Shachar Haad

This book was extremely tedious.

Most of the book focuses on a dull, conflict-free relationship, failing to meaningfully explore PTSD despite introducing it. Instead, Grayce adds therapists in a single scene and promptly drops the subject, leaving no insight into the condition or its effects on anyone. The story gets sidetracked by inconsequential details, and the main characters, Essie and Farrendel, lack significant development until the last 15%.

The subplot about Melantha, married into the troll royal family, offers actual conflict and character growth, but Grayce repeatedly shifts attention back to Essie and Farrendel's flat romance and trivial pursuits. This undermines the stronger elements of the book and weakens the impact of Melantha's story.

The book fails to give enough time to develop Melantha’s adaptation or her relationships. Instead, both relationships either lack substance or abrupt jumps in dynamics, ultimately making the story unengaging.

Another issue is with how juvenile Essie and Farrendel’s relationship is. Nothing exists in their relationship outside of the sickly-sweet interaction; no conflicts, no inspection of their relationship, no development - just random nonsense about hot chocolate (what initially started as a cute quirk, now becomes something akin to a person knocking at your door, asking you to accept hot chocolate as your savior) and other extremely boring interactions.

I doubt I’ll continue past this point, as I don’t think Grayce has anything to say about the world or the characters in it.

TL;DR: A noticeable improvement over the last book.

There are people and interactions where you see the merging of cultures, relationship building, and the plot being formed.

While the last book was somewhat of a slog to go through, this was a breeze. The characters were compelling, and the relationships were interesting, and even Farrendel has dialogue, and we see his point of view.

The ending came to me so abruptly (even though I suspected that this was how the book was going to end), and I immediately started book 3. Unfortunately, there was no setup in the previous book, and a reader could start with War Bound with a blurb of what happened without missing anything substantial.

TL;DR: Not enough substance. Repetition galore.

Several times, I nearly DNF'd the book, as most of it is extremely tedious, with excessive repetition, little action, and too much monologuing, accompanied by minimal dialogue between characters. Apart from the FMC, I know nothing about any of the other characters.

For most of the book, Essie is repeating the same thoughts and feelings over and over, without breaks for side character development, without her romantic interest saying anything, and most of what does happen seem pointless. The book could have been a third of what it is currently, and nothing would have been lost; this seems to be a problem with the book being part of the series, trying to create multi-book suspense romance, but with nothing much to say for more than one book. Maybe if Grayce distilled the first three books into one book, it would have fixed the pacing and plot.

Will I read the next book? Maybe in the future but if the writing remains as it is in this book, I'll almost certainly drop it.

A Forgery of Fate was an extremely disappointing story; it came out of the gate strong but faltered as the story progressed, ending in a tale chock-full of contrivances and broken worldbuilding.

Until the protagonist meets the dragon prince, the setting is well-established, the characters are interesting, and the lore is functional and easy to understand.

But then comes the main story, with a nonsensical underwater world that attempts to be mystical; a world submerged in water trying to mimic a world like our own: people drinking from cups, painting with ink, and everything one would expect in a world where the creatures living in it are bound to the ground and a water free environment. It was never made clear how that world functions, giving the feeling of half-baked ideas that exist with no rhyme or reason.

Then comes the "Beauty and the Beast" element that the story tries to incorporate, manufacturing tension between the two main characters in this love story.

The dragon prince is continually meanspirited that end up being revealed with as the most nonsensical and contrived reason, manufacturing that tension for the sole reason of prolonging that "love story" where the FMC is beginning to be attracted to an an ass, for reasons that are never explained, explored, or that even make sense. the core of the romance is all physical, never emotional. But then we reach the 80% mark, so the prince can now stop being abnoxious and show his kinder side, for no other reason than "it's time to set up the last part of the story."

At the end, I wasn't even sure what attracted the two main characters to each other, aside from very superficial attributes and quirks.

But where is the twist? The story creates a magical character loyal to the MMC, only to "betray" him at the most crucial moment, revealing their true loyalty to the enemy... Only to then, again, show how it was all a ruse to trap the villain, and that they were always loyal to the MMC. It might be the most contrived part of the story, with very little working for it, and has no reason for existing other than manufacturing a twist.

As for the good parts: The writing was fluent, with all the issues I had with the story, it pulled me in and pushed me to finish it and I suspect that with a less talented writer, I would have dropped it, the FMC felt real and consistent, the first 20%-30% of the book was interesting and fleshed out good worldbuilding, and I was genuinely interested in the story and where it would go, until the author chose to make everything too magical, and everything stopped making sense.

The protagonist is dumb.

I sometimes enjoy dumb characters. They can add levity or make the character arc more interesting. Of course, they need to be genuinely dumb, and not manufacturing idiocy to make the story 'interesting.'

To summarize the premise: A woman is chosen to be a maiden sacrifice and be eaten by a dragon for the village to continue to prosper. The village has been doing it periodically for many decades for narratively unsatisfactory reasons—a simple premise with a lot to explore.

Spoiler alert: There is no exploration.

Instead, after being picked as a sacrifice, cleaned, and prepared to be devoured, the dragon takes the maiden to his castle, where everyone is kind, gracious, and patient with her, while she rationalizes everything as them preparing her to be eaten, disregarding everything contrary to that belief.

This is not a bad premise, if you are writing a satire, parody, or anything where humor is the central focus; it fails when the story takes itself seriously, and demand that the reader understand this very idiotic thinking, were the notion that maybe she was lied to or that her village's belief was based on nonsense, never crossed her mind for even a second, while she keep telling the reader again, and again (and again) about how evil the dragon is, how everything she does will lead to her death to a point of absurdity, making the character obnoxious.

"You are probably screaming at me right now, you can see all the signs that I couldn't see, it is rather obvious, looking back, but you can't blame me if I didn't see it back then."

Not screaming, just exasperated that the author chose to go that route for most of the story. The remaining two-thirds leave nowhere for the story to develop, throwing around ideas with no time to explore them.

Even the conclusion on how to end the sacrifices feels half-baked, with no reason it should be working, when following the rest of the efforts done by the dragon in the past.

I thought that book had potential, and for a time, I enjoyed the story and the progression. Alas, the 'smut' and 'erotica' nature of the story left a sour taste in my mouth as the story progressed beyond the 50% mark.

The journey the pair takes starts to show the world, the characters in it, and how both are learning about each other, only that after the pair have sex for the first time, they stop learning about each other, talk about anything meaningful, and any aspect of the relationship and the characters identity becomes an obsession about sex. No progression. No one learns anything about anyone. The pages are filled with long and meaningless sex scenes that border on abusive (which I find way too common in novels that include mature content).

There were way too many mentions of "my mate" and obsession over treating relationships and the people in them as possessions, and, of course, the characters get off on the notion of them being possessed and owned (that works well with the premise of the FMC being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery).

And then there is the miscommunication and the MMC making weird decisions that make no sense, deriving facts from nowhere, and overall making them unpleasant to read.

For a time, I believed I could skip over the sex scenes, but that proved to be an exercise in futility because the author decided to shove more and more of them, having the main characters do nothing but have sex.

TL;DR: This could have been a good story if the focus were on the characters and what they go through instead of how imaginative the sex scenes are. Having them behave like adults instead of sex crazed teens would also have helped.

Suited For Luck is a story about playing Poker; and up until I dropped it at around 30%, that's all there was to that book. While those who like the game and appreciate its nuances might enjoy it, I am not among them.

The story is a mix between the Fantasy and the Western genre, and while that seemed interesting from the blurb, the content of the book doesn't utilize any aspects of either one. I learned nothing about the world, the setting, the region, what people do for a living, the problems occupying their minds, how the economy works, what are the stakes, or whether anyone does anything other than drinking and playing cards.

All you'll know is that the MC (who is as interesting as last year's tax returns), was transported to that world, thought about opening a business, saw that it doesn't pens out, and decided to play cards for a living (because luck is on his side).

Now, the chance that the story would start just when I put down that book is greater than zero, but considering the time that was wasted on playing meaningless Poker hands instead of telling the reader how that world functions, who are the characters, and what are the stakes, suggest that any explanation to come would not deviate too far from what I already read.

Even the aspect of different races is not being utilized, and aside from people's appearance sometimes being slightly different, we are not presented with different forms of speech, culture, mannerisms, or personalities.

The story is about a dragon born into captivity, and with the help of a slave girl, the pair fight to set themselves free. From this point, they start a long and arduous training that leads them into the military.

My issue with the story is its overindulgence of the mechanics, and little consideration for the characters, story, or worldbuilding. After the pair set themselves free and meet with other would-be trainees, there is no story, but descriptions of "Cultivation," battles, and the musings of the dragon about those cultivations and battles, something that continues for most of the book, with various stops along the way for minor info-dumps - something that one half of the pair is not around for.

I know very little about the characters, almost nothing about the world, and the plot is nearly non-existent.

While I can appreciate detailed battles and the training that leads to them, I need a bit more to go on. For most of the book, I felt like I was watching a "let's play" session for a game I don't care for, with rules I know nothing about, while the one playing the game walks from a meaningless battle to another meaningless battle, occasionally showing me his "stat sheet."

At around 80% of the book, the author realizes that he forgot to include the smut and harem aspects, so here comes a random monster to allure the dragon MC, that resembles an amalgamation of his female companions. This is used for nothing more than to make him realize that he is attracted to them. Two days later the group is partying and with no rhyme or reason, a threesome starts. A couple of days after that, another random sex scene. It's so random and detached from anything going on that their inclusion seems to be an excuse to be included in the genre.

By the end, the author wrote a minor cliffhanger, that I couldn't get invested in, didn't care about, and used to signal a second book, rather than having any meaning behind it.

While I contemplated not rating the book as it's not a genre I usually read (and probably understand) the basics of storytelling should still apply and, unfortunately, the author decided to abandon it.

TL;DR: The book had a nice premise, but very little beyond that.

A person from contemporary Earth finds out he possesses magic and is immediately introduced to a whole world of magic, myth, and bestiary, where magic essentially replaces science.

From that point, the MC becomes the best at everything he tries his hand at; in fact, he is the highest level of magic user imaginable and even the head of the school gushes about how wonderful and special he is (because of course that'll what she'll do). All the women attracted to him, the men, the few that have any presence either adore him or, in a couple of instances, hate him. In one of those instances, the hatred is used for purely plot reasons.

In literary terms, we call such a character in such a story a Mary Sue (or Gary Stu). A little Mary Sue-ness might be fun to read, and the harem aspects of the story do suggest that there will be some level of the story bending itself in the MC's favor. The problem is that there is little for the character outside of being that archetype.

Every challenge is manufactured, and most of the time the MC is given things for reasons that are never expanded upon; the magic university that he is now enrolled in, decides to also fund his various expenses. The author never bothers with any form of reasoning. He needs it and therefore he gets it.

Like most Harem stories, all the female participants accept that he needs a harem (because he's too awesome not to have a harem) and are excited about expanding that harem.

The story follows the usual Isekai trope. Man transferred to a new world. He just wakes up there; he never questions, he's excited to be there, and nothing in his life up until that point matters at all to him; not family, not friends, not any achievement in his life. All is forgotten. No matter if that's the harem aspect or the new world aspect, the MC never pause to consider abandoning his old life, and, similarly, the women never question the harem, never feel jealous about their significant other building a harem, don't care about their life before the story and their entire existence now revolves around the MC who is as interesting as a wet paper towel.

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This book falls into the Slice of Life sub-genre, which could have been interesting if there was any character progression or if we learned something about them that changed anything in the dynamic. Apart from filling it will blushing women, random events that suggest sexuality, or those leading to sex scenes there is little substance. Not that there aren't any significant events and story points worth that label that expose who those characters are, but they are so remote and glazed over that I'm not sure if their inclusion is nothing more than padding.

The book ends with an end-of-the-year test where the MC and his little group need to win a battle against their teachers, which, in context, is like a first-year basketball major required to win a game against LeBron James and company. Something so ridiculous, that it falls into "unbelievable worlds" territory.

There are some good bits here and there, and some surprising development and emotional weight, but, as mentioned earlier, they are so few and remote that the benefits never materialize (and they are dropped shortly after appearing).

This was a good story for the first 50% of the book, and then the author realized he wanted a harem and smut, so the events and characters took a backseat to meaningless fan service and very odd behavior from all the people involved.

The story stopped making sense, the decisions made were nonsensical, and the overall tone shifted to something resembling a softcore porn film plot, where the events are manipulated to create the next sex scene.

To delve a bit deeper:

There is a conspiracy afoot. The king is trying to get rid of his daughter, the legitimate ruler, just before her coronation, with the only one who can stop it is the protagonist, who, in this magical world, possesses a power of premonition in the form of a repeated dreams -- and during the first half of the book, it was interesting, believable (for the most part) and created the ground for a very compelling story.

The MC manages to save the princess by staying behind, killing the ones who chase after her, and then is arrested and brought in to be tortured by those who think he killed the princess, apart from the very top officials, who seek to make him a scapegoat to hide their treachery; the beginning of a thrilling story.

However, since around the 50% mark, the characters started making silly decisions, like the MC going to his childhood home, where the authorities, who now believe he killed the princess, would be looking for him; he makes that decision for no conceivable reason apart from the need to "recruit" the first harem member.

Then, we get a long and tedious exposition about the traveling companion: the sword he received from the princess when he chose to stay behind, only to find that it's a magical sword that can turn into a young woman (because this is a harem story). That story is told in a very odd and lengthy way. Then some suggestive scenes take place, which fills the lore of this world with nonsense: the woman, while being a sword killed some tainted enemies, so she is now tainted herself, and the only way to remove that taint is for the MC to 'brush' that taint off of her skin. All of her skin. Why can't she do it herself? For very smutty reasons.

Jumping forward, they encounter the MC's love interest (the first one who he has been pining over for years) and the sex scene starts 30 seconds after their meeting after they were apart for a long time and her knowing he is being chased. Do they first go to a safe location, like their village? No. Do they talk about everything that has been going on? Don't be silly.

After the sex, we are greeted with a long exposition about tribal dogma and how the MC is expected to create the harem. He doesn't need to be the one who suggests it; he doesn't need to be the one to find the solution to establish his harem; he is forced into it.

On and on, the silliness continues. There are repetitions, the MC not getting what people are saying to him, for the benefit of them needing to expend on the same things over and over, so the most oblivious reader might understand -- but all they manage to do is make the MC look like a dribbling idiot.

The story has contrivances, deus ex machina, and every interaction goes for the benefit of the MC and what he wants to do. Most of it seems to be the result of poor planning and wasting time on smut instead of developing the story so that conversations and events make sense.

Dropped the book at around 30%.

Instead of telling a compelling story with compelling characters and compelling events, the author decided to tell the reader about their latest RPG session in which the character goes to place X, talks with NPC Y, who gives him quest Z. Now, you need to read all the tactics that the character used to win the battle, to return to the questgiver, so he can receive the next quest in that questline (which will likely be as tedious as the one he just did).

I learned nothing about the world, the character, the conflicts, or the events. Just long descriptions of battles and their tactics, with some repetition about the MC's infatuation with his traveling companion (and vice versa).

I enjoyed the book, apart from some caveats, and am excited to read the following one. The story flowed well, and I didn't experience it standing still or being dragged along. The characters were memorable and likable. The plot barely exists, making the story more of a "Slice of Life" where you focus on the characters, settings, and worldbuilding.

There are a few elements where the story fails:

1. The protagonist is presented as too dumb for the supposed benefit of the reader. It's as if the author thought very little about the reader's capacity to understand nuance and clear connections in the story, forcing the protagonist to ask questions repeatedly and assuming they couldn't understand anything from context in the story. This made him look dumb, more than a person who lacks information about the world he is in.
2. There is way too much exposition at the start of the book. It would have been fine if it were to have been spread over various conversations and locations, but the author focused on one long, and sometimes a bit tedious, conversation that exposits information not yet relevant to the story. The protagonist doesn't see or experience events, and then another character explains their meaning after a context is established. The latter part does happen later, but as mentioned above, only for mostly self-explanatory names, events, and places.
3. The protagonist is placed in a school filled with women. He needs a roommate. So, to make it simple, he is paired up with a lesbian. I liked that pairing. It can answer the problem of mixed gender cohabitate and it opens the story to a male/female relationship without the option of romantic entanglement. Unfortunately, this is not what was done here. The woman is a lesbian to the point where it's convenient, becoming bi, and it's not.

Sam wants to be added to Noah's family; there is a reason for that, and in context, it works with the worldbuilding. The problem, she is a lesbian, and the process to be 'added' requires sexual activity. The story leads to the point of doing it that one time for the benefit of the ritual, but as the story progresses, all illusions are removed, and the sexual tension between a man and a lesbian becomes silly and then ridiculous when faced with the enjoyment the lesbian has with this straight sexual encounter, compounded by lust afterwards, where the lesbian can't get enough and willingly jumps to more sexual encounters.

This would have made sense if the story had made her realize she was bisexual throughout the story, setting the stage to reach that point. While I'm not a lesbian or a woman (which seems to be a requirement to becoming a lesbian), I have a hard time accepting that this is how lesbianism works, which takes away from the story.

TL;DR: very convoluted story where the characters are forced to take actions due to plot contrivance.

Character actions: Most actions characters take don't make sense, such as an assassin who's prosecuted volunteering to go to an organization that exists to hunt and kill every assassin on the continent. Or a plot about a group of people trying to access a place through the most convoluted and ridiculous plan that is utterly pointless from the start and that could have been resolved straightforwardly.

Death: The story also relies on death for the sake of portraying death with no emotional weight behind it, serving as either motivation for a character (in the most basic and boring way) or for making the story ‘mature' and “having stakes” rather than the death having meaning in the story.

The world races: The difference between the two primary races in this world boils down to outward appearance and minor innate racial characteristics that are relevant based on the need of the story. No cultural or behavioral difference is mentioned or tied back to the plot at any point.

Shock value: Apart from deaths, some scenes seem to be written to evoke an emotional reaction and create stakes without impacting either story or characters outside of an immediate plot point being conveyed. It also goes back to why characters behave the way they do, which is left unresolved.

Plot: The plot just ends. There isn't any conclusion to a plotline or an understanding of what everything leads up to, apart from telling the reader about a villain's resurrection that was so hamfisted and plot-breaking that it conveyed no emotion. Even before the ending, most of the story is very limited in its plot, and most of the time, characters are doing stuff to do stuff; rather than following any throughline (this also goes back to character actions mentioned previously).

Fight Scenes: Although the fight scenes were functional and engaging, most end when the losing side is decapitated, slashed in half, or otherwise ridiculously injured, making their death immediate. The author's blurb about him being first and foremost a fan of Sci-Fi explains this phenomenon as most swords behave like lightsabers, and no one is holding any melee weapon other than a sword.

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There are some positives, such as a complex plot that consists of several moving parts and an intricate political structure. Unfortunately, in this case, the bad outweighs the good.