Kiss the Fae | Natalia Jaster | ARC-Review

I received this book from the author for free in exchange for an honest review.

What is it about?

Rule #1. Never cross into Faerie.
When I’m chased across the enchanted border and caught by its sinister ruler of the sky, the pretty trickster with a clever tongue offers me a deal.
Rule #2: Never bargain with a Fae.
But I don’t have a choice. For thirteen days, I have to survive in his mountainous maze of crooked bridges, deceptive stairways, and devious inhabitants. Refuse, and my sisters will suffer as punishment.
Rule #3: Never fall for the enemy.
I should have known my sexy captor wouldn’t play fair. The deeper I plunge into this dangerous world of Solitary Fae, the more I’m entangled in their ruler’s seductive web of desire—and the forbidden temptations he offers.
The price of losing this wicked game is everything I love. But winning might just cost me my heart. (goodreads)

Book: Kiss the Fae | Series: Vicious Fairies | Author: Natalia Jaster | Pages: 358 | Published: 05.11.2020 | Genre: adult fantasy romance | TW: physical abuse, mutilation of animals, death

What did I think?

I wish I had a lot of positive things to say to make this a glowing review. But there isn’t much. And that makes me sad because so far I really enjoyed Natalia Jaster’s books. This one simply wasn’t for me.
I told my friend recently “wow I’m in such a mood for fairy smut” and I saw Natalia had a new book out and got really excited but then I constantly had to send the same friend annoyed messages and just thinking about it brings back all the annoyance. I wish wish wish I loved this book. Big sigh.

One of my main problems was the writing. It was just too much in a way that had me raise an eyebrow more than once. There were too many descriptions for my taste and too many flowery words and expressions where it would have been enough to simply call a thing by its name. To me, it was as if everything had too look extra dangerous or extra sexy or extra lush. And then the words soemtimes really threw me off. It was a mixture of old-sounding words and modern slang, sometimes even used in the same sentence and it sounded just wrong to me and ripped me out of reading all the time. I’m sorry, but what exactly is a big, sexy sky? How can the sky be sexy? And why is there no other words to use for children besides tykes?

I also had problems with the pacing and lenght of the story. There was happening a lot in the beginning and the days in the story flew past and then there were episodes where about 5 chapters are set during the same day and I was so sure the day was about to end but it was only midday or something? What threw me off course completely was that there was a chapter with a throwback just in the middle of the book. That broke the reading fluency because I don’t think it was really necessary at that point. It would have fit at the beginning or maybe towards the end but at that particular place it was just kind of distracting.

As much as I wanted to like the characters, I just… didn’t? To be honest, I couldn’t really bring myself to care about them. Lark is pretty, smart and knows how to fight with a whip. Cerulean is mischievous and kind of hot and cares deeply about nature. They fit quite well together in theory but I just couldn’t properly see why there is chemistry between them. Yes, they have the same interests and a past, but what else? And I’m sorry, but their sex scenes were… kind of cringey? I don’t want to remember it but I need to say this: Cerulean has power over the wind and he sneaks a wind into her room when she is in bed and she has this super amazing orgasm from it and I’m just ??? the wind can do THAT?

Anyways. While I didn’t particularly liked the sex scenes, I liked how sex positive this book was. Both the protagonist and the love interest frequently have lovers but it’s something normal and enjoyable and they don’t judge each other for that.

For me this was a classic case of “I really liked the concept, but the execution could have been better”. I’m still going to read at least the second book in the series because I already like the protagonist in that one more than Lark…

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