Thank you to NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for providing me a digital advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
3.5/5
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I have been in a bit of slump this past year and this book managed to pick my interest enough that I finished it in two days. It is such a fun read that still includes an riveting mystery, an intricate world building and magic system that is easy to understand.

With that ending, I cannot wait to pick up the next book in the series.

Definitely recommend reading this book if you are looking for a fun easy read.

Really awesome read! Really different for me and really nicr to read. It was a really good book with an amazing setting and amazing characters

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this ebook.

This book started with an interesting premise and intriguing characters, but it quickly lost its pace. It felt like it did not have a clear objective, besides making the readers fall for the “villain”.

It would benefit from a developmental editor as the book has potential!

The cover is beautiful! However, the pacing was sluggish and unfortunately I could not continue the book past 30%. DNFed.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC copy of this book, in exchange for this honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

Interesting worldbuilding and decent writing, but this book suffered from a slagging pace that left me struggling to engage. The romance was also too quick to build and therefore not believable

Thank you, Netgalley, for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review. A fae fantasy Brittle is in the perspective of Verve, our main character. I was really intrigued by the cover of this book and was looking forward to a fantasy story. The first couple of chapters were very hopeful, but after a while, the pacing felt off to me. I found i was not invested in the romance situation, and I had a hard time relating or liking the main character all that much. I wanted to enjoy this but felt like I was pushing myself to read through it the majority of the time. Unfortunately, I will not be picking up the rest of the series.

I thought the concept of the book was good. There was good character development and world building. Verve was somewhat interesting as a MFC, she was witty and didn’t fall into situations readers see coming but the main character doesn’t. Some parts of the book got long without much happening and then a lot would happen in a few pages. This pace kept me turning the page I just wish there was more content throughout instead of all at once and then long periods without much happening. I also felt like the MFC and MMC fell in love fast without much buildup to make it believable. Overall a good fantasy only read.

A fae story that was very enjoyable!

I liked the beautiful writing and the characters. The fae in this world are scary and aloof, and I always liked that take on them, because it made them eerie and scary. I enjoyed this one, because the plot was well laid out and very layered. The banter between the characters was great, and although the romance was okay, it still made for an enjoyable read.

Thanks to the publishers and netgalley for the e-arc!

I really enjoyed reading this book. It has lots of the ACOTAR series vibes.
It has a good plot twist and what happens at the end is... justice.
I hope you are already planning what happens next.

Flametree Press is quickly becoming one of my favorite publishers - this cover is amazing!
This is a good start to a new fantasy series - I'm looking forward to the next book to answer some lingering questions.
I love my female MCs strong, feisty and fierce - Verve definitely lived up to her name. Great characters, enjoyed the imagery.

Thank you Netgalley and Flame Tree Press for a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

⭐️ ⭐️

The reason I had requested an arc of this book was because the premise seemed completely up my alley! For fans of Carissa Broadbent? Fae, political drama, FMC is a heroine and stolen away to a land of faeries? Seemed perfect.

Unfortunately, I had some issues with this book.

If you like love triangles, and fae and magic, you may enjoy this read.

However, for me, I felt that the pacing was very difficult to follow along, it dragged on so to speak, and the characters seemed a little one dimensional. It was difficult to understand the motives behind their actions. The love triangle and romance was incredibly underwhelming as I did not understand what brought these characters together; everything seemed forced. I also experienced confusion in regards to the magic system and the laws. The ending was very rushed.

Book Review 📚
Brittle by Beth Overmyer - unrated.


Unfortunately, I just couldn't continue with this story. I got to 35% and I couldn't go any further. Overmyer has great expectations from me should a bit more editing and not as a rushed story be placed.

For reasons of not being able to finish, I feel it is unfair to rate.


Thank you to NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for allowing me to read this ARC - this is an HONEST review from my own personal opinion.

First Impression: "This premise sounds exciting! Oh, I like this beginning..."
Second Impression (aka Part One): "I've got icky Tamlin vibes."
Third Impression: "Now we're talking!"
Final Impression: "Huh. Well, that chapter took a turn."

Listen, this book is definitely unique so I will give the author that. If you like political Fae intrigue and you like a prophecy that makes for a strong female MC, then absolutely check this book out! If you're prone to comparing Fae books to ACOTAR, then either check yourself or stay away from this book. I say that, because I (a firm believer that every book brings something unique to the table) kept thinking that Part One was too much like ACOTAR.

Now, Part Two is where things take a delightful turn. I really enjoyed Verve's time on the run/in hiding. There's a lot of tender doting on Verve by the male in this section, and there's further exploration into fae laws and magic.

Part Two was so fantastic that I would have ranked this book higher - except - the last chapter... I don't understand why somebody so big and scary could have such a tiny role in this book. Nor do I understand why Verve 2.0 is great at something when it matters most/is most convenient. Somehow she was suddenly skilled.. I don't like that. That ending was far too easy for me, and it was a bit of a let-down.

Overall, I'm glad I read this book. I think people who have never read ACOTAR will love it!

Thank you to NetGalley for giving this ARC, and this doesn't influence my review. This was a unique book, but I didn't like the romance. It's not even that it was fast, it was just random. Overall, it was an okay read.

This book is a perfect master piece. A true glimpse of the faire we were warned about as children.
Absolutely stunning .

We meet Verity Springer she is a teller of tales and wants nothing more than for her father to return and that her stories make it on to the pages of the local paper so that her family can live and eat.

That simple life is ripped away when she finds her father's murdered body. And yet when the local authority is called no crime is found to be committed.

Then our adventure begins after a sickness Verity is stolen away by a Fae lord . Not knowing who or what to trust all she knows is she must find her way back to her family.

It's a beautiful and haunting fairy tale that harkens back Grimms fairy tales. I loved this book more than words.

It was an amazing book, though I do think trigger warning definitely apply for this book. I loved verd being strong. Also I must admit I found the whole kidnapping thing problematic thinking she’d fall in love with the male who kidnapped her I was glad to be proven wrong. Cannot wait for next book in series

This book has such a cool cover!! It also has a good name and good description, but when you actually start reading it.... I did not finish. It was rough. It's a bad fanfiction of Little Women / Jane Austen novels and ACOTAR. ACOTAR is already pretty bad and this was even worse. I don't really know how to even describe this. Everything is so flat. Stuff happens too fast for proper explanation and then we move on. Relationships between characters (the sisters) are supposed to be assumed maybe because I didn't get anything from them.

It feels like an idea that was then spoken into a voice note as bullet points and then badly transcribed. I was really excited for this book and very let down. I did get to the point where she goes to the fae realm but it was just so.... erugh. It felt like I also saw a lot of similarities from other popular books and it felt like they had just been plopped in without making them part of the world. I wish I had better things to say about Brittle.

"Brittle" by Beth Overmyer is an enthralling and imaginative novel that ventures into the realm of new adult sci-fi fantasy, delivering a unique blend of intrigue and otherworldly magic. Overmyer's storytelling brilliance shines as she weaves a tale of mystery, power, and the exploration of hidden realms. The book's vivid world-building and dynamic characters create an immersive reading experience that resonates with readers interested in fantasy and new adult fiction. Overmyer deftly explores themes of identity, discovery, and the enigmatic forces that shape our lives, adding depth to the narrative. "Brittle" is a captivating reminder that there's more to our reality than meets the eye, leaving readers with a sense of fascination and a renewed appreciation for the limitless possibilities of the fantastical.

tl;dr: ACOTAR if you bought it on Wish.

Thank you to New Leaf and NetGalley for sending me an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I thought the premise of this book sounded really interesting: a girl’s father is murdered in suspicious circumstances and no one believes her, and then she’s kidnapped by a Fae Lord. The opening chapter intrigued me, but unfortunately it was all downhill after that, and my gripes with this book are numerous.

Gripe one: the characters were poorly written, underdeveloped, and, in the case of the main character, Verve, generally quite useless. At the very least, characters should be interesting. And these characters could have been, but they lacked any sort of development or backstory so it was impossible to know their motivations or connect with them in any way. I couldn’t root for anyone because I didn’t know what they wanted, what they were doing, or what the stakes were. The two Fae men, Dacre and Fenn, are inexplicably in love with Verve and have beef with each other, but the author never explains why. They essentially spend every chapter either trying to feed Verve, which she always rejects (then complains about how hungry she is) or carrying her around (which she also complains about).

Verve is always either falling asleep, just waking up from sleep, being carried, or literally doing nothing. There were some better scenes in the second half where she was practising magic, and I felt like the author depicted her panic disorder fairly well, but otherwise I found her very uninspiring. Dacre is obsessed with her and we don’t know why, and it feels like the author wanted there to be some romantic tension between them but there was just nothing. Then she repeated that with Fenn (but the reader and Verve are told to like him for some reason).

Gripe two: As well as neglecting to develop the characters, the author also forgot to build a world for them to inhabit. I could not tell you one single thing about the setting of this story. It felt a little bit historical maybe, but no specifics are given. Places and people just spring up when they’re relevant to the plot and then disappear again afterwards. There’s no sense of anything existing outside of the scene it’s in.

The magic had some interesting elements and I would have found these interesting if they’d been developed more. Each character’s magic having its own scent is a nice idea, and trees being portals was a fun way to get the characters from place to place. The magic system was quite vague and it was all a bit too convenient how characters could just magic things away or use magic to solve their problems.

Gripe three: I disliked the writing style and eventually started highlighting all the weird phrases Verve used to try and entertain myself. The dialogue was clunky and the author had a few stock phrases that she repeated throughout the novel, which got a little bit jarring. I also hated how the male Fae were just ‘Fae’ but the female Fae were ‘She-Fae’, which felt very misogynistic. The ‘She-Fae’ and human women were also treated terribly and were even more underdeveloped than the central three characters. There was another woman in the Fae manor house with Verve and it looked at one point like she could have been important, and then she was just taken away with no explanation.

Gripe four: The plot was confusing and borderline nonexistent. It had started out so promising! And then Verve was just trapped in a room for ages! Some other things happened to her (she never drives any scene or plot point), a handsome man we’re supposed to like shows up to help her but it’s never really explained who he is, why he’s helping her, or why he loves her all of a sudden and then there’s an incredibly rushed ending that makes no sense. The drama and plot was resolved in about 4 pages. There was not one single point in this book where I knew why the things that were happening were happening. It felt like the author had some ideas but couldn’t expand on them in any meaningful way.

This brings me on to my fifth and final grip, as the author’s ideas did not feel like her own. I saw on social media that the author described this book as having “ACOTAR vibes”, and she’s right, it does. In fact, the ACOTAR vibes are so strong it’s like she tried to rewrite ACOTAR and hoped no one would notice. This book is ACOTAR if you bought it on Wish. It is baffling to me that the author would choose to draw attention to the similarities between the two books because, despite Brittle’s flaws, some readers might have been able to enjoy it if they took it on its own merit. Unfortunately, it does not hold up next to ACOTAR, and I spent the whole time reading it wishing I was re-reading that instead.

Here are some of the things Brittle shares in common with ACOTAR. I know not every book with these things is like ACOTAR, but when there’s this much overlap it’s hard not to compare them.

- The main character is one of three sisters: one sister who looks after the other two, one who is immune to Fae magic, and one who is a bit boring.
- There are two men who are immediately in love with the main character despite only having very limited interactions with her. The first man is bad so we automatically have to like the second one and assume they're made for each other.
- The second man seems to have some sort of mate bond with the main character that she’s tricked into accepting.
- A woman is turned into a Fae by being submerged in water against her will.
- The main character goes to a party where she meets her future mate.
- The main character and her mate are super special and the most powerful characters ever and they will undoubtedly end up in charge of everything.
- The love interest has dark hair and dark eyes and is the most powerful man ever but also a sweet soft uwu cinnamon roll.

This wasn’t the amazing and magical Fae romance I was hoping it would be. Unfortunately I did not enjoy the time I spent reading this book and cannot recommend it to anyone else.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book.

1.5 stars

I think I probably read this book with a look of incredulity on my face for 80% of the time. I very nearly DNFed it so many times and, in retrospect, I wish I had. I love a fae story as much as the next girl but this just did not hit the mark.

First we have Verve, a Jo March from Little Women knock-off. How does one base a character off such a beloved person and make them unlikeable? Verve is 'not like other girls' and throws temper tantrums worthy of a child. Her temper is her only defined characteristic, otherwise she's, well... bland. She goes through a fair amount of trauma but just doesn't really react traumatised in anyway.

Next we have the magic system which just doesn't really make any sense. It just isn't fleshed out, other than each person has their own scent when they use magic.

The we have the two fae lords who happen to fall in love with our bland, angry MC pretty much instantly. Dacre is probably the most three dimensional character in that he's incredibly creepy and gives me the ick. Fenn has no depth and starts too many sentences with 'May I...?' Don't get me wrong, we love consent but my god.

Not to be entirely negative, the world building was pretty good. I really enjoyed the hawthorn trees having identities and having to convince them to become portals (love me a talking tree. Tree beard, I'm looking at you)

The writing style itself was pretty good, but the pacing seemed way off. For a shorter book, it seemed like it took a long time for anything to get moving and I did find myself skimming. But then the end was extremely abrupt and there were a lot of lose threads like how her father came to be involved with the fae and what the cunning blade was actually for.

If this was written to be almost a mystery novel, then it nailed it because I truly had no clue what was going on. There was just enough intrigue to keep me going to the end. But honestly, I'm not glad I did.