I'm always a bit hit and miss on stories where long-lost loves must rediscover each other. Similarly to fated mates, I feel like this trope can sometimes suck the tension out of the romance. But, on the other hand, I've read numerous stories where it has been successful, so I'm always willing to give these tropes a shot! Plus, this book's entire concept sounded very unique and interesting.

And, overall, I did enjoy it for the most part. I really liked both of our main leads, and the fact that they each were attempting to recover their memories and the lives they had had before was interesting and lead to a lot of good drama. I also enjoyed the fact that the romance was slow-burn, with the two not coming together until much later in the story. I will admit, however, that there were times where the interruptions that were keeping them apart did verge a bit on the ridiculous. But I still applaud the overall inclination to draw things out as long as possible!

My main struggle point came down to many of the side characters. I started out liking several of them well enough, but as the story continued this changed dramatically. Almost all of them made decisions that made them truly dislikable. Now, of course, a romance lives and dies on how likable the main pairing is, not the side characters, but there did come a point where my strong feelings of dislike towards the side characters was eating into my enjoyment of the primary romance.

Overall, I think this was a fairly successful story and will like appeal to romance fans who enjoy slow-burn stories. Just don't go into it with the idea of liking any of the side characters!

pepper winters always. have a magical way of describing her story making us immersed in the story and the characters as if we are part of the story and we are watching everything unfold slowly this is the same case with when a moth loves a bee you will see and feel every single emotion the characters go by. I enjoy it I hope you enjoy it too.


Thank you, NetGalley and Pepper Winters/Valentine PR for the advanced copy of When a Moth Loved a Bee in exchange for my honest review.

Pepper Winter’ seductive prose lulls the reader into submission with its lyricism and vivid imagery, only to then jolt us with the unexpected, time and time again, weaving a story that never stops knocking the wind out of us. If I had to recommend one romantasy this year, it would be this one.

I really loved this book. It’s beautiful, it’s lyrical, the imagery is stunning. I’ve never read anything by Pepper Winters before but I plan to read her other works after reading When a Moth Loved a Bee. I was hooked from page one and I’m going to have to disagree with some other reviewers here—the length of the book didn’t bother me. I loved the characters, the world, everything.

3/5 Stars

This was just very okay for me. My first complaint is that it was super long for no reason. I'm also not the biggest fan of memory loss in my books, but I'm always willing to overlook that if the story is good. So right at the beginning we already have a few things working against my enjoyment. I will say I did enjoy the world building and I really liked the general idea of the book so I for sure wanted to see where this would go. Overall it fell flat for me and unfortunately not my favorite book by this author. As always I recommend giving it a read if you're intrigued at all because I can absolutely seeing people loving this.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

Unfortunately this is going to be a DNF - but honestly I think it's just that dark romance, fantasy or otherwise, isn't for me. I'm sure this will be a great read for some....for me it was too long, repetitive, and the dark romance bit just isn't my thing.

This book was a little too long and a little too slow for me. I do like the writing style but this felt so drawn out. I will continue checking our Pepper Winter’s books and will try this one again at another time.

Right now I’m choosing to DNF at 37%. I might pick it back up again, it’s just not keeping my attention now.

Personally, I didn't enjoy the pacing in this. Whilst I was dragged in at the beginning and the set up was good, I hit the middle third of the book and it was a struggle to get through. I'm sure there are many people who will enjoy this more than I did

I really enjoyed Pepper Williams other romances and When a Moth Loved a Bee was a really good and original read. I felt the characters were fleshed out and I loved the story which held my attention the entire time. I would definitely recommend this one.

A unique and intriguing premise that didn't completely deliver for me.

I found the story to have an almost folklore quality to it and for me that was really intriguing. I think my main gripe with When a Moth Loved a Bee was the repetition. It almost felt as it Winters didn't trust her readers enough to follow her own story. Because themes in the book where reiterated over and over again the latter half the book felt particularly tedious and redundant.

Fans of Winters writing style may enjoy this truly unique plot but I think first time readers may find this book and its unfolding particularly tedious.

Fantasy book with emotional characters and an in-depth plot, what more can I ask for? There was some slow burn romance for the romantasy readers.

I’ll start off by saying it’s beautifully written and the world building is done really well. But honestly, it’s so damn slow. My kindle says I’m 56% in and I have to take a break because I feel like it’s not moving. Im trying to Love it, but after over 400 pages and not much really happening, I’m putting it on the back burner. Maybe I’ll come back to it again in the future?

DNF @ 91%

I hate this book.

In over 800 pages, you should have a fucking epic woven with 10 separate character arcs traversing several different settings.

This book is over 800 pages of the same fucking things happening in the same fucking places. This book is all jaw clenching bitter boners from Darro and bobble-headed idiocy from Runa. The characters are unredeemable fecal matter. Even the elements are pieces of shit. Why is this author attempting to coax her audience into feeling even a minor measure of sympathy for a rapist? You've created a fucking steaming pile of maggoty dung of a character. He isn't morally grey. He isn't complicated. He's a fucking douche.

Why is this a series? Why the fuck is there a book 2? Who in their right mind would willingly sit through another bertrillion pages of this tripe?

I want my time back.

A fantasy book written by Author Pepper Winters? Yep I totally devoured it.

I loved these characters she created and I like wave of emotions us the reader goes through reading this story, The author knows how to hit her readers in the feels.

Magic, love, romance, mystery, sexual tension... this book gave it and then some.

I look forward to the conclusion to this book.

When a Moth Loved a Bee is a unique story: we've got an epic fantasy, tons of romance (yay!), kind of dark and kind of sexy.

However, it is in dire need of some editing. I cannot for the life of me remember if this is an edited or unedited ARC, but I do hope it is unedited. All the raw elements for a book are there and they have tons of potential but this story is in desperate need of some tidying up. There is so much repetition and needless descriptions in way that make the story suffer: it becomes muddled and and sloppy in a way that is sloppy and disappointing.

I will be giving the final product another read but as of right now I am on the fence as to whether or not this will be a good book or just a hot mess.

Admittedly I was very intrigued by the premise! And the beautiful cover drew me in, as well as its unique title. But sadly I DNF'd this at around 23%. It felt disjointed and I couldn't quite summon the eagerness to keep reading. I'm aware that while this may not have worked for me, it may work for others, and I still encourage others to read this book.

This cover and synopsis caught my attention. Fantasy romance is my favorite genre and this sounded quite unique. The cover is stunning and very eye catching and the writing, while wordy is very digestible. That being said I had to DNF this book at 15%. I've been reading it for 2 weeks and that Is as far as I got. The characters were not captivating although I did enjoy the man living among Wolves. Amnesia is one of my least favorite plot devices and having characters who can't remember anything was very frustrating. I felt like I read and read and read and the story never reached a point where it got more fast-paced or enthralling.

This was my first Pepper Winters book. She has a lovely writing style, beautiful and unique. I thought this book would 💯 be me - forbidden star-crossed lovers, mystery and angst! I just could not get on board with the story after how the sexual assault was dealt with. I disliked characters and could not get over this. Also the book is long - this would not have been a problem if there was more development of the story but I felt there was not enough of this to justify all the words. I do think this book is for fans of forbidden romance and longing but do read trigger warnings beforehand. I like dark but for me the characters just didn’t get the punishment/treatment required. As you can tell - I can’t get over it! Thank you for the ARC.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with this arc.

I sadly DNF’d the book because I just couldn’t get into it.

This story alternates between the Girl and the Stranger. They are both lost souls who have forgotten everything to do with their pasts, and it shows them navigating the world separately as they try to remember who they are while starting a new life. The only hint of their past that each does remember is the faint memory of someone who they cared for deeply, though they don’t recall the persons face or anything beyond their prior existence.

The Girl is found by a tribe called the Nhil, a people who are one with fire and take her in when she has no one else. She learns their ways and finds a home amongst them, until she is torn between them and a mysterious stranger who butt heads due to their differences. The Nhil are a people of fire, able to control the element, and when they do a ceremony to find out the Girl’s name and anything about her it will reveal, she is granted the same power over fire. Rune is then taken on by the tribe as an acolyte to their Fire Keeper as they believe her to have the same powers that would make her the same as their current tribe member in this position, and it is considered one of great import.

The Stranger was rescued from death by a pack of wolves and has learned to run with them as his own family before he stumbles across a woman he is certain is the one he has been searching for. He tries desperately to get her to remember him in any small way and to stay with him, though she resists, fearing his family of wolves and the fact that she knows nothing about him.

This world was so lush and beautiful. I cannot express enough how fully fleshed out and unique and all encompassing it was to read about it. Though not much of the wider world was seen throughout the course of this first book in the Destini Chronicles, even what little part of it was shown still managed to be enough to draw the reader in and reveal little tidbits of how it worked. My favourite thing about it had to be the fact that there are different groups of people based on the elements they had control over. Furthermore, it is forbidden for people of different elements to mix because this would null one’s power so they no longer had access to any element. This creates a lot of tension throughout the book because, though not antagonistic towards one another, people are very set on maintaining their own element and therefore the mixing of two different ones resulting in the element disappearing is very taboo. This is also part of why the Nhil tribe is so adamantly against Darro, as they can tell he is not one of them and therefore has no right to be part of their close knit circle. Alternately, they do believe Rune is one of their own, and therefore want her to have nothing to do with Darro.

I feel like I felt so passionately on one end of the spectrum or the other about characters. There are some characters that I passionately hated and wanted desperately to be rid of, without giving away spoilers. But then I loved Darro, Runa, and all the animals under their care so incredibly much. I am a sucker for animals always. And Solin is one who grew on me so much more than I expected or ever thought possible. Yet he made certain decisions that made me so angry with him despite begrudgingly liking him due to circumstances later on in the book. There were so many incredible characters.

Also, can I just say, this quote had me teary and awwing. “About time you came to find me.” I won’t give either context or whereabouts in the book it appears, who says it or who they’re saying it to for spoilers sake, but one of my top favourite quotes despite its simplicity. It wrenched my heart in the most beautiful way. This book all around was so beautiful. Heart wrenching, stressful, full of the push and pull of tension and conflict, yet somehow no matter the difficulties these characters faced, there was still that beauty and so much passion. I honestly can’t speak enough on how incredible this book was. The thought of waiting for the sequel, particularly after how When a Moth Loved a Bee ended is agonizing. I need book two now!