I’m attempting something a little different, doing an all in one sort of post for a book series.
I first bought these books over ten years ago and recently I discovered them again on my Kindle and decided on a re-read because I needed some easy reading and I remembered enjoying them when I first read them. Getting back into this series has been very interesting, mostly in seeing what a difference that ten years of life experience has had on my perceptions of these stories. What I once thought was a brilliant series just hit a little differently this time around, some were not as bad as others but I was a little stuck on the message that these stories feed to women, especially if you were to come across them at an impressionable stage in your life.
Wildest Dreams
Wildest Dreams starts out well. It is exciting and an interesting concept. Our main character, Finnie, decides to go on the ultimate adventure to a parallel world. She has found a witch who can help her switch places with her twin in that world. It doesn’t quite go to plan because her twin hasn’t been entirely upfront about the switch, and Finnie finds herself getting married to Frey Drakkar.
For the most part, I found this book quite enjoyable, I loved the setting, the wintery country Lunwyn felt magical, and for the most part, I liked Finnie, even though I sometimes found her turn of phrase a little annoying and repetitive. She is put in a hard situation and she tries to make the best of it and she does have this kind of constant joyful outlook because of her thirst for adventure.
Frey is a slightly different story, he is your typical alpha male to start quite brooding and distant, but as he gets to know Finnie he does become more charming but also starts to make decisions about her life without telling her, which is where this book starts to lose its way for me. I think what really annoyed me though was that eventually Finnie just completely forgives him for these things which I just could not understand. Why would you be totally ok with someone altering the course of your life? It was also very brushed over as if love outweighs all sense of reason, so there’s no reason to be angry any more.
I did enjoy the adventure and political intrigue throughout this story but it was let down by the relationship aspect.
The Golden Dynasty
This one really shocked me on the re-read, I remembered it being a little bit like the Dothraki warriors from Game of Thrones and whilst in certain regards it has the same setting vibes, the story was a bit unexpected. It starts with a pretty horrific scene for our MC Circe that I seemed to have completely forgotten about and then the rest of the book essentially is spent trying to convince you that this is ok. The first time I read this it obviously worked, but this time I was horrified at how little regard this book shows to women.
It promotes sexual assault and brainwashing as if these are quite normal things, all the terrible things done to women are because of their culture and it is just their way, it is repeated often enough that as soon as something bad happened I knew this line would pop up. I think the worst thing about this is all the women become so accepting of it and start perpetuating the message to each other, I actually felt so sad reading this because I feel like it is also ingraining that message in its readers.
There is more I could talk about with regards to the language and the over-description, but I feel there’s not much point. This book could have been something amazing, two people from vastly different cultures and a language divide find love, but it has been completely ruined by misogyny.
Fantastical
After the last book, I was hesitant to read this one, but my curiosity won out and I decided to give it a shot. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this book was back to the style of the first book, although the MC in this book Cora doesn’t realise that she has been switched with her parallel universe twin and thinks that she is in a dream.
It was a bit unexpected that Cora decides to tell her intended romantic counterpart, Tor, the truth about her situation, even though he doesn’t believe her and instead believes his wife is playing games with him. I quite liked that she was trying to steer away from the miscommunication trope a little in this one, and it gave the story a bit of a different twist.
For once in this series it wasn’t the male MC that let the side down, he was a bossy alpha type but he managed to avoid most of the pitfalls that I was expecting. Instead, it was Cora who got on my nerves, or rather it was the fact that all of the female characters speak in the same really unrealistic and kind of childish way, and I think by the time I got to this story it was really grating on me.
I was also a little sad that in this book it is the first time that a character from the parallel universe gets transported back to our world and instead of getting to explore that a little it is brushed over to focus on Cora essentially freaking out. Also as much as this is a fantasy story it did annoy me that Tor just seemed to figure out our world, which is vastly more advanced than his, without much effort, it just seemed too unbelievable.
Interestingly though there is a subplot that reveals itself in this story that becomes very important for the next book and that did intrigue me.
Broken Dove
This book felt long, really very long. I feel like most of this could have been cut out and we would have still gotten everything we needed to. In this instalment of the series, Apollo asks the witch Valentine to bring his dead wife’s twin from our world to his. I don’t really remember thinking about how impractical this would be the last time I read this book, but it makes for an awkward love story.
Ilsa very quickly has to change her name to Maddie and pretend to be the dead wife’s cousin to explain how they look identical. Also with the baggage that the two of them have it doesn’t make you feel like they are going to have an easy time of a relationship which of course ends up being what happens. Apollo doesn’t seem to like Maddie until someone else declares their love for her, everyone is constantly comparing her to Ilsa and implying that she comes up short, it doesn’t scream romance.
Again we have an abusive and controlling male MC and for a glimmer of a moment I thought Maddie was going to stand up for herself but in the true style of this author she instantly forgives him because he loves her. I am just really struggling with these female characters that are being told that they are strong whilst they roll over like doormats for these men, and can’t seem to stick to their convictions.
The climax of the subplot that became more apparent in book three plays out at the end of this story and I think the most shocking thing about it was that I realised that I couldn’t tell any of the women apart. None of them has their own voice, it’s the same ridiculous nature repurposed into a fractionally different character but when they were all together it was a bit ludicrous.
Strangely enough I thought that this was the end of the series but in putting together this post I realised that there is another book in the series that I must have missed. I am deliberating whether I will pick it up, because it is focussing on two very interesting characters but I’m not sure I can subject myself to more of the same. Only time will tell.
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