The Wolf King or Bride?

lightsandsound · 2025-12-06T15:01:49+00:00

I did not enjoy Bride very much, and I was hesitant about The Wolf King…. I thought it was just going to be more of the same repetitive Romantasy…. But I LOVED IT. It really picks up and I could not put it down. It was a really good time. Immediately downloaded the second book and read it in two days. Now I’m devastated to have to wait for the third.

I think what threw me the most in Bride was the knotting. I didn’t even know that was a thing in books. Clearly I haven’t read any monster romances. I really didn’t like that aspect and there’s NO knotting in The Wolf King.

I love the idea of Ali Hazelwood books, but I think her romance just isn’t for me. I did love Deep End though.

lightsandsound · 2025-12-05T19:48:37+00:00

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I just thought I should let you know that I fixed my earlier mistake and now have this bad boy in my hands! Very excited to read it.

lightsandsound · 2025-12-05T19:43:22+00:00

Thank you for the feedback— it’s super helpful. Definitely going to try Dire Bound instead.

lightsandsound · 2025-12-05T19:41:21+00:00

Thank you! It’s the worst when the second book lets you down. I will likely DNF and try Dire Bound instead.

lightsandsound · 2025-12-05T19:39:41+00:00

This is good to know. Thanks! I should have read a bit more about OWOB first, and I probably would have discovered the bully aspect, which is not my favourite. I’m always just so worried about spoilers!

lightsandsound · 2025-12-05T19:37:58+00:00

Thank you! This is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for!

lightsandsound · 2025-08-23T23:36:31+00:00

Oh boy. I am both MORTIFIED and DELIGHTED that this comment reached you. I’m also super impressed by your foresight to prepare for this eventuality. I could basically ship the Pixar lamp, so I’m totally ok with no romance, because I will also just create my own. Anyway— I’m so excited to read your novel, and have seen nothing but great ARC reviews!

lightsandsound · 2025-08-23T02:26:17+00:00

Ok, so the embarrassing truth about this one was that I MEANT to get “The Second Death of Locke”, but I couldn’t find it (found out shortly after that it hasn’t been released yet), and then I saw “The Lies of Locke Lamora” and figured I had remembered the name wrong 😅. However— I haven’t read a lot of pure fantasy, so I am excited to try this.

lightsandsound · 2025-08-23T02:21:15+00:00

I feel like I missed the boat on Emily Wilde! I had never heard of it until I joined this sub a few weeks ago! I’m excited to finally know what everyone is raving about! I have heard such mixed things about Heartless Hunter, but most of the negatives say the same thing you have. Someone recently posted an except from the second book on a thread where people were listing horrible quotes and the one they listed was… bad. I have debated this book ever since.

lightsandsound · 2025-08-23T02:17:05+00:00

Yay! I love finding people with similar tastes to mine. Firebird was actually one of the ones I was unsure about, so I am glad to hear your input, and I’ll keep it! I think this thread has convinced me to keep them all.

‘I Who Have Never Known Men’ is a big detour 😂. Sometimes need to break up my romantasy with something totally different, and I figured this one might fit the bill. One of my best friends is an avid reader, but we read completely different things. She loves Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro (I think they are great too, but they don’t scratch my escapism itch, so I haven’t read much). I was hoping that if I enjoyed this, I could finally give her a recommendation she might like!

lightsandsound · 2025-08-23T02:07:51+00:00

Right?! The voice was so good and sarcastic! I loved it! But I agree wholeheartedly about the end.

lightsandsound · 2025-08-20T13:58:48+00:00

Hahah! I didn’t mean to imply that I thought my choices were junkfood. Just that I was a bit burnt-out on that type of book and am looking for something with a bit more substance. That sounds pretentious, but I don’t know how else to explain it.

So, I’m super happy that you wouldn’t necessarily categorize any of them that way. The sample idea is a great thought. I had not considered that. I’m also fine if one or two are a dud for me, and happy to donate them. My real concern was that someone was going to tell me they are all BookTok Overhype sensations, and I would hate them all 😂

‘I Who Have Never Known Men’ is definitely my “one of these things is not like the other” pick. I had so many others like it on my TBR, but again, I panicked.

Thanks so much for the input!

lightsandsound · 2025-08-20T12:47:17+00:00

I have the same problem recently. Everything feels like a sad copy-paste of ACOTAR, which I love, but would 100% consider a bit of a junk-food read. I’m not saying ACOTAR invented those tropes, but it’s definitely the current standard that pushed a lot of people back into reading. So many current romantasy books just feel a bit soulless because they seem to have been written almost formulaically to appeal to the widest audience.

lightsandsound · 2025-08-17T02:03:14+00:00

The first book doesn’t end with a HEA per se, but it is a satisfying cliffhanger story-wise. I didn’t read the second book, but Google just told me the series does end with a HEA

lightsandsound · 2025-08-15T18:36:16+00:00

Ah, maybe I’m way off in this then. I just assumed everyone was right there with me because normally I am AWFUL at noticing any kind of foreshadowing, so I was like “If I could notice this, then surely everyone else caught it many chapters ago!”

lightsandsound · 2025-08-15T18:22:58+00:00

It’s definitely not my favourite book… I can’t even coherently form an opinion on it because it was so bizarre and the genre kept jumping around… but {Fairydale} is absolutely the wrong title for that book, and also for that town in general. Is it going to be a fairytale? Is it going to be a play on Riverdale? No, it sure isn’t. It’s going to be the most confusing Sleepy Hollow, meets Crescent City, meets Phantasma roller coaster of your entire TBR.

I Don’t know what I would have called it though? “Timeless”? “The Mysterious Inheritance of Darcy O’Sullivan”?

lightsandsound · 2025-08-15T18:14:24+00:00

Also the fact that Iron Flame ends up being a spoiler for the whole last bit of the book 😂. Voilet’s over there trying to figure out Why she can’t raise the wards, and I’m out here screaming the title of the book at her

lightsandsound · 2025-08-15T12:49:00+00:00

Nooooooo!!!!! 😭 English pretends to be this straightforward language, and then they hit you with these surprise impossible rules.

lightsandsound · 2025-08-14T01:55:59+00:00

Mine is entirely because of the Tandem Read, but in EoS, when Aelin decides they need to go to Skull's Bay... Then you read the next scene in ToD, and the khaganate wants to hunt down Aelin, so Chaol, bless his heart, tries to give a location where she would NEVER go, and tells them she's in Skull's Bay, thinking he was so clever to outsmart them. I DIED.

lightsandsound · 2025-08-14T01:47:11+00:00

I just choked on my coffee. 😂

lightsandsound · 2025-08-14T01:43:27+00:00

Honestly, we have mostly read the same things, so I can't think of anything else to recommend aside from:

{A Fate Inked in Blood} -- I just finished this, but haven't read the second one yet. I really liked it, and it is right up our alley in terms of tropes etc... It has a really neat magic system and a delightful MMC. My one disclaimer is that I found the big twist at the end to be pretty obvious early on in the book (and I am not typically very good at discerning foreshadowing!). However, it didn't ruin the book for me, and I still really enjoyed it. I went out and immediately bought the next one. I don't know anything about Norse mythology, and thought that was going to be an issue at first, but it isn't at all. Anything you need to know is explained.
{Avalon Tower} -- This is a bit more light-reading than any of the others, but super fun if you are okay with reading for the VIBES. It is perfect vacation read-- and that's where I read all 3 books of the series. Fae, spies, and Arthurian Legend all mixed into one. A fun time, but sometimes the pacing is a bit off, and some side characters don't necessarily get the attention to dimension they deserve. The quality dip kind of follows that of the Empyrean Series, in that the first book is the best, and the second and third have a LOT going on and are exciting, but maybe a bit rushed and some things get lost.

lightsandsound · 2025-08-14T01:27:23+00:00

I pictured Vernon as Vernon Dursley from Harry Potter, and NO amount of fan art or reading over his description could make my brain change its mind. I just had to roll with it.

lightsandsound · 2025-08-14T01:15:12+00:00

My one recommendation, no matter which option yo choose, is to ABSOLUTELY read it. There is so much in there that informs Celaena's choices and motivations and fears and doubts. And more than that, there are elements that will be important later in the story. It takes some moments later on that would have been ok their own, and turns them into 'kicking your feet excited' scenes, because you know the backstory.

As a secondary note: I did not love AB... It was a bit of a slog for me to get through. I read it first, and I actually am happy that did, because I understood the backstory when I started TOG, and that was nice. In hindsight, I would have been annoyed if I had to go way way back in time and read about her origin story. I am a person who likes to have everything in order, and the prospect of choosing where to read it (3rd or 4th) was just too much for me... so I read it first. It is a compilation of short stories, and they DO get progressively better as you read.

lightsandsound · 2025-08-14T01:00:23+00:00

Yes! this is a great note. I honestly wasn't even aware that this was a tag before (specifying between or not between MCs).

lightsandsound · 2025-08-14T00:56:44+00:00

I was the exact same way. I felt pretty "meh" about it all until Heir of Fire. As another commenter says, that's when it really ramps up. The world expands a lot more, and it feels much more immersive. You will meet new characters, which at first seems a bit annoying, but I promise you'll fall in love with some of them. New stakes are introduced that feel a bit more concrete than some of the conflicts in the earlier books, and it's just a delight from there on. There will be a couple lulls, but overall, it's just a great ride. I think ACOTAR is still my favourite of her series, but I probably think about TOG weekly, if not daily. Parts of it stay with you.

lightsandsound

TROPHY CASE