{First of 4 of The Five Crowns of Okrith; very steamy, witches, fantasy} (2022)

The five kingdoms (or Courts) of Okrith are inhabited by humans, witches and fae but are all ruled by fae families. Witches form covens depending on the type of magic and the colour it manifests as and each kingdom has (or had) a witch coven associated with it. The High Mountain Court and its coven of red witches was exterminated thirteen years before the start of the story by the Northern Court king. Remy may be the last red witch from there as the king has had a bounty on the witches who escaped since then and so she has lived most of her life in hiding. Now, as the story begins, Hale, a prince of the Eastern Court, asks her to help in his mission to counter the Northern Court king as he needs a red witch to help utilise the High Mountain magic of the hidden talismans that could defeat the king. Complicating matters is the fact that Remy and Hale are irresistibly attracted to each other.

My e-library book expired halfway through my reading it and though I thought it didn't have the highest quality of writing I was engaged enough in the story to continue to the end once it came around again. Once Remy and Hale finally got together it got very steamy (I wouldn't even classify it as 'romance'); they were always jumping into bed - or even foregoing the bed. From that point it got graphic, there was a lot of dialogue about 'my mate' which sounded awkward and the story dragged a bit. Despite the rocky writing I finished the book just to find out what happened in the end but I won't be continuing with this series.

Disappointing.

May 2023
2.5-3 stars ( )

3.5
Pretty standard fantasy - nothing new or super exciting but entertaining enough.
Not interested in reading further books.

book channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@starkissedstories ( )

I love love love this book. Between the diversity in characters, LGBTQ representation, and the plot itself, I throughly enjoyed reading it. ( )

absolutely not. dnf after chapter 4 ( )