Overall: 🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢
Storyline:
Writing Style:
Character Development:
Enjoyment:
“You have been tapped as the next Mage, like it or not.”
As The Fallen Rise by Sadie Hewitt
The Story:
It started with iridescent wings… now one woman must face danger and mystery beyond her wildest imagination.
Created by Primordials, daemons were made in the likeness of humans following a devastating betrayal. And for nearly six hundred years, Agnes was the Mage who protected them, kept them alive, and gave them power. Since her death, the seven factions of daemons have been on the brink of war, inching closer and closer to burning the world to the ground.
Anthropologist Greer Myers believes mythical creatures belong in fairy tales. But when she is unexpectedly thrust into the world she thought only existed in the folklore she studied, the source of her mysterious magic is whispered amongst the daemons. The plot for her rise, or her fall, begins in the shadow of a secret society established to hunt her ancestral line.
As Greer digs deeper into her lineage and the power she possess, she must choose to keep her magic hidden for the safety of her friends or work to forge brittle alliances for the coming battles between supernatural forces … before it consumes everything she holds dear.
Key Elements:
Fantasy, Fiction, New Adult, Magic, Vampires, Fae, Djinn, Succubus, Shifters, Ghoul, Paranormal, Slow Burn, Romance, Betrayal, Alliances, Friendship
Others in Series:
Book 2: Not yet said – but there has to be one!
Why This Rating?
Full disclosure, I received an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for a voluntary honest review.
Alright, here is a shout out to all of my fellow Paranormal Fantasy readers out there! Read this one! I don’t normally start out my reviews with the “you need to read this” but, you guys, dang it was good! Especially if you liked the book series A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness, I think you would really like this one too. Ok, now into the WHY I think you should read this one.
Sadie Hewitt’s story was constantly giving us something. She did a great job at keeping me glued to the pages while the next event start to ramp up or the new lead in her research started to get really juicy. There was a fantastic pace for the story. You never get the feeling that the conversations were going dry and had some great one liners that had me rolling with laughter. There are a few moments were we are jumping temporarily into other character’s POV – and I do mean quite briefly. It is used to set up some very good dramatic irony moments! Other than a small handful of chapters with the character swap, you stay in Greer’s POV the whole time.
Since I brought up her name, can anyone tell me how to actually say this name? I keep pronouncing it like the gruyere cheese but I know that isn’t right 😅. Also, if you know how to properly say Cian’s name! It is cyan to me (like the coloring) I’m more okay with this one more than Greer’s. Sometimes when authors choose names that are so unique pronouncing them to myself can be so difficult and I end up nicknaming them. But I really liked the story and would love to get it right! The fact that everyone had pretty unique names really did play on the “different times” and place across the world that everyone is from. One more thing that the author thought of that added another layer of world building there.
Anyway…. The romance is spicy! A wonderful slow-burn full of bantering and on the edge of being an enemy to lover situation that happens for a majority of the book. Then my Goodness it gets HOT between two characters! It could be that I think vamps can be a little sexy, but I think Cian is very yummy! I mean a tall, quite attractive, brooding vampire with an Irish accent – Yup, ready for the bill and pack him up for me please!
The fighting was great and quite detailed. Heads up, descriptions are done quite well and make you feel and see the same things Greer is experiencing. Which means if you are eating and you know you’re heading into a fight, might want to pause the book if you can. I appreciated that the author didn’t pull punches but still managed to find that fine balance and keep the story very tasteful. Well done!
The author’s story was so much fun to read and had a fantastic plot. If you could see my copy of this book, I’ve marked the snot out of it with tabs on parts that were my favorite moments or times that I went “Oh Shit!”. The cover is simple right beautiful and is actually referenced in the book. Which we all know of books that the cover art means nothing to the book it just looks cool. So the detail to have the dagger on the cover and in the book earns some points in my eyes. Not so sure if the title makes a lot of sense to me though. It doesn’t capture the book in my opinion. I have no clue what it could have been instead, maybe The Mage? Don’t know. Perhaps with more added to the series I can get behind the title a bit more. There better be more! That cliffhanger was great and made me want to pick the next one up straight away.
This is Sadie’s debut novel that is a solid home run. AND It is the beginning of her series! I can’t wait to see where this author takes us next in her writings. She definitely knows her way around a story!
Time to get lost in the next story!
