tl;dr
Mistaken identity combined with enemies-to-lovers make for a high drama story in a competently built fantasy world.

Thoughts
I started reading this book while waiting on a work call, and then I spent the entire actual call wondering when I could get back to the book (sorry, boss). The story hooked me from the first page, and kept up at a fast pace all the way through. I love a mistaken identity plot, and the delicious twists of our two leads each mistaking each other adds so much drama to the proceedings. The world building's strength is its politics and culture, with Spanish and Irish terms sprinkled in to differentiate the two kingdoms. The monastery where Cade lived was easily my favorite part, as a thoughtful and thorough way to write queerness in an alternate world. In comparison, the magic system is somewhat underdeveloped, which lead to a couple points of confusion. The middle of the book where the POVs switch off regularly also has a few jumps in the timeline that I couldn't always follow. The relationship between our leads takes the majority of the focus, with an enemies-to-lovers narrative, and lots of political maneuvering for them and the supporting cast. The end hints that there may be more to come, but it ties up all the plot threads very neatly, so this can be read as a standalone without any problems.

This book was incredible! I loved the immersive world building and in-depth character descriptions that really built up before the story pushed off. The plot was well developed with an ending leaving me wanting more of these two authors.

Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read this eARC!

This wasn't good...I loved the representation in this book but it fell flat. The characters weren't super interesting, the plot was lackluster and boring, and like the other reviews, it was just confusing. I did DNF at 35% so maybe it gets better past that, but I couldn't keep going.

I loved everything in this book regarding gender identity, and it was such a unique and interesting spin on a fantasy book that I enjoyed a lot! Both Val and Cade were super compelling and their journeys were really emotional and important to read about.

The main issue I had was I couldn’t really get into the plot outside of the characters’ personal identities and growth. The whole curse on the forest and everything to do with that struck me as a little confusing and boring, which was disappointing. However, I think this is a book that has a lot of good going for it, and I will be definitely trying out more books from the McLemores!

I wanted to like this book but it was confusing and I did not like it. I tried to power through but it just didn’t capture my interest.