Lore of the Wilds

💬:Suddenly the page changed before her eyes, the ink bleeding together and reforming into new pictures, faster than she could register. Words appeared and disappeared in languages she couldn’t read. A ringing filled her ears, and she could hear her blood rushing in time with her heartbeat.

Sbrana, Analeigh. Lore of the Wilds: A Novel (pp. 165-166). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

📖Genres: fantasy, romance, fae, romantasy, adult, magic,

📚Page Count: 339

🎧Audiobook Length: 10:51

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️.5 - 2.5/5

Lore of the Wilds is the first in the series of the same title by Analeigh Sbrana. This story is about Lore, a human who lives in a society of fae. Her village falls on disaster and she has no choice but to surrenders herself to the dark fae Syrelle. Syrelle instructs her to tend to his library in the castle they're in. It's not long before Lore runs away with one of the castle guards, a fae named Asher. Later on Lore ends up meeting and becoming enthralled with another fae named Finn.

This book has so much potential but the pacing is off, there's little character development, there's close to no romance and very little chemistry between the romantic interests and the main character even though there are TWO romantic interests, and this fantasy crosses over from being a fantasy drama to being a cozy fantasy to wanting to be high fantasy, and the spicy scene at the end wasn't gotten to with build up or banter or any sort of romantic development.

Overall, the pacing felt off and there was very little character development when it came to Lore, herself. There was also very little romantic development despite this being marketed as a "romantasy" or romance fantasy. I'm giving this 2.5 stars out of 5.

⭐️⭐️.5 - 2.5/5 Stars

Thank you [NetGalley.com], Analeigh Sbrana (the author), and Harper Voyager (publisher) for the arc (advanced reader's copy.)

• THIS IS A REVIEW FOR THE INDIE PUBLISHED VERSION* 
  
  This is why I don't read arcs until a month or so before because there's no one to warn me of the incoming headache 🤣
  
  Here all the reasons you should wish it was September right now. 
  1. Enemies to Lovers 🌝
  2. FROCED PROXIMITY 🌝
  3. Enchanted Library 📚
  4. The flippin plot twist ending that gave me a headache in which I stared blankly and tried to figure out when I was Bamboozled 🧍🏾‍♀️
  
  Let me say I got this book early because Amazon had a glitchy glitch (the author is fully aware, and it's all fixed now!) and shipped it early. 
  
  Anyways... a lovely debut book! The only thing on my wishlist are the parts while she was in the library had ... more? Like not a movie montage but just fuller descriptions of her time in there? Because the concept of an enchanted fae library that only a human can enter is top tier fantasy, and I wanted more from it. I hope that makes sense!
  
  I can't wait for whatever is next, and HOPEFULLY the wait is not too long 🫠
  
  ✨ For more reviews and content follow me on Ig @lokiisreading ✨

For most of the book its just the man character in the library a little, she has two positive interactions with her guard and time just goes by with us not actually getting to see her interact with the Fae.

Literally one positive interaction with the guard in the market, then its the festival and they're playing around and joking like they've known each other for months now and we didn't get to see it.
Then there's these two Fae teens who already are cool with her which is fine but again we don't get to interact with them much and suddenly one of the kids has a big crush on her during the day of the festival.

I am so disappointed like how can we get to know characters if we don't even get to interact with them. I just have to accept that time passed a lot in between chapters and suddenly everyone is buddies with us but its like I was unconscious the entire time so i missed out on when we became friends.