Here's a little about Fall of Ruin and Wrath (Awakening, #1)
Add on [goodreads]
Long ago, the world was destroyed by gods. Only nine cities were spared. Separated by vast wilderness teeming with monsters and unimaginable dangers, each city is now ruled by a guardian―royalty who feed on mortal pleasure.
Born with an intuition that never fails, Calista knows her talents are of great value to the power-hungry of the world, so she lives hidden as a courtesan of the Baron of Archwood. In exchange for his protection, she grants him information.
When her intuition leads her to save a travelling prince in dire trouble, the voice inside her blazes with warning―and promise. Today he’ll bring her joy. One day he'll be her doom.
When the Baron takes an interest in the travelling prince and the prince takes an interest in Calista, she becomes the prince’s temporary companion. But the city simmers with rebellion, and with knights and monsters at her city gates and a hungry prince in her bed, intuition may not be enough to keep her safe.
Calista must choose: follow her intuition to safety or follow her heart to her downfall.
Finished reading on: August 16, 2023
Read on: eARC
Review
This first book in the Awakening series was not what I first expected. If you are in the author's Facebook group, you will know that she likes to share snippets of her writing in progress and when she posted those about this book, I had started to imagine many possible scenarios around these snippets, and it looks like I wasn't good at guessing.
I will start by saying that Jennifer L. Armentrout knows how to write an amazing heroine who can be both vulnerable and strong. Calista (or Lis) is no exception to this rule. I really liked how she is portrayed in this and I'm looking forward to seeing her character evolve in the next books.
Thorne is a character that many will love and add to the fictional boyfriends list, but as much as I do like his intensity and honesty; I still have problems liking him as much as I feel like I should or could. Perhaps in the next book, something will happen that will change my mind about him. But he is an interesting character and I'm looking forward to seeing what else we will discover about him.
Lis and Thorne are, like most of JLA’s couples, a good fit for one another. One example coming to my mind would be like I feel that even though he doesn’t deal with emotions the same way most people do; she does bring a softer side (not sure if it’s the right word, but it’s the only one coming to my mind). He's more rational and she's more intwined with her emotions. And the chemistry between is off the charts. Honestly, if it’s like this in the first book, I’m intrigued to see how far it will go in the future ;)
So many secondary characters in this book that I'm hoping that we'll see again or more in the next books. Either because I like them or because I need to know how I need to feel about them because there is always one or two characters you want to like but you feel like you might just hate them and vice-versa.
I need more Grady, if only for his friendship with Lis. They are there for each other and are protective of one another. I really feel like their friendship is genuine with their ups and downs.
Overall, the first book of this new series pretty much sets the world building, and I will admit it took a while before I felt something was really happening, but once it did, I knew that I would be hooked on a new series of hers.
The end will make you want to know what happens next and you’ll need it with everything you learn and everything that will be added through the rest of the series.
I was given an advanced copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.
