A Taste of Gold and Iron

Hat sich gezogen.

Grundsätzlich hat mir das hier alles richtig gut gefallen, allerdings kommt die ganze Geschichte nicht so ganz in Schwung. Bis es endlich mal los geht, vergeht viel Zeit und ich wusste ewig nicht, in welche Richtung das Buch möchte. Es fühlte sich lange einfach nur wie eine Alltagsbeschreibung zweier Charaktere an. Was jedoch richtig gut war, waren die Beziehungen zwischen den einzelnen Charakteren zusammen und ihre gemeinsamen Momente. Der Slow Burn und die Spannung halten ein angenehmes Level und die Nebencharaktere sind mir auch ein bisschen ans Herz gewachsen. Umso unspektakulärer fand ich das Ende und auch arg offen. Klar, da gibts einen Folgeband, aber der ist aus der Sicht von anderen Charakteren geschrieben, weshalb man hier mit der Romance zwischen den Protagonisten etwas hängen gelassen wird. Das World Building ist auch sehr oberflächlich und recht unzufrieden stellend. Es werde magischen Fähigkeiten angesprochen und genutzt, man weiß innerhalb der Gesellschaft, wer das kann und nutzt diese Fähigkeiten auch offen, aber es wird nie erklärt, wieso das nur bestimmte Leute können oder wie verbreitet das ist. Da hätte ich mit ein bisschen mehr Exposition gewünscht, aber funktioniert für die Geschichte auch so.

Lange nicht mehr ein dickes Buch so schnell durchgesuchtet! Allerdings objektiv betrachtet jetzt nicht das beste Buch:(. Alles an Fantasy kam zu kurz, der Plot war nicht herausragend und ich fasse es nicht das ich es sage

Cute romance - treason mystery plot meh and flat.

I really wanted to like this one and was so excited to read it but was disappinted at the end. The romance part was cuze bit as for the main mystery plot I kept thinking "no the villain cant be the person who walks around being obviously shifty and mean to the main character, this must be a red herring, please let it be a red herring". And then it wasn't. The book kept hinting that they had deeper motivations or were not involved willingly, only to never go into this after catching them at roughly 75% and decided to only redolve the romance after that.

Prince x Bodyguard

Prince Kadou is second to the throne and rather happy that his big sister is the one sitting on it and not him. When she gives birth to her daughter her lover Siranos however thinks Kadou wants the throne for himself and this tension escalates in an accident on a hunt where several servants (kahya) die and Kadou must take responsibility. He also gets a new primary kahya, Evemer, who isn't a man of many words. There is also an investigation going on about an incident with counterfeit money that also happened the night the princess was born. Kadou is supposed to solve it to help his tarnished reputation. As you can see it's a bit hard to describe what the actual story is, since there are many little things going on. The main focus is about the slowburn romance between Kadou and Evemer and their daily life (honestly a lot of Slice of Life in the genre). Alongside that is the plot about the investigation of the counterfeit money but that wasn't even as big or thrilling as I expected. There are a few fights and stuff that are exciting but I felt like the issue was solved rather unspectacular (which was fine though). The cover and description just gave me a different, more "epic" vibe so I was a bit surprised but not in a bad way. What I really enjoyed was the great worldbuilding. The setting is inspired by the ottoman empire but with an inclusive society. We have a woman as the sultan (gender doesn't matter when it comes to who is ruling and other stuff) and there are multiple nonbinary people (another word is used but idk which language that was) who use neopronouns (çe/çem - maybe also a language I don't know). Marriage can also be between people of any gender, even the royals. It was really interesting and refreshing to read about such a setting. Now to the characters, that I all loved ❤️ Kadou was super relateable because of his anxiety that was also well portrayed. Especially liked how he called his bad thoughts the fear-monster, cause I know that one well 😅 Evemer was my favorite. I just love characters that are strict and seemingly emotionless at first but then discover that they do, in fact, have emotions and a lot of them. Tadek was a tricky but interesting one. First I thought him annoying and well he does overstep sometimes but in the end I really liked him (the comedy with his lines was also always great xD). Also showed how you should always hear both/all sides of a story before you judge anyone. Other characters I loved were Eozona, Melek and Zeliha 👌🏻 Well as you can already see from the rating I really loved the book. Especially Kadou and Evemers relationship of course, slowburn done right. It wasn't enemies to lovers though (as it said somewhere), at least in my opinion. Yes Evemer didn't like Kadou much at first but he also didn't hate him (and Kadou never did) and he respected him in his position. I like the enemies to lovers Trope but I think those words get thrown around too easily and often it isn't really that. Anyways I also have a bit of critique which is why it didn't get a 5 ☆ rating. It was generally a bit long with descriptions so I would sometimes loose focus a bit when a new place was described. Then the spicy scenes (which weren't many anyways) were really vague sometimes. I get it's not always necessary to have ALL the details (even though I also enjoy reading those) I just don't like when I am not sure what really happened (especially since there was a topic where the characters discussed what might or might not count as sex) 🤔 The biggest thing that bothered me was the end though. It was ok but way too sudden for me. I wanted to know so much more, especially some reactions to a certain thing and it was just hinted at what might happen in the future but I wanted to see that! 😩 Like just about 30-40 pages more would have been enough 🥺 I also just like it when we see more about a couple after they got together and that just wasn't enough for me. So all in all a great book I enjoyed a lot, just could have been a bit shorter with the descriptions and longer with the end 😅

Das Buch war echt toll 😍. Dafür, dass ich am Anfang Schwierigkeiten mit dem Englisch hatte, bin ich echt gut durch dieses Buch gekommen. Das Buch hat einfach perfekt meinen Nerv getroffen. Es handelt sich durch Slow Burn um eine nachvollziehbare Liebesgeschichte. Man konnte auch super gut sehen, wie Evemer immer mehr hinter Kadous Fassade geblickt hat. Dazu war es auch sehr praktisch, dass das Buch in dual pov geschrieben ist. Kadou als Charakter war mir sehr sympathisch. Seine psychischen Probleme wurden meiner Meinung nach vernünftig dargestellt. Er wurde zudem nicht auf diese reduziert und Kadou und Evemer reflektieren regelmäßig über sich selbst. Außerdem sprechen die beiden vernünftig miteinander und für solche Szenen, wodurch wir Leser den Charakter besser verstehen, lässt sich die Autorin viel Zeit. Eine Prise Humor hatte das Buch auch, vor allem in Form von Tadek, wodurch ich des Öfteren lachen musste. Des Weiteren hat die Autorin eine Welt mit einer inklusiven Gesellschaft aufgebaut, was einfach immer wieder schön zu lesen ist. Also meiner Meinung nach, ein wirklich toller Einzelband.

I found this book by accident and I am so happy I did because I loved this book sooo much. You are basically rushing through the pages because the story and the characters are so good. The book is a mix of forbidden love and lowkey enemies to lovers with the vibes of Merthur. And of course slow-burn. (<- I almost went insane because of that hahaha) But it makes the rest of it soo good. ALSO MELEK HAS MY HEART. THEY ARE AWESOME. I love how Alexandra "invented" non-binary terms in some "oriental" way instead of using they/them. I read this book with a friend and we both enjoyed it so much... it was so nice to share that experience. A really nice way to start 2023.