Started: 01/02/22
Finished: 05/02/22
Spoilers: Mild
*Mild spoilers ahead but nothing major and not an ending spoiler*
I think I'm balanced somewhere between 2.5* and 3* with this.
Characters
The main characters are Crow, king of the northlands, and Tancho, king of the westlands. They were the most fleshed-out of the lot of them, but even then there was an abundance of room for growth. Only the very basics of their personalities are explored. Crow is the brash one, while Tancho is meant to be the calm and collected one, though tbh, we see him being a total hot-head as well half the time.
I do like them, however shallow their characterisation may appear. They have a great dynamic together which had me wanting to see more of them. There was something almost electric between them, and it was palpable every time they shared a scene. I would have liked a lot more individual nuance to them that maybe the other could discover as they slowly got closer, but alas, nuance was certainly something they couldn't be accused of having. But I wasn't too mad about it. They were fun and I enjoyed their saucy bickering and snipes. They embody the 'old married couple' adage and there were times I found them genuinely sweet.
There are a bunch of secondary characters that honestly feel interchangeable. They all have matching personalities, but I will say I appreciate how much they all shipped Crow and Tancho. But even that feels out of place. For a bunch of skilled, hardened soldiers, they seemed far more concerned about whether their kings would hook up than the monstrous invaders attacking their homelands.
I was also hoping for a bit more of a secondary romance between Soko and Karasu. They definitely had chemistry but it never really developed in any meaningful way
Elmwood and Samiel of the southlands and eastlands are included towards the end but they had very little input. They felt more like afterthoughts once Crow and Tancho had talked through all the necessary exposition in each scene.
I think part of the problem is that the characters have little agency. A whole lot of plot happens to them but they don't seem to make a whole lot happen to the plot.
Plot
An LGBT m/m romance that lands in very middling ground. I feel this will be slightly underwhelming for readers in both camps of plot-driven and smut-driven. I'm not particularly a smut reader, preferring fade to black, but I do love me a slow-burn romance and enemies to lovers trope--which this had. But I was also hoping for a lot more cohesive plot. On the flip side, readers who came here for smut and be damned the plot will find the smut lacking and the plot too overbearing.
This book is definitely plot-driven, it's the cause for everything that happens, it's just not really a plot that totally delivers. Though I normally prefer character-driven, I'm pleased this book has as much plot as it does. After the first few chapters, I was starting to assume this would be a romance dressed up as a fantasy with little to no plot, but thankfully it does actually have a decent story threaded through.
Like most everything else in this book, it does lack depth, but at least it's there.
In conclusion: The book can't decide if it wants to be plot-driven or smut-driven. Plot readers may not find the plot strong enough to be truly satisfying, and smut readers may find there are too many plot threads woven between the romance.
An issue I take with the plot, however, was that there was no sense of urgency. The characters are told about bestial invaders swarming their homelands and while they do rush home to check everything's okay, they all seem very slow in actually trying to find the invaders. Apparently, there was time for a snowball fight. Like, wut? All these skilled soldiers and warriors...having a snowball fight like a bunch of kids. It was...odd. It felt so out of place considering the four kingdoms were basically at war with an unknown enemy that could've been anywhere.
And for all the threat of these blue-skinned invaders, apparently, there was only a hundred of them. Like, wut? They need to join the forces of four kingdoms to beat a hundred raiders? Well that's underwhelming. That's barely a small crowd. You get more people in a doctor's waiting room. Yeah, yeah, I know more eventually showed up, but that initial oh no, there's at least a hundred of them type moment had me wondering if that was a typo.
Setting
So yeah, the world-building is criminally under-developed which is a shame cause it could be such an interesting world if it reached a little deeper, but the world-building here is all surface-level stuff. If anything it left me with more questions than answers.
How did the four rulers get their birthmarks? What kind of magic has been used to bind Crow and Tancho's fates? Why? Like, seriously, what's the purpose of binding their fates? And while I totally get that their fates are bound, why does it make them both so damn horny for each other? I mean, they make a cute couple and all, but I've got no idea how this magic works or why, or why it's affecting them both this way. I want to know, I'm here to learn, but the answers aren't given.
Other questions I had include: Do the four kingdoms have actual names or are they literally just the northlands, southlands, eastlands, westlands? If they're each from the four corners of the globe, why are they all speaking the same language? Is there a universal tongue spoken worldwide? What's it called? Why do they all speak it? Why does each kingdom have basically no culture beyond their food, fashion and climate? What about their general ways of life, traditions, customs, religions, economy, history, social systems, etc.
One could argue 'It's not that kind of book.' But I disagree. This is fantasy, a heavily plot-driven one at that. If we're to spend time in this world, it needs to feel real, otherwise, we've only got one foot through the door. Fantasy worlds should live and breathe culture but I feel the author was relying a little too heavily on the real-world cultures she based them on to do all the heavy lifting. There's more culture in yoghurt than in this book, I'm afraid. If you want nuanced world-building, you won't find it here.
It felt suspiciously like a romance author decided to try her hand at fantasy without knowing how to write fantasy. Fantasy readers expect a certain level of world-building, otherwise, we're left unsatisfied and with questions.
Writing Style
The writing was decent enough, though it could've been stronger. A bit less telling and a little more showing would've made a huge difference
There were a few mistakes and inconsistencies, such as the three kings and one queen at times being referred to as the four kings, and words with extra letters. And I feel a few words or phrases here and there weren't quite used in the correct context of the sentences, but whatever, it's fine, I understood the point the author was trying to make, but it also makes me think this wasn't looked at by critique partners or betas before publication. They can worm out any number of mistakes.
Final Impression
From a writing craft standpoint, it's not great, and yet it retains a certain charm and I can't bring myself to dislike it.
Everything in this novel is surface-level fluff. It really doesn't go deeper than that, but it's a quick read and enjoyable despite all its flaws. It feels like such a harmless book, so I really can't bring myself to be mad at everything it lacked.
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