I'm always wary going into a book written by two authors, especially if I'm not familiar with their work. However, I can confidently say this one was a win!

The writing in this fantasy was so beautiful and steeped in imagery. This is a classical setup of a prince versus an assassin, except our prince is trans and our assassin is nonbinary. I love the way queerness was molded into this fantasy world, and the authors did a great job with fleshing out the characters and giving them distinct voices. My only complaint is that it did take me around 100 pages to get fully immersed. But once I was in, I was tearing through the pages.

Such an excellent standalone fantasy with such refreshing rep!

Venom & Vow was such an interesting read. It was a bit slow but once the story picked up, I didn’t want to put it down.

The representation within this book was so good. The disability and trans representation were handled with care and a central part of the story. Latine representation is always great to read and this book is full of it. The characters were very well written. Cade and Val were amazing.

Overall, I really enjoyed this. The beginning was a little rough to get through, but I’m glad I kept reading. Thank you NetGalley and Feiwel and Friends for the arc. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I wanted to love this so badly, because I love Anna-Marie McLemore's writing and I love that they wrote this book with their husband, and the synopsis was really intriguing. But if I hadn't read the synopsis, I wouldn't have understood a thing about this book. The writing was very pretty but felt close t0 nonsensical and I couldn't follow along with the plot at all. Because of this, I decided to DNF.

I loved this book simply for the disabled representation alone to be honest. I also loved the story and the love interests, as well as the exploration of gender. The only downside of the story is that there were a lot of character names and it got a bit confusing keeping everyone straight in my mind.

What I love about Anna-Marie McLemore is their ability to weave diversity and representation into everything. They write beautifully. I just don't know that I really feel like I understood the overarching plot? I didn't get what the issue was, and I thought the villain was telegraphed from the beginning. It felt like this should have been maybe 50-100 pages more to give more world building or explain the actual issue?

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book, as this book has already been published, I will not share my review on Netgalley at this time.

As you may be able to tell from the summary above, the plot of this book was very complex which was actually something I was looking forward to when I picked this book to review. And while the story was complicated and filled with dramatic irony, the reader is dropped right into the plot from the first chapter and things do not slow down until several chapters in. So while I enjoyed the complexity of the story, the fast pacing made it more difficult to follow than I would have preferred.

The perspective of the book alternates between Cade and Veronica, which worked well to inform the reader of some of the subterfuge happening as well as highlight their misunderstandings. Additionally, both Cade and Veronica were endearing protagonists with compelling motivations. I especially enjoyed following Veronica as her drive to protect her kingdom and her close relationship to her father made her a well-rounded and enjoyable narrator.

Similar to how the plot seemed to move too quickly for me to be able to easily follow, the world of the book was likely very lush and well-developed but the fast pacing of the storyline made it difficult for me to appreciate it. Specifically, the magic system and the histories of these two countries are something that the reader is very quickly introduced to in the opening scene, but not really given enough time to understand and appreciate as the plot picks up steam.

Venom and Vow was written by real-life couple Anna-Marie and Elliott McLemore. Anna-Maria McLemore is a veteran writer but this is Elliott’s debut novel. While the plot is beautifully complicated and engaging, the fast pacing combined with an equally complex world and magic system made parts of the plot and setting difficult to appreciate as they could have been. However, Cade and Veronica make for excellent narrators and their drive to do what they believe is right will carry dedicated readers to the satisfying conclusion of the story.

This was requested when I first found out about NetGalley and I had requested so many ARCs that I could not get to all of them before they were archived. I really wanted to get to this one, as it seemed interesting. If I can find this somewhere for a reasonable price, I will try to get it! I am giving this book three stars, as I don't want to give it a good or bad rating, since I did not get to it.

I've loved every other Anna-Marie McLemore book I've read and really wanted to love this one too, but I just couldn't. The biggest problem for me was the pacing - there's so much plot packed into a single novel that everything happens too fast and the characters' motivations don't make sense because there's not enough time spent on their emotional development. The chapters were so short that it felt jarring to switch from POV to POV so quickly, especially because there's not a huge distinction in 'voice' between Cade and Val. It should really have been a trilogy or at least a duology in order to allow the character development needed to support the plot.

An excellent example of A.M. McLemore's work, I adored this story and these characters. I hope to read more pure fantasy from them again!

This started off slow and I admit that for the first 20% I had a hard time buying into this story and the world created here, but I stuck with it, and boy am I glad I did because I had so much fun with this book! I do think the beginning suffered from trying to mesh the lush lyrical prose Anna-Marie McLemore is known for with the prose of Elliott and a what is meant to be a plot heavy book (which Anna-Marie is not known for). It takes a while to set up the world in the plot,, but it does hit it stride and I ended up really enjoying the character exploration and learning about the two different cultures the main characters come from, one being more Latine and one more Scottish.

I love the representation we get here. We see Val come to terms with his bigender identity and we learn about Cade’s experience at a monastery built for trans boys, and both have physical disabilities yet manage to be incredible fighters. I liked the play on the mistaken identity trope, with both main characters playing multiple people, and I think it’s impressive that they felt like fully flashed individuals despite the reader seeing them play so many different parts.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with this, despite the rocky start, and would be interested to see if they continue to write in this world.

I loved this so much. There were some flaws, but the characters made up for them.

I love the trans boy and genderfluid representation, as well as latine representation AND disability representation. The way Cade and Val were were written was really beautiful. They way they struggled with accepting themselves and believing others would accept them as they are. The way they cared so much for their countries and best friends. The way they listened to their bodies and made adjustments and accommodations as necessary while still being capable and deadly. I also loved their sarcasm and tendency to attack one another.

However the plot was occasionally confusing, with time/space jumps that, at least in the audiobook, came out of nowhere, and the dialogue was rather stilted, mostly at the beginning. McLemore shines with lyrical and whimsical magical realism stories and without that as the main story element it felt a bit lacking. As the story progressed, however, there were more magical realism elements and the plot and dialogue smoothed out and it felt like the authors found their stride.

The audiobook was well done (though Patrick and Cade's Scottish accents threw me at first) and though it started a bit rough it smoothed out as the story progressed and became the lyrical and magical sort of story I'm used to McLemore telling.

Normally I would subtract a star from the rating because of the story hiccups but the representation more than makes up for it here.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Feiwel & Friends for providing an early copy for review.

I was really looking forward to this novel, because the representation was amazing, and the premise sounded so great. Unfortunately the execution of the book is very boring, and I found myself struggling to find the motivation to keep reading.

Fake identities and battling royals abound in this debut fantasy from Anna-Marie McLemore and Elliot McLemore. Not only is the representation in this exciting but the idea that Anna-Marie, known for beautiful, transcendent magical realism, is trying out fantasy should make this title a must read.

Excellent disability and non-binary/gender fluid/trans representation. The opening was a little bit hard to get into and at times the world-building felt lacking, but overall it was an excellent read and would recommend.

This was like...a 2.5-star read, rounded up for the diverse representation and cool world.

I wanted to love this book, truly. The world was fascinating--two nations, one Latine-inspired, the other Scottish-inspired. Sea monsters. Quetzals and jaguars coming to life out of tapestries. Giant colorful magic foxes. Enchanted trees. A cane with a sentient owl attached. Monasteries where trans folks pretend to be doing religious stuff but are actually learning to pass as their true gender??? Such a good concept! Plus, Latine representation, two trans characters (one FTM, the other questioning/likely genderfluid), and BOTH main characters are cane users.

But sadly, the plot was a mess. It was boring even in its most action-packed moments. It was confusing, poorly paced (often slow but then sometime rushing with time jumps of a few...hours? days? It wasn't always clear?), and contained some "twists" that didn't make sense, not to mention lots of repetitive moments that felt clumsy to say the least. Most of the side characters were flimsy and kind of blurred into each other, especially on Cade's side. And I am still confused about how Val managed to put so many knives in her hair--those things are heavy (they have to be, if she wields them by throwing, which she does) and wouldn't stay hidden well, especially if there were more than, like, three, so while I liked it in theory, I just couldn't buy it that she had literally a dozen knives or more tucked into her braid at any given time.

I almost DNF'd the book multiple times, pushing through mostly because (a) the representation and the world were still good, and (b) it was an ARC so I felt kind of obligated to finish. Honestly, while I'm not exactly mad that I finished it, I also don't think I would have regretted it if I had given up.

All in all, one of my biggest disappointments--so much potential, let down by a mediocre-at-best storyline.

The trans rep in this is absolutely fantastic. I loved how it had one character confident in their identity and one still figuring out who they are. There's also great rep of disabled characters. But I think those two things are the strongest aspect of this book. The characters were awesome. But neither the overall plot nor worldbuilding were particularly interesting or different from other fantasy I've read. I did enjoy it but there wasn't really a wow factor. (And while I love seeing representation, I don't like when the only factor of a book I like is said representation.)

I didn’t like this so much I didn’t even finish it. The representation felt incredibly forced to the point where it read as inauthentic and soapy. I was really hoping for something that I could relate to.

Thank you Netgalley and MacMillan for a copy of this earc.

This book is just too good. I loved the representation of trans and gender fluid main characters. Even better I loved the disability rep in this book and how both main characters disabilities wasn't a character flaw but a part of who they were. It wasn't trying to be fixed with magic at all.

I loved the whole enemies to lovers trope. How Valencia was sure that Cade was the reason her father had been sleeping and how Cade felt the same about Valencia.

I enjoyed how the book goes into changing how both kingdoms fixed everything that forced marriage isn't the answer. How two kingdoms to come together and end the years long war between them.

I wasn't expecting to love this book as much as I did. This was purely excellent. Great job to both authors.

*I was graciously given a copy from Netgalley

I absolutely ADORED this book!

This is my first book by Anna-Marie McLemore and I was majorly impressed. The magic and feel of the story left me wanting more and more and I could not stop turning the page. If you love royalty and assassination attempts while falling in love then this book is for you <3