My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy, Portal Fantasy
Content: Strong Language, Torture that is mildly descriptive
When Maggie wakes up cold, filthy, and naked in a
gutter, it doesn't take her long to recognize Kair Toren, a city she
knows intimately from the pages of the famously unfinished dark fantasy
series she's been obsessively reading and re-reading while waiting years
for the final novel.
Her only tools for navigating this gritty
world of rival warlords, magic, and mayhem? Her encyclopedic knowledge
of the plot, the setting, and the characters' ambitions and fates. But
while she quickly discovers she cannot be killed (though many will
try!), the same cannot be said for the living, breathing characters
she's coming to love—a motley band that includes a former lady’s maid, a
deadly assassin, various outrageous magical creatures, and a
dangerously appealing soldier. Soon, instead of trying to get home, she
finds herself enmeshed in the schemes—and attentions—of dueling princes,
dukes, and villains, all while trying to save them and the kingdom of
Rellas from the way she knows their stories will end: in a cataclysmic
war.
Portal Fantasy isn't usually my thing but this is Ilona Andrews so I was going to give it a try. I was actually pretty excited to read this book. I loved the blurbs I read and the cover is gorgeous. As soon as I started this I was sucked into the story instantly. I will say that this book has a whole lot of info dumping in it, but it makes sense for the kind of book it is. Maggie is constantly filling us in on the story-line of the book she's been somehow sucked into. It's necessary for us to understand the story and how things are supposed to unfold. Maggie is trying to change the way things end up in the book.
There were a few times in the beginning when I wondered why the authors chose to write their story the way they did, as a portal fantasy, instead of just writing the story that their character gets trapped in. That being said, I'm not sure I would have the stomach for reading some of the horrible things mentioned by Maggie that happened in that book.
*Minor spoiler here- There is one part in this book that I felt wasn't as convincing as it could have been, and that was the part when one of the characters is tortured. While I appreciated that most of it was glossed over (I really don't like reading those types of things), I felt like the character wasn't traumatized enough after the fact.
In the end, I enjoyed this book immensely. I enjoyed the characters. Maggie is great as a lead character. She's smart and resourceful. The main male love interest is very Ilona Andrews. If you've read other Ilona Andrews books then you probably know what I mean. I like that there's a bit of a slow burn going there even though they are very attracted to each other. I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes in the next book.
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