors. There are other colors. She's special Liz. She can't just have brown eyes

(11:50):
like some commoner peasant say that with my full chest knowing my husband fully has
brown eyes and he's handsome like I don't know. Brown eyes. It's just these books are
just like, no, we have purple eyes and gray eyes and fuck you with your peasant brown
eyes. Okay. Wow, like shots fired guys. Hold on to your butts. You warned them. So welcome

(12:22):
fully. If I ever meet anybody with gray or purple eyes, I'm going to be like, so what
is your personal quest that's going to save the world? Like clearly no. Yeah. What makes
you this way? So anyway, Anthea, our swan shifter is attending the birthday party of
her friend, Vassie. So Vassie is a witch referred to as Baba Yaga. That term might be familiar

(12:46):
to you listeners from the High Mountain Court series because there are also babas in that
series. I didn't realize that was from like a Slavic folklore thing. I didn't realize
that either. And so this book does have big Miyazaki vibes. Because the spirit did away.
We also have a house with chicken feet, which we'll get to that will make sense. But I'm

(13:07):
pretty sure that's also Baba Yaga, right? Like isn't that's a thing. Yeah, yeah, it
is. I didn't know that was Slavic. I don't know what I thought it was. It makes sense.
I guess maybe I thought Romanian, which is close ish. I had no thoughts about it. Yeah,
I pulled that Romanian thing out of my ass. So well, so from a me, I did not tie together

(13:32):
the Miyazaki angle when we read Baba in High Mountain Court, neither. And so I had no thoughts
about where it came from from a Miyazaki perspective. I fully said that it went at some point when
we were recording the High Mountain Court series that it was Anglo Saxon mythology. So that's
a bad part on my end. But I think it's interesting. Like there's a lot of things, a lot of elements

(13:57):
of Slavic folklore in this series that I really liked.
Yeah, I think which also makes me want to read the original trilogy because most of
what we read is Anglo. So it would be cool to read more mythology from other parts of
the world. Exactly. I also feel like because I fully looked in my, I have a tarot deck

(14:21):
that's based off of folklore from around the world. And there's a Baba Yaga card in
that that tells me that it was Slavic. I just haven't pulled it yet.
That's really interesting. I didn't even think about that being in your tarot deck. Yeah.
So back to Vassi. Vassi is the protagonist of the Yaga writer series in which Anthea
also features but as a side character, as we mentioned. So as a result of the events

(14:42):
of the Yaga writer series, Vassi is in a polycule with three men, Tan, Nox, and Asa. Tan and
Asa were monogamously gay together before Vassi. And so they are now completely enmeshed
and everybody's in love. We love this for them.
We love this for them. And that's also what makes me want to read the Yaga writer series

(15:02):
because I'm here for that.
Exactly. We learned that this entire group is dealing with putting their lives back together
after the events of the trilogy that precedes this novella. The meaningful part is that
a man named Matthew was running a group in a place called the Facility which was experimenting
on non-human beings like Anthea in the hopes of bottling their super strength and magical

(15:23):
abilities. In this process, Anthea was imprisoned and sexually assaulted.
Which is some big trauma that she's dealing with. Big trauma. Capital T trauma.
So this boisterous group is soon joined by Morena. Morena is one of a pair of twins who
are gods responsible for the seasons. She is the winter slash death half with reddish curls

(15:47):
and golden eyes and her brother, Jorillo, is the spring side, but he is not in attendance.
Anthea is relieved he's not in attendance because she has a little history with Jorillo.
He was a part of vanquishing Matthew in the Facility in the Yaga Writers trilogy and
Anthea is both attracted and annoyed by him. I mean we've all been there, right? Every

(16:10):
single one of us. When Morena arrives, we learn that Anthea is also attracted to her,
though she's in denial in trying to convince herself that it's just a deep friendship.
Sure, Jan. After the birthday party, Morena and Anthea say goodbye outside and Anthea
feels a bit at a loss now because she has the rest of her life ahead of her and she

(16:33):
doesn't really know what to do. She tells us, quote, life had been a wild ride so far
and unpredictable at times, but I trusted everything meant to be would find its way
to me eventually. That is, unless I reach out and grab it first.
I really liked the way this author wrote and there were a lot of one-liners that I thought
were really beautiful and well done. One of the things that I wouldn't call beautiful,

(16:57):
but it made me laugh because you and I say it a lot is Anthea says in her inner monologue
l'asai. I know, I love that. It makes me so happy.
I really liked the way that she wrote too because it's told from the first person perspective,

(17:17):
but they kind of make these inward remarks that are in italics. And one, I appreciated
that every time we had an inward remark, it was appropriately italicized and the sides
were really pithy, right? So like the l'asai was one of them, but there are countless examples.
I have so much highlighted, but on the wrong vitality, I've mentioned this in other books,

(17:39):
something that bothers me is when we get books that use words that aren't English, they'll
italicize them, which I understand. But every time I read it, I want to emphasize the word
instead of just reading it as if like, okay, this is just a non English word. And that
happened particularly with Vardo, which we'll get to what Vardos are. But every time there

(18:01):
would be a sentence like, and then I saw the Vardo in the distance, I'm like, okay, it's
just, it's just not an English word. It's just italicized.
Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know. I mean, you would probably be better to comment on this
than I would. But like, is that like a writing thing, a proper like, what is it, APA format

(18:22):
bullshit? I don't know. And I really want to look it up. And every time I bring it up,
I intend to look it up. Like, is that proper etiquette formatting? And I don't know, but
it bugs me every time because I feel like if you're going to use this word in common,
like language, like no one's speaking, right? Like it's like in a new monologue in the

(18:43):
narration, it doesn't need to be italicized. Like, this is going to get linguistic in probably
boring, but like we speak, we speak this, okay, we speak, we speak English, which is
just a bastardization of a bunch of languages anyway. So like, why are we italicizing non

(19:04):
English words? Like just just use the word, just use the word because I'm not going to
be like, I've never heard of the word Vardo before. Because that's true anyway. Yeah,
I agree. I totally agree. Which doesn't really matter. It didn't take me out of the story,
but it's something that just kind of always bugs me. And I want to look it up because
so many authors do it, it must be a thing. Like when we read, what was the witch book

(19:27):
set in France? It was French. Serpent and Dove. Serpent and Dove. All of the French
words would be in italics. So like it's got to be a thing. I just don't like it. Yeah.
Well, okay, but that one, that's a good example because that one wasn't even consistent because
they would do Palm Fries in italics and then croissants in not italics. And I'm like, okay,

(19:51):
which is a girl. That's true. That's true. And I will say this book is very consistent.
Like I don't have, I mean, this is getting into our ratings, but like the italics were
consistent, the intermodelogues were consistent, the voices were consistent. I didn't have
any problems with that. Yeah, I agree. So getting back to the story, we see Anthea three

(20:12):
months later training with other shifters, though these shifters are wolf shifters rather
than swan shifters. She is sparring with a man named Kazmir and she tells us she's also
sleeping with him. She tells us that he's a good, safe way to experience sex again after
the trauma she experienced at the facility. Their training is interrupted by the appearance
of Morena and Jorillo and Anthea is struck by how her stomach flips at the side of them.

(20:37):
We learn that Jorillo looks like his sister, though his hair is more on the strawberry
blonde side than the auburn side. He's also very forward in his affection for Anthea in
an entitled God way. Anthea tells us, quote, when we first met in London, Jorillo had immediately
and quite mistakenly decided he possessed some sort of claim over me. Ever since, the
God had relentlessly stalked me. I like Jorillo. I like the attention he gives her. And I,

(21:06):
she says stalked, but like, I have very much got the impression that she said it kind of
in a tongue in Sheikwai like she's not afraid of this man. She's not in danger by any means.
No, no, not at all. So anyway, the twins tell Anthea that another letter arrived for her.
We learned that this is another letter in a series from whom Anthea assumes to be her

(21:28):
real father. We learned that Anthea's mother disappeared when Anthea was young and she was
raised by who she thought at the time was her blood father, a swan shifter named Gerard,
who was also the leader of their shifter clan. But when she was older, she found a letter
to her mother that was hidden in her mother's wagon or Vardo from a mortal prince that proved

(21:49):
Anthea was not Gerard's child at all. She never told Gerard this news, assuming that
he didn't know, but these letters have her eager to understand more about her heritage
and where she came from. And also whether her mom is still alive.
So was her biological dad. Well, we don't know this yet, but like ostensibly, she's

(22:10):
interested in these letters because she wants to find out what happened to her mom, right?
Yeah, she thinks that she's dead. I mean, I think that's on Goodreads. I think that's
like the first line of synopsis is like, my mom died suddenly.
Right. And then it's like, okay, this is the one thing where I'm just like, do you care
or not? Because this is kind of the whole crux of the story. And then it's not the very

(22:32):
end. And then she doesn't care. She's like, well, that's not my problem.
I don't need a mother when I have Gerard. It's fine. So I do think, go ahead.
I was just saying, I felt bad for Gerard because like, and Thea is operating on the idea that

(22:53):
Gerard is her biological father or that Gerard thinks he's her biological father,
so that Gerard and her mom were a thing, right? Where it turns out spoilers Gerard never thought
that at all. Like he knows the whole time he has no biology with this child. Yeah.
And I'm like, so you think you're keeping this like cheating history from your adoptive father,

(23:19):
but like you're not. He's fine. He's fine. He doesn't give a shit about your mom, actually.
No, they were friends, maybe. Right. So,
Anthea has a little bit of a weird reaction to this letter because she faints.
It was weird. And then she wakes up in her traveling wagon, her fardo, and around her,

(23:43):
Marena is there and also Gerrillo is there and he's arguing with her father Gerard.
Gerrillo is essentially telling Gerard that Anthea is his consort,
which isn't going to work for Gerard who wants Anthea to take over for him as clan leader and
marry a nice swan shifter boy. Swan boy. Anthea wakes up and sets Gerrillo right and Marena

(24:05):
coolly explains that Anthea must go north with them to attend a celebration of the spring equinox
with the king of the gods Perun. And as a product of this journey, Anthea will take the symbolic
role of Gerrillo's consort. This lie covers up both the letter and the real reason for their journey.
But also, I'm just going to point it out here because it'll come up later, a symbolic role.

(24:29):
Yeah. I was confused as to whether like, and after having, because so I did this thing where I
read the book and then I had to go back and do my notes. After doing that, I think like,
both are true. Like there was a symbolic role for this festival that they don't end up going to.
But then also like being a consort is a thing. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. But it's confusing,

(24:53):
right? That they never really come out right out and say that. So Gerard is fine with this and
excuses himself from the group. When they are alone, Gerrillo's demeanor shifts to concern as he asks
whether Anthea wants to read the letter herself or for them to summarize. This change in tone
catches Anthea off guard because Gerrillo is typically a fuck boy. And he's not really acting

(25:17):
like a fuck boy. No, she's like, Oh, wait, you have feelings? What the fuck? Like you actually care
about me? So Marina again, smooths over the vibe and tells Anthea that she's been summoned to the
shores of the Baltic Sea, where she will finally learn who her father is. That's the content of
the letter ostensibly. Marina says that she'd be more comfortable if she and her brother both

(25:41):
accompanied Anthea despite the fact that Gerrillo is dead set on the consort thing.
When Anthea wonders aloud whether she should just sleep with Gerrillo to get him off her case,
Marina seems to act oddly, almost as if that would be a rejection of her.
Anthea finds herself wondering why the idea of her sleeping with Gerrillo bothers Marina and
whether Marina's concern bothers Anthea. The way her body reacts to Marina feels decidedly

(26:05):
outside the realm of friendship. And this has Anthea questioning all kinds of things between
the two of them. Yeah, so like it takes for a god, Marina is so slow on the up on the uptake of like
she's into you girl. She wants you. Not just a god, but a god that has seer and mind reading abilities.

(26:30):
And yet, she thinks that Anthea just wants to be friends, but like Anthea has a really,
she's into Gerrillo and like they're all a thing, but she's really into Marina like from the jump.
Yeah, like she was more into Marina than she was into Gerrillo because Gerrillo was always kind

(26:52):
of like annoying and she's just like, can you stop humping my leg please? But like Marina's like
cool as a cucumber and like she's been like an emotional friend for Anthea and her like
healing of trauma and that kind of thing, which has just blossomed into this like sexual energy.
Exactly. But anyway, they go north. On their way north, they do make a stop to celebrate the spring

(27:14):
equinox, so that part wasn't a total lie. But rather than spending it with Perun, they spend it with
the twins father, Vellis, who is the god of the underworld. As the four of them celebrate, the gods
shed their human glamour and reveal different colored horns similar to Ram's horns atop their heads.
Gerrillo's are golden and Marina's are sky blue, which sounds gorgeous. Stunning.

(27:40):
As Marina watches Anthea, she admits to us that she's into her, but she's convinced that's not
an option because Anthea has suffered so much. Anthea goes off with Vellis to enjoy the festivities
and Gerrillo grouses that he doesn't understand why Anthea doesn't like him. Marina tells him
that Anthea has been through a lot and Gerrillo's concern side comes out again when he tells his
sister, quote, if I could locate every man who's ever made her feel afraid and rip them limb from

(28:03):
limb, I would. Which we love a whole burn the world down for you. Toucher and die vibes.
So they enjoy the festival together and we learned that though they are twins, they are also intimate
with each other because they are mirror images of each other, quote, twin gods destined to circle

(28:26):
each other in an endless stance of courtship, death and rebirth. And I the way that Seerah
Shell sets up their dynamic is really good because they are twins, right? Like their siblings, but
A, because they're gods, B, because they're mirrors, C, because they're related to like fertility and
the cycles of life. It didn't feel incest-y. Yeah. Well, and I feel like you can get a

(28:53):
I feel like you can get away with a lot, Mawa. I feel like you can get away with a lot
in the God situation because like Vela says their dad and we don't really talk about their mom so
much. And it's like, well, were they formed from mud or were they a courtship thing? Like, it doesn't
really matter because hand wavy, they're gods, right? Exactly. It was just such a good point.
So, Marena tells us inwardly that no one had come between her and her brother before, despite other

(29:19):
dalliances. But now Marena is afraid that she'll lose Jorillo and Anthea for whom she also pines.
She tells us, quote, the two beings most dear to me, the twin who shared my blood and the shifter
who captured my heart could find the happiness they both deserved in each other's arms, end quote.
Marena doesn't see a place for her in that dynamic. But I know, but it's there.

(29:45):
I know. Her like unrequited pining in the first part of this book was really sweet.
It was. It was really cute. And like she tries so hard to like not be in the way,
like she's supportive of Jorillo. Like, yeah, like genuinely supportive, even though she likes Anthea.
Yeah, but genuinely is like, I'm not going to mess this up for you. Like I'm supported. I got you.

(30:07):
Like I want you both to be happy, even if it means I'm not happy.
Yeah, so nice.
So the morning after the celebration, Anthea wakes up in a pile of furs with fuzzy memories. She
remembers Vellas asking her during the night whether she remembered her mother, whether she
remembered how it felt to be loved. This causes Anthea to remember her mother's vardo on the

(30:30):
shores of a lake where she and Gerard left it so long ago. And she feels like part of her is missing.
As she's waking up, she groggily searches for a way out of the furs, but finds Jorillo's cock instead.
And when she's like, what are you doing here? Did we fuck?
Jorillo's like, I just wanted to cuddle. And when you, when I fuck you, you'll know, trust me.

(30:54):
Okay, but like, why are you naked? I know, right?
When he says this, Marana is also there and corrects Jorillo that he will only fuck Anthea if
it's if he's got her permission. Of course. Obviously. Anthea inwardly can't help but think,
you know, that wouldn't be the worst thing on the planet. He warms on her so fast.

(31:19):
So fucking fast. It's like, within a page, she's just like, yeah, you're kind of cute. It's fine.
I'm into this. It's fine.
So as Jorillo walks off naked to find his clothes, Anthea watches and Marina catches her doing so.
This prompts Anthea to ask whether the two of them had ever been intimate,
which Marina admits they have. This makes Anthea all kinds of hot and buttered,

(31:40):
but before it can get awkward, Jorillo is back and dressed.
Before they set off toward the sea, Anthea realizes that they are close to where her
mother's Vardo wagon used to be and so asks to go there first. She gives the twins an out if they
have better things to do, but Jorillo says, quote, there's no one I'd rather traipse this world aimlessly

(32:00):
with besides Rina, of course. And of course, Marina agrees. Also, they're on this journey,
like to help her. Like they came to get her or they came to go somewhere. So they're with you, girl.
But I also think it's interesting that they're like, yeah, we're going to go to the Baltic Sea
because of this letter. And then like they just get sidetracked by side quests like three times.

(32:22):
Well, they never go to the Baltic Sea to be clear. They do. That's where they meet the two birds.
And then they fly to the world tree. Like they're on the shores of the Baltic Sea.
Oh, you're right. Okay. I was thinking about like the world tree is like we're here and then they
just don't go to the next place. But they never circle back about the letter. Like they go to the
Baltic Sea and then like, period, like the quest is over, I guess. Side quest became main quest

(32:50):
question mark. Yeah. So they go to the spot and they find the Vardo there just where Anthea left
it. But it looks too good to be abandoned. Marina tells her that someone does live there, but they
aren't there currently. And so they all take the opportunity to snoop. Anthea, of course, is miffed
that someone is living in her ostensibly dead mother's wagon. Awkward. Before they go inside,

(33:14):
the twins ask her whether she wants some space to snoop by herself, but she tells them that she
wants both of them to be with her. As they go inside, Jorillo can tell something is bothering
Marina. He wonders whether she is concerned that he will break Anthea's heart. But he tells us,
quote, contrary to my well earned reputation, I wasn't simply trying to get Anthea into my bed.
At least that wasn't my only motivation. I wasn't joking when I said I wanted to claim her as my

(33:38):
consort, an honor not given lightly among the gods. I like Jorillo. He's like really smitten. Yeah.
As Jorillo continues his train of thought, he tells us that he's guarding his thoughts
from his mind reading sister, not just to hide his affection for Anthea, but also because of

(33:59):
something that happened to him in the Yaga Writers trilogy at the facility. Whatever it was,
he knows that the knowledge of it will destroy his sister.
As Anthea looks around the clearly lived in wagon, she tells the twins about how her mother
disappeared without a word or a trace and how she found the letter from her real father and burned it

(34:19):
before fleeing herself. She never told Gerard about it. And she hasn't told very many other people
about it, which I mean, this is why their story is right. But like if you had just asked Gerard,
he probably would have told you everything. Right. Like if you had just shown him the
letter, he would have been like, yeah, girl. Yeah, I know. I know. Let's talk about this. Right.

(34:44):
So as Anthea gets more and more worked up, Marana tries to use that as an excuse to leave
Anthea and Jorillo alone, but both of them won't let that happen. Somehow this goes from an emotionally
charged situation to a sexually charged situation where the twins end up pleasuring Anthea together
in her mother's old wagon that other people live in now. And it's like all, which is good,

(35:12):
right? Because of her trauma, but it's all really controlled by Anthea. Like,
Marana sits on the bed for some reason, which is a wild choice. I wouldn't sit on the stranger's bed.
Right. And Anthea just like sits between her legs. Like, listen, you and I have sat on the couch
and we've held hands and we hug, but like, I've never sat between your legs. Not like on the same

(35:36):
level. Right. Exactly. And like, I might like be near you for like looking at things, but to,
and I say that because Marana, get your head out of your ass. This girl likes you. I know. Like,
I've sat, I think I've sat between your legs like on the floor and you're on the couch because
we're short on space or something. Exactly. But they're like both on the bed. Like, she's like

(35:57):
firmly between her legs. There's nothing like friendly about it. And in the scene, like,
Marana fingers Anthea like, what about this is friendly to you? Right. And then we'll get there
when we get there. But the next day, she's like, she doesn't want me. Like, why do you think she
let her let you touch her? Right. Like, okay, girl, like if I if I don't want you to touch me,

(36:22):
I wouldn't let you touch me. If I wasn't into it, I wouldn't be into it. Exactly. Like, come on.
Come on. And I like it. I was into the unrequited love. Like, it was cute. I'm not complaining
about it by any means. I'm just talking about it now because like, come on, girl. Yeah, come on.
So in this scene, we learn a couple of other things. We learned that Jorillo is a bit of a sub

(36:45):
who likes to be told what to do. And Marana is a bit of a Dom. Anthea is somewhere in between. And
both twins are absolutely besotted with her. So as I mentioned, Marana fingers Anthea and then Jorillo
eats her out. We also learned in the scene that Jorillo has vines that grow from his skin when
he is in a heightened emotional state like arousal. We learned that there's some trauma in this

(37:06):
dynamic because one of the first times that Anthea met Jorillo, his vines came out and like
restrained her and that was really close to her trauma with the facility and she freaked out. So
he's really hesitant to use them again on her. Yeah, which I respected. I did too. So this scene is
interrupted by the current tenants of the wagon coming back. Jorillo meets these people outside

(37:31):
to give the ladies time to orient themselves. And once they all are outside, we meet a couple.
Konstantin is a human man and his partner Margo is a arousalca. A arousalca is a supernatural
being that's created when a woman commits suicide in Slavic lore, which Margo ostensibly did. But
usually when these beings come back, they don't remember their prior lives. Margo very much does.

(37:55):
So very much does. She is totally lucid. And she wants to be with Konstantin knows everything. I
liked the tidbits of Slavic lore we get in here because like, I don't know anything about Slavic
lore. Same. So it turns out that Margo and Konstantin are waiting in this specific spot because a
messenger from Phyllis himself called a Gamma Yon, which is a prophetic woman headed bird,

(38:18):
told them to wait for three strangers to arrive to help them. Here are three strangers,
prophecy fulfilled. Boom. So it turns out that Phyllis didn't send this messenger Marayna had
due to a vision she had about helping those who deserved a second chance. Cool. Cool. There were

(38:39):
a couple of circular references in this book that if I thought about them too hard would
make my head hurt a little bit. This was one of them. Yeah, this is one of them. And I just had
to not think about it and just be like, sure. Right. Fortunately, this was like, kind of still

(38:59):
in the place where I was orienting like around the characters and like the lore and the world. I
wasn't even sure like what decade we were supposed to be in or what time frame yet. So I just kind
of drove right past this the first time. Yeah, which was nice. But if I think about it,
it, yeah. Like if Marayna saw this, how did she not know she was going to be with

(39:23):
Anthony? It's fine. We're going to move on. And then I recognize that when she's there later,
it's fine. Yeah. So as the five of them interact and try to figure out what to do,
Jorillo refers to Anthea as their swan queen. And Marayna keeps trying to put distance between
her and Anthea, still believing Anthea only to be interested in Jorillo. They ultimately decide to

(39:45):
stay in help. Specifically, Marayna agrees to try and scry for the couple to see if there's a way
that they can be together for a natural lifetime rather than Margo having to watch Constantine
slowly die. This was because I am Liz and I'm hypercritical. Scry was another word that was
always an italics and I didn't understand why. Because that is an English word as well.

(40:05):
Yeah. So that's why it was like, why? And then so I would read it as like, I have to go, scry.
So I don't read it as like, shouty capitals like that. I read it more as like a sly thing. Like,
I have to go, scry. And it was like, Vardo, like everything very swab adjacent. I like that.

(40:28):
So later, Marayna and Anthea sit alone by the lake as Marayna prepares to scry.
Marayna again tries to put distance between her and Anthea, even though she can't help but
react to her physically. Anthea asks her how one would become a consort of a god and Marayna tells
her it would be a ceremony that involved vows similar to a wedding. They then talk about

(40:53):
faithfulness in a situation like that and Anthea proclaims that she would want that from her consort.
But when she asks Marayna what she wants, Marayna is like, we're not talking about me,
like you should ask Jorillo. Finally, Anthea realizes that Marayna is confused. But before
they can finish the discussion, Margo and Constantine come outside to pitch a tent for their guests.
And Marayna is reminded that she needs to scry for them. But Anthea tells her the discussion is not

(41:18):
over. It's so interesting reading it from both perspectives because in Anthea's inner monologue,
she's very clearly like on board like, okay, it's both of them. I got to figure this out. And Marayna
is like, I'm not involved in this. We got to figure this out. Right. Which to Anthea seems like mixed
signals because like she she's getting from Marayna that Marayna is into her and Anthea

(41:38):
thinks that she's giving her signals back like, yeah, girl, two, same. Her chef, let's do this.
Bet. Let's go. Yes, chef. But Marayna is just like, Oh, no, that was just a one time thing, which
Anthea is like, am I crazy? I feel bad for both of them because it is confusing and Jorillo's just

(41:59):
like, I'm in love. I know Jorillo, poor, special summer child, Jorillo. Sweet summer child. We'll
find out why soon. So speaking of a sweet summer child, we switch back to Jorillo who is sulking
on his own. We learned that at the facility, he came into contact with a substance that stripped
him of his immortality and his power is now fading. But whenever he's with Anthea, especially

(42:22):
sexually, he feels reinvigorated. This is the secret that he's keeping from his sister and now
from Anthea as well. Marayna joins him and tries to get him to own up to what's bothering him,
but he deflects. So they talk about Anthea instead and Jorillo tells his sister that it's obvious
that Anthea is smitten with both of them and she needs to get her head out of her ass. Thank you.

(42:43):
Thank you. I'm glad Jorillo sees that and is like, I'm fine with this. Let's go.
Right. And he's like very much like you're being an idiot. Like we can share. It's not a problem.
Yeah. Also, like you and I already have a relationship. So like we can all do this.
Right. We're good. Marayna then shares with him what she learned when she scryed for Margo and

(43:04):
Constantine. She reveals that Margo didn't commit suicide. There was something in the
liquor that she drank the night that she died that contributed to her death. And it also
was the thing that allowed her to come back as a Rusulka and remember her prior life.
Her death was then covered up and labeled a suicide, which resulted in Vellis raising her from the
dead. Marayna says that when she saw the substance in her vision, she smelled electricity, which is

(43:29):
the same thing that Jorillo smelled when he was stricken at the facility. And this leads him to
suspect that they are linked. The two of them decide to investigate the death further through
contacts in the city to find out more. I did like that there were elements of this story that they
were like telling us about through conversation, but I didn't have to see it. I didn't have to see

(43:50):
the investigation. Yeah, this book did do a really good job of that, which is what also gives me hope
for the trilogy that she is good at this like, I'm not going to show you every waking minute with
these people. But then we get to the end, I have a problem with that because I wish I saw more minutes.
Yeah, seriously. Yeah, I thought it was a good way to do a novella with like still a lot of plot

(44:13):
with just like, okay, we have this conversation, we're going to do the thing. And then later you
see like the result of that conversation that somebody else went in did. I super appreciate that.
It was a lot more authors could learn how to do that. Truly.
So the next morning, Vassey and her writers come to visit. Their entire house had grown chicken legs

(44:37):
and brought them to the clearing where the Vardo sits. Ala Miyazaki's house moving castle, which
I fucking loved. I loved it so much. I was so here for all the imagery in this whole book.
It was amazing. So the house settles and they all pile inside for a visit. Vassey pulls
Anthea into her weaving room to talk alone about both the letter that Anthea received and her new

(45:03):
romantic engagements. Vassey tells Anthea that Anthea's father could be the Czar since she's
been summoned to the Baltic. We learned that the Czar is essentially the god of all waterways and
is a very ancient god. Vassey tells Anthea a tale about the Czar's daughters who were playing on
shore one day when a human prince came upon them and captured one of them by stealing their feather

(45:27):
skin. So feather skin is something that essentially allows these shifters to take on their animal form,
but this is literally the only mention of it. Like we don't ever see Anthea's feather skin or know
what it is or anything like that. So just go with it. It was really reminiscent of if you've ever
heard of like the lore of the Selkies in Scotland, like the seal women and like so they have like

(45:50):
their seal skin. That's what it made me think about. Yeah, it also reminded me of I think the
Swan Princess has a similar concept where like her feather skin is stolen from her when she's in
swan form so she's stuck like that. Oh yeah, that's still my favorite princess movie ever. Same.
What else is there? We should watch that again next time we hang out. We should. It's been too long.

(46:15):
So this prince and this princess eventually fall in love and return to the Czar's kingdom in the sea.
They go on to talk about Marina and Jorillo and Anthea admits that it all happens so fast, but that
she's very happy. She tells Vassie that the twins are helping her heal from her trauma and learn how
to live for herself again. Vassie reveals that she and her riders are heading north to the same place

(46:35):
where Margot died to investigate a distillery there that maybe linked the facility. This is the same
distillery that supplied Margot's liquor on the night of her death. Everything is linked and that's
very convenient. Then Marina joins them and Anthea leaves her and Vassie alone to swap information
about the facility and the distillery of the investigation. As Anthea leaves, Vassie calls out

(46:58):
that the daughters of the Czar were swan shifters. Just an oh by the way. Just like you girl.
Back in the main room of the house, the men's is are all playing cards except Jorillo who's
sitting apart and watching and brooding. So Anthea joins Jorillo and asks what it would mean for her

(47:19):
to be their consort. The joy that this question gives Jorillo when she asks makes it clear to her
that his haughty heirs were a mask to hide his fear of rejection. He tells her that beyond the
ceremony that Marina spoke about, it would require a mating bite, though he admits that he doesn't
think that he would be satisfied with just one bite. I'm okay with that because it gets me like

(47:39):
the vampire kink and I'm just like, okay. Okay, but it kind of does that it also like
doesn't because it's kind of like the like wolf shifter bite in that other series that we read
when we were in high school like it feels very very. Also, we don't really see it in this book.

(48:00):
Nope. Nope. No, we do not. Yeah, I hate it. Anyway. So Anthea tells Jorillo she's ready for
his vines to come out and play again and they immediately abscond to the nearest bedroom.
Again, someone else's house again. So once inside, Anthea tells Jorillo to strip and she

(48:25):
briefly tastes him before undressing herself and lying on the bed. She then tells him to show her
what a god can do and he eagerly obliges vines included. In the middle of it, though, Jorillo
is pulled out of the lust by remembering that he's got godly duties to perform like bringing
back spring and this this thought makes him despair that he might not have enough power to do that.

(48:48):
This makes his vine disappear instantly. And when Anthea is like, whoa, what the fuck just
happened? He's like, oh, I'm just nervous. Okay, dude. So Anthea pulls him back to her and her
attention gives him a burst of energy that has his vines back in action and ready to finish what he
started. I'm just scared. The only thing about this scene is that he doesn't claim her because he

(49:10):
inwardly thinks to himself, quote, so you can continue to shine long after I've faded into dust,
end quote. And the implication here is that once they complete this ritual that they'll be kind of
like permanently bonded to each other in life and death. Yeah. I do find it interesting too because
when we get the resolution, which comes too quickly, but that's fine. If he had claims

(49:33):
are here, we wouldn't have any problems. We don't see the problems anyway. So it doesn't matter.
Yeah, I mean, so there's a couple of things about the scene that I wish.
I wish we're improved. One of them is just the length like my summary of it is just
just scantly shorter than what actually happens in the book. And the vines, I think, could be really

(49:55):
interesting. But and even the trigger warning is like, Hey, there's like bondage with vines and
stuff. That's there's no such thing. There's like fondling with vines. And that's about it. Yeah.
And you're right. Like it is. This is not a closed door book. Like it's explicit, but it's just so
brief or rushed. Like we'll get to it, but there's a DP scene coming up and it's like a paragraph.

(50:21):
Yeah, maybe. And even in this scene, it's like, Yep, so my vines were touching her and I was
thrusting in her and then we both finished and I didn't claim her so that she didn't have to be
stuck with me when I'm dead. Like that's literally how it's written. And, you know, there's a little
bit more flourish that makes us excited for like longer scenes potentially in the scene.
There's a lot of longer scenes potentially in the series itself, but it was a little disappointing

(50:44):
because it wasn't long enough to like actually get me going. Yeah, it's like it was over before
we even really got into it. A little cockpocky. Especially, especially when we go from like
either the trauma bonding scene in the Vardo or to like we were playing cards and now we're in a
room like there's very little build up to these scenes. It's just like, wham, bam. Oh, fuck,

(51:08):
we're already done. Okay. And now we're sleeping. Like, and now we're sleeping.
That's so strange. Yeah.
So the next day, Vassie and her writers and Margot and Constantine part ways with our trio at the
shores of the Baltic. On these shores, they are met by the Gammaean and the Alcanost. The Alcanost

(51:35):
is a siren with the head of a woman and the body of a bird. So very similar creatures, but like
they have different functions in Slavic lore that I'm not going to get into. The important part is
that they're both closely associated with Veles, the father of the twins, but Veles apparently
doesn't know that they're there. The birds do require bribing to keep it that way though. And

(51:56):
so they go over the terms of that briefly before we get into the next bit. The next bit is that
they tell the trio that there's something wrong with the world tree and that the Alatyr inside of
it is glowing. The Alatyr is a sacred stone with the power to heal the entire world. And so
they can, they decide to like go see this tree. But this is where I'm saying like a side quest

(52:17):
got initiated because like the letter said go to the sea of the shores of the Baltic. They did that.
And nothing. Now they're going to go to see this tree. And I'm like, are you going to go back to
that? Wait or like send a smoke signal or like come back to like, I don't, granted the letter
didn't say what to do when she got there. But this could be it. It felt weird. But it does feel very

(52:38):
side questy. That when we just never go back to the main quest. Yeah. And essentially the like
one line fixer is like, Mareena is like, well, I don't believe in coincidences. So I think this is
what we're supposed to do. And it's like, okay, that's a that's a little woo woo. It is. I'm like,
also you guys are gods, like a fine. So while they're deciding to go to the world tree,

(53:01):
Mareena tries to understand what's wrong with Drillow by surreptitiously reading his thoughts.
But he cops to that pretty quickly and forcibly pushes her out and reprimands her out loud,
which causes a bit of a tiff. This tiff continues as they fly to the world tree and land on the
shores. So when they arrive at the world tree, Mareena goes Drillow to raise her to the top in a

(53:22):
bargain to try to get out of Drillow. What's wrong with him? Drillow agrees saying that if he loses,
she can read his memories. And so they race. And Anthony is just like, Oh, I guess I should go
after them. And by the time she gets to the top of the tree, she finds Anthony with an unconscious
Drillow in her arms. Mareena is understandably distraught. Yeah, he's out cold. Yeah. And Mareena's

(53:47):
like, he just collapsed as soon as we reached the top. Like, I don't know what's wrong. And as
they try to figure out what to do, Vellis joins them. Daddy. Daddy Vellis is furious because
Drillow hasn't brought spring back yet. Oops. He thinks Drillow's being a brat, but he quickly
realizes that something is very actually wrong. And Anthea tells Mareena to read her brother's

(54:10):
mind since he lost so that they can find out what's wrong with him. And when she does, they all
find out about what happened at the facility and that he's essentially become mortal. He's dying.
Vellis in particular is stricken that the facility guys figured out how to kill a god.
Anthea puts it all together and how the same substance that stripped Drillow must have allowed

(54:33):
Margot to retain her memories. Vellis is beside himself at the insinuation that he made a mistake,
bringing Margot back to life. But Anthea quickly chastises him that he should be directing his
fury at the facility bastards and not any of them. She tells him, quote, you're a god-stamped god,
Vellis. So stop whining and go smite these assholes. Yes, thank you. Meanwhile, Drillow's still unconscious.

(54:57):
Well, so Vellis and Mareena take Drillow to a place where he can recover. We don't really know where.
And Vellis can go from there, a smiting. They tell Anthea to continue into the world tree to
seek answers about herself. And just before Vellis disappears with his children, he welcomes

(55:19):
Anthea to the family. So Anthea goes to the world tree to speak with the Alatir. She places her
hand on it and sees her past. She sees the Czar in his throne room being given the news that one
of his daughters has been kidnapped. Then she sees that daughter, her mother, with a human prince
running away from the Czar's forces. They have to split up and the prince promises her that he will

(55:43):
send for her when it's safe. Anthea realizes that her mother is cradling Anthea as a baby as they
say their goodbyes. Then she sees her mother arguing with Gerard while a young Anthea plays by the
same pond where her mother's wagon still sits today. She sees Gerard fight for Anthea to stay
with him. She sees her mother leave without looking back. She remembers the question Vellis asked her

(56:06):
on the night of the spring equinox, whether she remembered feeling loved. She realizes that she
does, but she remembers being loved by Gerard. Before she leaves the world tree, she asks how
to save Gerillow, how to return Margo to her human form, and how to stop the facility once and for
all. Because I don't give two shits about what my mom is now. I guess so. Because then we're in the

(56:29):
epilogue family. Okay. Okay. I was so confused because not only do you end this chapter, you turn
the page on Kindle and it goes epilogue, but we're at 67% of the book. And that's because there's two
other short stories that I didn't realize in the case, but I was like, how? Yeah. Yeah. It's the

(56:55):
epilogue. This is where the story starts. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it feels very much like this.
This could have been a much longer book to try to like,
figure out those quests or at least half again as long, right? But we just kept one chapter.
It's just the epilogue. Like I'm going to ask you these three pretty big questions. How do I save a

(57:17):
dying God? How do I return the supernatural being to mortality? And how do I stop this thing that
knows how to kill gods? Next page, epilogue. Everything's fine. Everything's fine. What,
what, what are you doing? So we get a brief summary of how some of those loose ends were tied.

(57:38):
We learned that Anthea connects with Gerard and that he wanted Anthea to stay with him all those
years ago in case the letter that her mother received was a trap. We know that it wasn't
because the couple was soon dragged back to the Cesar's kingdom soon after their reunion and Gerard
assumed that they never escaped. And so he never spoke about it with Anthea because he didn't know

(57:58):
that she knew and Anthea never brought it up with Gerard because she didn't think that he knew.
But there's not a follow-up question to be seen about her mother and biological father.
And it felt a little wishy-washy to me too because it's like, oh, the letter wasn't a trap.
They were reunited, but then they were also taken back to the Cesar's kingdom. So,

(58:23):
ostensibly, they're still there. Are they safe? Are they alive? No one knows. And Anthea doesn't
give two shits and moving right along. But we do get this wild information because the letters
that are sent to Anthea were sent from the past via delayed post by Anthea's prince of a father

(58:48):
because of something some seers had told him before all of this happened. And if you're confused,
that summary that Katie just gave was literally like as much as we got in the book. It was maybe
two sentences. And this was the second thing that like with the whole seer thing, I had to like

(59:09):
not think about it too hard because I'm like, this does it. I have about 14 more questions. At least.
So, speaking of 14 more questions, Jorillo was healed and returned to immortality thanks to
Anthea's inherent healing abilities from having been born in the waters surrounding the world tree.

(59:31):
So, her blood is put into capsules and given to people to heal them from what's ailing them from
the facility. It's wild because we learned that the tree basically says, the cure is in you all
along. And the epilogue is like, it's my blood guys, like literally inside of me all along.

(59:54):
Literally just my DNA. Nothing mystical about it. So, speaking of nothing mystical about it,
Margo takes a shot of the same substance that stripped Jorillo of his powers and that made her
mortal again so she and Constantine can live their days out as regular ass human beings.

(01:00:17):
Where did they? It doesn't matter. Ostensibly from the distillery question mark.
She just took a shot of it and Anthea is basically the one that's like, you should try this because
it killed the gods, maybe it'll make you not supernatural and then it just works.
No follow up questions. Finally, Jorillo has claimed Anthea, but Marina was waiting to do so

(01:00:44):
until the springtime festival, which is where we catch up with her triad. Also, the last thing she
asked the tree was like, how do I stop the facility? And there was some like mortal lawyer loophole
where because like now they're dealing with humans, they could like shut them down. So like that was
also taken care of. Okay, but they're literally like, fellas is the god of the underworld. Like,

(01:01:07):
I mean, I think they do say something like Matthew, whatever, other people with the facility were like,
imprisoned and tortured forever. But I'm just like, what? Why didn't we engage fellas earlier guys?
I don't know. I don't know. So our triad goes through a scene in a sacred grove with an altar.

(01:01:34):
In this scene, Marina lies on top of this altar and Anthea sits on her face while Jorillo is made
to watch. Then, Marina grows an ice dick that Anthea rides and Jorillo joins them and takes
Anthea's ass. As they all finish, Marina bites Anthea, claiming her as her consort as well.
And this scene is like a page. Yeah, like my summary is like, as direct as the scene is delivered

(01:02:03):
to us, which is a bummer because like, I'm into all these things. Yeah, same. And so we end the
book by Anthea telling us that this journey helped her release the burden that she'd been carrying
alone for far too long. Her twin gods showed her death wasn't the end and now Anthea feels reborn

(01:02:24):
into something undefeatable like a phoenix rising from the ashes. And that's the end of the book.
If you feel like it ended very suddenly, same Z's, you would not be alone.
We said this in the debriefing. I may have said this earlier too, but it really feels like
C. Rochelle was like, I'm going to write a novella about Anthea. And then halfway through was like,

(01:02:47):
I don't want to write this anymore. So I'm just going to tell you what happens. I'm just going to
publish it as a novella and like call it a day. Yeah, like I'm no longer interested in this story.
Yeah.

(01:03:09):
So let's get into our ratings. Liz, how did we rate the spice level?
We both gave it a three, which I'm interested to see a book in the future that we disagree on
because we haven't in a while. But we both gave it a three, because the spices there,
we get interesting scenes. We get solidly three different scenes and like they're not super vanilla,

(01:03:32):
we get the communication. They're just really brief. Like it's kind of like the author wrote
highlights for these sex scenes and then just wrote the highlights and didn't actually build them out
at all. So it feels cock blocky because by the time it's over is when I'm starting to get into it.

(01:03:52):
Yeah, exactly. Well, and beyond that, they weren't particularly adventurous. Like the
trigger warning in the beginning of the book had me like all excited for some new things.
But one, because of their brevity, perhaps, but also like, I don't know, just the way the

(01:04:12):
scenes were set up, they weren't particularly novel. They weren't long enough, but they were
novel. They weren't long enough. Like, I think the ideas within there were novel, but they weren't
long enough to explore that. Like even the ice steak is like, Oh, I'm cold. And then Jorillo's
there and then we're done. Right. That's it. Yeah. Which we've read ice sticks before, but

(01:04:39):
like give me more detail. We have read ice six before. And I mean, like, to be frank, that scene
really read more like a male male female prism. Yes, because of the ice stick, right? Like I
would have really appreciated more nuance with the male female female because it's the first one that
we read, right? Like, but yeah, we didn't get that. Well, and like my last point on it, just

(01:05:04):
talking about the brevity is like, and the essence on Miranda's face, fully up by her head, and then
suddenly like she's being printed penetrated. And there was no time to like change. Like there was
no mention of like body movements, which would usually bother me and does bother me. But the
whole scene was so fast that like, I didn't even notice how weird that was until after the factor

(01:05:24):
was like, you never moved down. Yeah. Yeah. So that brings us to writing style. We mentioned
a couple of things like with the italic words, like bothering us, but because I don't know if
that's like a publisher thing or like a mandatory form, whatever, I'm not going to knock the book

(01:05:46):
for that because all of the other italicized things were appropriate, right? Like the inner thoughts,
always italicized at the right time. I was never confused on who was talking. I was never confused,
like who was speaking. I thought all of the voices for four or three storytellers were really
distinct and I liked that a lot. Yeah. Formatting was great. You know, no notes on that. So that

(01:06:09):
brings us into quality of storytelling. Liz, how'd we rate it? The biggest, we both rated it a three
and I think at least for me, but I think for both of us is that it was just so abrupt of an ending.
Like, I mean, it's a novella so I expected it to move pretty quickly, but then it sets up this
whole story and then just yanks the story away. Like I truly felt like there was a glitch in my

(01:06:32):
Kindle and I was missing five full chapters. Yeah, very much that. Like, yeah, the willful suspension
of disbelief, I can get by like all of those things are fine, but I was like, you gave me these three
big problems and then the next page, they were all solved. Yeah, I never read a book that did that.
I want to emphasize that point too because like having not read the trilogy before this,

(01:06:58):
like we could have been like quality of storytelling, you really got to read the trilogy. You don't,
you don't. No, I fully enjoyed this novella. I wanted more of the novella, even raw dogging it,
right? And like that is the main point of critique that we have. I think that's really telling.
Yeah, like, especially for all the warnings we get at the start of this book saying like,
you really need to read the trilogy, I really don't think you do. It does spoil the trilogy.

(01:07:20):
Like, I know how that ends now, but I had no problem understanding the spoke or the characters
or where we were going, which is high praise in that give me more. Right. So that brings us to
our recommendation. Do we recommend it? Yeah, because it was so great time. And it makes you
want to read more by this author. Agreed, totally agreed. Yeah. And it's quick. It's under 250 pages

(01:07:46):
like you can read it in a weekend. It's very fun. It's so fast. So we did it guys. Those are our
thoughts on a song of Saints and Swans by C. Rachelle. Thank you as always for joining us on
this journey. What did you think you can find us on the socials? Instagram, Facebook, TikTok,
Goodreads at Spice Traders Pod. And if you like our podcast and want more, consider becoming a

(01:08:07):
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wherever you listen. It really helps us out. But until next time, we'll see you. Bye. Bye.