I had seen this title recommended by BookTok as a series to check out if one likes their romantic fantasy a lot darker. I’ll be honest I wasn’t sure what that meant, so I figured I’d give this title a go.
My eventual conclusion was that the only real difference is that the rape scenes are canon, rather than the female characters merely being threatened with sexual violence. And honestly… once you get out of the romance genre that’s just normal. Which is a pretty telling indictment of modern literature that I hadn’t really parsed before.
So. Putting that aside for the moment.
This books starts off with a murder scene, which should give you a pretty good warning about what you are getting yourself into. It is made very clear that Callie killed her stepfather because he was assaulting her on the regular. So five stars for starting off with a bang.
And it’s not the only sexual assault in the book. A teacher goes after her at one point. Callie obviously blames herself for being a Siren, even after she finds out that she wasn’t his only victim. I really feel like the school dropped the ball there, they absolutely should have gotten that kid into therapy. Des at least has the plausible deniability that as a fae he doesn’t really understand what a traumatized 16 year-old girl might need.
One thing that I find is a really interesting dynamic between Callie and Des is the whole thing about the favours she owes him. He has the power to force her to do things because of those favours, and in any other circumstance that would be creepy as hell. But she’s a Siren, so she also has the innate ability to force people to obey her commands. And she has no qualms about using, it’s basically the entire foundation of her job. That’s not to say she doesn’t have moral guidelines around using her abilities, but then obviously so does Des – the first time they meet refuses the favour because of her age and only finally agrees when he understands the full circumstance.
Then we get to the whole Thief of Souls plot-line and holy fuck, is that creepy as shit. Being sedated and impregnated and forced to give birth while unconscious is such a horrifying concept. Yes, dark fantasy, I absolutely get it now.
This might be weird to say, but I felt bad about Karnon’s death. It was fairly obvious to me that the Mad King of Fauna was just a vessel for the real Thief of Souls. I do think it was him who pulled the physical manifestation of the Siren out of Callie, which she probably will never thank him for but he gave you wings girl, come on. I am also curious about whether or not the guards who were imprisoning and torturing the women were planted there by the Thief of Souls or if he just promoted all of Karnon’s staff who were already assholes.
So the plot and the mystery have definitely captured my curiosity and I have ordered all the sequels. I want to find out who the Thief of Souls really is, and what happens to Callie and her human friends. I also want to learn more about the fae of this universe.