If you love books which build throughout, then you will love this. Unfortunately that isn’t for me. I much prefer books that start off with a bang.
That being said tho, when the story does get going (about mid-way through), I feel it does get better.
I loved the character building of Neysa was a joy to read. Seeing her discover who is she is and understanding what is capable of really did resonate with me.
The book ended in such a way that there are still unanswered questions which I am hoping will be answered in the next one.

I did not really enjoy a lot of aspects of this book. The characters felt immature for their age, the world building, in my opinion was disorganized, and there was barely any plot that I found interesting.

Neysa, the main character was really annoying as well. Everything seemed to have happened out of convenience in the book. I also was really not a fan of the 300 year age gap between the characters. I think that has been overdone in fantasy, and is a trope that should stop.

2 stars! Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an eArc of this book in exchange for an honest review! So I didn’t enjoy this as much as I thought I was going to. The cover and synopsis drew me in, but that was it. I wasn’t drawn into the world from the beginning like I thought I was. This story follows Neysa, a 35 year old from Los Angeles who rents a cottage in England. While she’s there, she discovers she’s fae and the only hope of fixing the realm between the fae and human worlds. Sounds interesting, right?

My main problem is that Neysa doesn’t sound like a 35 year old woman throughout the book. She sounds like she’s in her twenties in my opinion. Also the romance in this book fits a 35 year old woman who’s divorced. She has experience in the dating field but is acting like it’s her first relationship. I just couldn’t really get passed that.

I really wanted to like this book but it just seems poorly executed. The idea behind it is wonderful, but it was a miss for me. Possibly the second book will be better?

Thanks so much to GenZ Publishing for providing this eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review! :)

I appreciate what Glover was trying to accomplish here, however while there's definitely potential for a very solid ya fantasy, the vast majority read like a very rough draft to me, almost... incomplete? I feel that as it is currently, Another Beast's Skin would definitely benefit from a few more revisions and edits to strengthen the overarching world building, magic system, character depth as well as inter-character relationships.

The plot
The story follows Neysa (35) who moves back to England following the breakdown of her marriage and loss of her father. There she meets and (almost immediately) befriends a quirky local trio, that we quickly learn are on a mission to protect and restore the (damaged) veil that divides the realms.

Beyond this the plot felt disorganised and hard to follow. The plot pacing itself was rather funky, quickly switching between feeling slow and tedious to things moving so fast it felt that I'd missed a page. Major plot points and events that we'd been building up to and preparing for were almost dismissively glossed over, to the point that I didn't even realise it was the 'big moment/grand reveal'. Nothing felt high stakes, which generally detracts heavily from my investment in a fantasy.

My biggest issue were the plot holes, inconsistencies and poorly explained magic system. This is where I feel Glover could really up the ante. I spent the vast majority of this book thinking what on earth is happening? How does that work? Since when could character x do that? Few things felt adequately explained and that really took away from the overall enjoyment. We seesaw between info dumps and half explained flashbacks, also falling into the plot convenience trap. We learnt about characters' powers, gifts and talents as and when they needed them, which is a definitely pet peeve of mine.

The writing style
I don't usually make a separate section for this but thought it's worth noting that I really didn't gel with Glover's writing style. I found it quite frustrating because while I do appreciate Glover's impressively extensive vocabulary, I do feel it's a fine line between before you rear into giving off a pretentious vibe. Sometimes simplicity is what's needed.

It didn't help that everything felt very... on the nose? I'm more a fan of covert, implicit and inferred messages and storytelling, I don't enjoy being hand held and directly led to and told things. Very 'tell-me' rather than 'show-me'. To the point where characters would assume or do things that seemed to obvious it had my trust issues sky high (for what turns out no reason). It just felt at times juvenile throughout I guess.

The characters (and romance)
That note leads up seamlessly into character discussions. Straight up, I expected more from a mid 30 year old protagonist. Neysa jumps between being pretty self-aware to very woe-is-me rather quickly and for little to no reason. She gives off very strong 'not like other girls' cause she's oh so very special vibes, which isn't bad in itself and is very common in ya fantasy, but I just found her to be very much the opposite. She just happened to have all these useful and convenient things happen *to* her rather than *because of* her.

I've already forgotten most of the other characters, which I feel is pretty telling regarding the strength of their personalities. I did quite like the twins, I felt that they had an element of flare, drama and general substance. Though they were very much used as plot devices, only useful in the first half of the book, then all but discarded for the latter half. I wasn't convinced by Cade's character, and really didn't click with him as a love interest. He didn't seem to have a personality trait beyond brooding and glaring. I needed more character development to feel anything for him.

Notice the lack of a separate romance section, that would be because I didn't feel it warranted one. I found the almost love triangle rather superficial, I didn't feel any connection to or between characters. Their romance felt rather forced with little to no grounding or explanation beyond prolonged eye gazing and very sudden lust. While it was ultimately a slow burn, as I felt so unconnected to the plot and characters that it just didn't really do it for me.

This was a good fantasy read. I liked that the main character was over 30 for a change! Thank you to Netgalley for this arc ebook in exchange for an honest review.

TW: Parental death, cheating (MC's previous marriage), attempted rape, blood

Another Beast's Skin is an adult fantasy novel (the first in a series) about Neysa, a recently divorced 35 year old woman who hightails it to England after the passing of her father. She befriends a trio of cousins who end up being fae and suspect she is fae as well. Evil doing occurs and it's up to Neysa and the trio to save the all of the realms including Earth!

I had a really hard time coming up with a rating for this book. It really has so much potential but there are a few things that kept it from being a 5 star read for me. The first 25% of the book is a HUGE info dump that was really hard to keep up with. Also, the author had a tendency to skip over (in my opinion) really vital events. Take for example the destroying of the veil...how did her mother show up? It was just like one second boom the veil is destroyed and her and Ewan are super bummed about not being able to go back to the fae realm and then the next second her mother has crossed over and takes them back to the fae realm...like HOW did that happen??? I was so confused! Lots of telling and hardly any showing!

My biggest gripe with this book was the love triangle (I guess that's what you can call it??). Like, WHY? I didn't see the reason for it to happen at all. In all actuality it made me mad. It was so obvious from the beginning that Neysa was supposed to end up with Cade and yet she's just gonna get with his cousin Silas to "release energy"?? It made no sense. Neysa and Silas end up being like BFFs with Silas still sort of in love with her but still fucking everyone and their mother? But honestly they could've just been BFFs from the beginning, there was no need for sex! And I'm sorry but in every single fantasy story I've read no male MC was so calm and cool about his MATE being fucked by anyone let alone a relative and close friend. That was so weird to me how they were just all "Well Neysa has been with both Cade and Silas, it's all good bro". I hated it and I thought it distracted from the whole feeling of the story.

Ok so what did I like? I thought the plot was fantastic, the whole world building was awesome...like I said this really had so much potential. Even though I was irked by the holes, info dumps and the triangle I couldn't put it down. I HAD to know what was going to happen next. And the chemistry between Neysa and and Cade was fantastic. It was slow building at first but towards the halfway mark it was smoking!

This one does end on a cliffhanger but I will definitely give the next one a go, because I need to know what happens!!! Overall I'd say this was a 3.5 star read for me. I'm hoping the author takes into consideration what a lot of the reviews are saying about more showing not telling...that would improve this story so much!

Thank you so much to GenZ Publishing for providing me with an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really loved this book! The dialogue was interesting and kept me engaged, and I enjoyed the magic system. It was a bit info dumpy as we got towards the end regarding why the magic worked the way it did. Enjoyed the romance as well as the family relationships. There was a point when the heroine does that whole "I have to sacrifice my whole life for this thing and it can ONLY be me" that felt a little trite, but overall I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next book!

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest.

Overall, this was an interesting story. The world building was good, probably better than the actual plot itself.

The main character, Neysa, is recently divorced and going through a difficult time in her life. She moves from Los Angeles to the UK, following the death of her father. After moving she becomes friends with twins, Silas and Corra, and their cousin Cade. In their company she discovers a magical side to herself and the Fae realm that the three come from. She finds purpose in trying to help them with the weakening Veils between the human and Fae realms.

I still had a lot of questions when I finished reading, possibly because it is the start of a series.

One of the main issues that kept coming up for me was that things happened way too conveniently. Realizations were had and connections were made without any prior buildup. That happened throughout the story, a point was just told without leading up to it. Also, there were quite a few things didn't make sense to me and left me wondering if I had missed information. However, the story was interesting enough to keep me reading until the end to see what was happening.

I received an eARC of this book from GenZ publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed are mine alone and other than the free book, I was not compensated in any way.

Another Beast's Skin by Jessika Grewe Glover follows 30 something divorcee Neysa, who travels to the UK after her father's death and discovers a completely different and magical side of herself, including a "beastie" within her own soul. With the help of twins Silas and Corra, and their cousin Cade, the four characters embark on a journey to save both the Fae and Human realms from the weakening Veil that separate them.

I enjoyed the main character, Neysa overall. I really liked that she was not the typical 18-25ish female character that we usually see in adult fantasy novels. She has some life experience and scars under her sword-ladden belt, which helps connect her with a mature audience. Silas, Corra, and Cade are all likeable characters, especially the last 50% of the book where we really get to see their relationships, and get more banter and interaction between all four MCs. I even really liked Reysand by the end of the book (I don't know if readers are really supposed to, but I did). There are some interesting plot twists in the second half of the book, and that half moves quickly with very engaging with character twists and action scenes. The world building is pretty straight forward, with half in a familiar UK setting and the other in the Fae realm, and the magic system follows (I think) an easily understood hierarchy. The ending is a bit of a cliff-hanger that definitely makes the reader want to keep reading.

That being said, I wish there was more relationship building in the first half of the book. There was a lot of information dumping in the first 49% that I felt really slowed down the story and got in the way of really being able to make early connections with the characters (fyi: characters and their relationships is a high focus point for me in any book I read, even above world building). There is a main romance storyline that is sweet and not distracting to the plot. However, there is an early tryst that I feel is distracting and may not really serve a purpose to the story other than to create a little more drama later that I feel isn't really needed. It hints at a love triangle while (thankfully) not really creating one. Also, I hope the second book explains the "beastie" aspect more. We get a little more information/talking of that in the second half without much explanation as to what it really is/means for our Fae characters.

A solid start to a series that I look forward to reading!

Thank you to Netgalley, GenZ Publishing and Jessika Grewe Glover for sending me this arc.

The world building in this book is absolutely phenomenal. It is complex, layered but so easy to understand which is something I usually struggle with a lot. Complex but simple, is that a thing?

The beginning of the book was quite slow for me, I did struggle to get into it a little, but after it started picking up in pace o definitely forgave the slow start.

The development of our main character was something I particularly enjoyed, but on the flip of this, I think she read as a younger character than she was supposed to be. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just something I picked up on whilst reading.

For a fae book, this was definitely original in many aspects. As someone who has read many a book with fae, I’ve noticed that many books are quite ‘same-y’, however this book did not fall into that category for me and I was very pleasantly surprised.

I’d definitely recommend to fae fans.

Thank you to Netgalley and GenZ Publishing for the eARC of Another Beast’s Skin. This review is my personal and honest opinion.

I absolutely loved this book! The ending shocked me. I can’t wait for book two! I loved the science and crystals and elements. I thoroughly enjoyed Neysa’s relationships. I enjoyed the pacing and the whole plot. I really enjoyed the romance in this book. Neysa has a past and her reluctance to have another romantic relationship is realistic. The build up to her love interest is swoon worthy.
The beginning was a bit slow; there is a world to build and a magic system to explain. I haven’t read a book with this kind of magic system before. The science intertwined with magic kept me going throughout. The title of the book is a bit confusing for me; I understand it, but it doesn’t stand out to me.
Overall, I highly recommend this book!

Another Beast's Skin is a fresh take on the fae, with a complex, layered world that blends magic and science in a captivating way. In this story, MC Neysa joins forces with three fae cousins in an attempt to restore the Veil between the human and fae realms. Overall, I feel as though the actual story deserves more than three stars. The worldbuilding was intricate and interesting, I enjoyed the characters and felt that they really came into their own in the second half of the book. I particularly enjoyed the originality of their individual magical gifts, still linked to the elements as much of fae magic is, but done in a really unique way. Once the action picked up in the second act, I was completely sucked in to the story. I loved that we explored both the human and fae realms, and I loved the concept of the crystals and how they were used to anchor the Veil. I was invested in the relationships between the main characters, and was definitely rooting for Cade and Neysa at the end

Personally, I struggled with the pacing. As many others have said, the first third of the book is quite slow, and the remainder felt quite inconsistent. I enjoyed the faster pace of the second half, but I feel as though the chapters of info dumped backstory in the beginning (around chapter 5 I believe) would have resonated more had they been spaced throughout the story. There was so much history and character backstory delivered in such a short time that by the time it became relevant in part II of the book, I had already forgotten a lot of the detail.

I also feel that this book could benefit from a technical edit for filter words and passive voice. I personally found myself being pulled out of the story every few sentences and there were a few jarring moments of present tense that interrupted the flow.

It seemed interesting but it didn't live up to the premise. The mc being 35 and divorced instead of a teenager was a nice change for a fae story but she felt like one 95% of the time.
We don't get to know the characters through the story and there was massive info dump. She knew she was fae so fast (too fast in my opinion), in 40 pages she learns she is fae and the ones she just met were telling their whole story and secret, it felt far too easy. All the characters were kinda the same to me and were very blurry to recognize, they didn't have real personality. The love triangle was completely unnecessary, the love interest was obvious and was distracting from the plot.
Also it is said to be set in the modern world but they don't ever use phones, sword fighting seems very common for a modern world but there is no comment on it.

i think it deserves good notes from an editor and it could have been much better and less confusing with editing

My rating for this book is definitely more of a 2.5 star read than a 3 star read. I honestly struggled in the beginning of this book, and really didn't know if I was going to make it through until the end. I trekked through, so I could give a complete review. Luckily I was surprised with this read from Part 2 and on, which not only bumped up my rating but also helped me complete the book.

What made it really rough in the beginning of this book was the information dumps and the pacing. These both left me confused and not really invested in the story. Instead of showing us through dialogue, events, and interactions between characters; we got a lot of just straight information dumps. There's not really another way to describe this other than to say we got just paragraphs or information thrown at us. This left me with a lot of confusion on why it was being revealed when it was, because it all seemed to be moving too fast.

It felt like we were being told everything just to progress to the true plot of the story. I would have preferred to have these information dumps come gradually, as the story progressed. That way when they were revealed it would feel more natural in the story, and could have been expressed in different ways. These information dumps along with the pace they occurred made it hard to grasp some of the important details, and later on I couldn't seem to remember most of the details. It made it extremely disorienting for me, because I couldn't remember if the details had truly been in earlier parts of the story or if it was just another thing thrown at the reader from left field.

Later on as the story progresses we see a bit more development in the writing. Instead of information being just told to us, we got to see it revealed through the action in the story. Still there were a lot of pacing issues where we seemed to lose a lot of time between events, with barely any explanation of what occurred in that time. The world-building seemed to struggle a bit, as much of the Fae world was extremely unclear. Especially when it came to Fae powers, the beasts within some characters, and the politics of Aoifsing. I wish we got a bit more clarity with a lot of this, because it just left me feeling like I was a bad reader who was missing details.

Although in the beginning there were some issues, I did enjoy the second half of the book. I found myself seeing depth to the characters, and as they interacted with each other I noticed they seemed to becoming alive. They started to step off the page, and I began to get attached to some of them, and it made me wish we saw more of this throughout the book. There were still some disconnects with the characters and their relationships, but they did start to show hints of the relationships being possible. I hope moving forward with the series, the author lets the characters shine through. I truly believe they will help progress the story, and make readers want to know more. Along with the characters I loved some of the ideas within this story.

I loved that the author used crystal energy as a part of the magic we see in the series. Add this with some history and science facts mixed in, and I was interested. I just found a lot of the concepts that stemmed from this mixed with the Fae world, to be something fresh and new. Even though I do wish it was explained a little more, so I understood it better.

Overall the read was okay. I enjoyed the second half, but really struggled to make it to that point. I wish the author let her world develop more, and that the characters had more of a chance to bring it to life. I think the series has potential, and just needs a bit more focus and editing. I will say the cliffhanger ending has me thinking about reading the next book, because I have a lot of questions as a reviewer, and just a general reader of what is next?

I really liked this book! The concept, the world building, the writing style, I liked it all. I did think in some ways it went on too long. There was a lot of jumping around the world looking and finding things and fighting quick battles. And some of the secondary characters ended up just blending together at times, because there were too many names to keep up with. Neysa and Cade were great together and if you like the fated mates trope, I’m sure you’ll like this book. The whole thing with Silas in the beginning was kind of pointless and weird though. I was not a fan of that. Overall, this was a good book and it definitely made me curious to see how this author evolves. I feel like there is a lot of potential here.

I was definitely drawn in by the premise and cover for this book, and I felt like it had a lot of potential.

Generally, the storyline worked for me, and I was invested in Neysa’s development. I loved her! I thought it was great that she was a heroine who was in her 30s, post divorce, and that she was struggling with getting past her divorce and her father’s death.

However, I feel as though she read as a much younger heroine. I needed her to feel more stable or mature, and often, she felt like a teenager or early 20s character. I also struggled to understand her relationship with the three fae cousins, as it changed constantly. Also, the sex scene with Silas felt completely out of place.

There were lots of typo errors in the book, as well as portions that were confusing or dragged. I also noticed that dialogue was broken up into regular dialogue and then paraphrasing or summarizing from the narrator, and I was very confused by this. It detracted from the flow of the story, because I kept wondering why some parts of dialogue were left there, and some weren’t. There was also an interjection of a chapter or two that felt like they should have been a prologue, and totally out of the flow of the book.

Overall, premise, I was really intrigued by the main character, but there were flaws in the execution of the book that ultimately lead me to not like it.

I loved the fantasy elements and the characters. and overall, was a really fun read! I’d highly recommend

Overall I did enjoy reading Another Beast’s skin. If you are interested in reading a fantasy book with magic, fae, parallel words... then you’re going to like this book. However I couldn’t connect with the characters and the relationship between Cade and Neysa felt forced. So if you are reading this book for the romance, you might find yourself disappointed.

I am always in for fae's stories and this book was specially attractive to me because the main character was not a teenager (a nice change!) however, most of the time she felt like one.

Although the premise seemed like something I'd enjoy I was unable to connect with the story and characters. The introduction is done too fast, we don't really get a chance to get to know the main characters before the big reveal. There is also too much info dump, and considering we didn't have the chance to get to connect with the characters it turned me off completely from the story.

The second part of the book is a bit chaotic, I'm honestly not sure what was going on. There's a lot of action that seems a bit pointless, and then there's a weird attempt of a love triangle. (Although it is pretty clear who's the real love interest.) The guy seems to not care about Neysa and suddenly they are crazy in love and destined to each other. The whole destiny thing is a bit cliché and it doesn't really seem to affect the main plot. I have to say the romance reminded me a lot of another series about faes.

It is a shame I didn't get to enjoy this book, the author did seem to have put a lot of thought into the world building and the premise was intriguing. However, the weird pace and too much tell don't show threw me out of the story.

There's a part of the book where a character speaks in Spanish. It's just a few lines but the very obvious grammatical mistakes lead me to believe there wasn't much editing, maybe with a good revision it could improve a lot and be far more enjoyable.

DNF at 65%

1.5 stars

There are many things that are not consistent in this story. The ideas are there, but the execution and the plot are quite underwhelming.

Neysa is 35 and divorced, yet I felt like I was reading the story of a young adult who’s somewhere between 18 years old and 22 years old. She (quickly) becomes friends with a group of locals, and they all just tell her their secrets with almost no prompting. They tell her their whole story, and of course, they also tell her that she’s fae, like them. She learns that the Veil between the human realm and the Fae realm is wearing thin, and it’s her job to fix it with a few magic crystals (because of course, she’s very special, and “not like the other girls”).

The first part of the book is disorganized. It hops from scene to scene with no transition and some things also just happened with no real explanation and were never talked about after, so it created some confusion. There is also kind of an info-dump at first, instead of a plot developing.
The characters are also quite flat and ordinary. On top of being bland and unoriginal, the main character seems to make many decisions in her life based on… nothing. You know the “I don't know why I did it, but I did" kind of decisions that did not help me connect with the characters at all.
The romance also seems juvenile, and not what I would expect from a 35 years old who’s been married before. There is a kind of love triangle, but it’s weird, and honestly, just a distraction from the main plot, especially since the characters are just bland and I don’t really care about them and who they end up with.

This book has potential, some ideas are good and with some editing, it would be better, but as it is right now, I couldn’t get into it and enjoy it at all.