Read if you like:
⚔️ Fantasy Books
✨ Magic
♥️ Romance

This one was super fun! I’ve never read anything from this author before but I really enjoyed the way this felt like a regency romance with fantasy elements brought in! It’s definitely action packed and maybe a bit too much going on at times as I did get a little lost, but that could also be just the world building phase of the story.

I also loved the daughter not having magic within a magical family as a plot point as it made me think of Aelin from TOG and I truly loved her character.

The narration was absolutely so well done and truly feel the narrators did such a good job with this one!

Thank you so much to the publisher for my ARC in exchange for my review!

A Crown of Ivy and Glass is the first novel in The Middlemist Trilogy. There are some elements of Bridgerton, ACOTAR, and From Blood and Ash, so I can see audiences of those stories wanting to read this one. The premise and cover are greatly enticing, and both made me want to read this story. Unfortunately, it just did not work for me. There is potential where the sequels could turn out better, but I am not sure how many readers will be willing since this one was a little lackluster. I am a fairly determined reader where I want to finish every novel that I start as the ending may surprise me, but this novel did make me put it down a lot and greatly make me consider DNF-ing it. Since I held out hope, I did end up finishing it, but, unfortunately, I do not want to pursue the sequel. Even though this novel did not work for me, other readers should give it a try as the reviews are greatly mixed, so there are readers out there that love it.

The story follows Gemma Ashbourne, the youngest daughter of a wealthy Anointed family, who is allergic to magic. She struggles with chronic pain and associated mental health issues, including anxiety, which is an amazing inclusion. She struggled to not let it affect her life while also knowing that there are limitations, so I loved this portrayal. The novel begins in the middle of the plot with Gemma and her two sisters, the eldest, Ferrin, and middle child, Mara with their father. I believe this series will have Ferrin as the main character of one novel and then Mara the main for the other, so I am not quite sure how this trilogy will come together. If this is true, then I believe it was a mistake starting with Gemma as it seemed Ferrin was the most captivating and would have kept more readers interested to continue.

The main story for Gemma is her helping the mysterious Talan d’Astier who is set on clearing his family’s name. Gemma’s character was difficult to like as she was selfish, shallow, and impulsive. Mentally her character is going through a lot, but there was a lot of back and forth with her thoughts and actions. I could try to connect with the intent to make her more complex and realistic with the inconsistencies, but, for me, the writing lacked the transitions between each to make them seem intentional. As for Talan, it took a bit for him to grow on me as a character, but he did get there. The romance between Gemma and Talan was expected but did seem to progress a little quickly. The dynamic between the two seemed to fall more towards YA than adult, but I can see the intent in the writing. I’ve seen both done with romance in fantasy romances meant for any age, but I did go into this expecting a bit more of the adult style. Generally, this novel was long, but I don’t believe the pages were allocated well enough to hook the reader. As this is the beginning of a trilogy, I do not believe it hooks the reader soon enough to make them want to read either the rest of the first novel or continue to the other two. Overall, I think the outline of the story works and the concept was cool, but I do not think the execution was quite there yet.

**I give a special thank you to Netgalley and the publisher, Dreamscape Lore, for the opportunity to read this enjoyable novel. The opinions expressed are completely my own.**

A beautiful setting and hopeless romantic FMC.
There is good representation of mental health, self-harm and chronic pain.
I do feel that the book could have been shorter but then this would have lost some of the lovely descriptive details.
At the start the pacing was slow but I enjoyed this part and it reminded me of Bridgerton.
At times there is some spice, the FMC knows what she wants and uses crude words - but I felt she was portrayed very sheltered so this seemed disconnected.
Sorry to say I wasn’t feeling the MMC so I did not feel fully invested.
I had an audio ARC of this book courtesy of NetGalley, this review is voluntary and my own. I feel the audio really worked and enjoyed this. It listened well at 2x speed.
Lots of fantasy/mythology elements, demons, mists and chimeras - all made for a good listen.

The saving Grace of this book is the accurate incorporation of mental health and chronic illness directly winding into the magic system.

As for the rest of the book. It dragged. The plot line and pacing kept changing and circling making it unenjoyable for the reader.

This makes a perfect audiobook.

Our FMC comes off as a petulant child instead of a morally grey character which I am assuming was meant.

I felt as though I was beta reading a first draft not previewing a nearly Final Cut.

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced review copy of this book.

I really like Claire Legrand's other books. I really wanted to like this novel being that it is her first attempt at writing an adult book. Unfortunately, I really hated it. Granted I was listening to the audiobook version, so you couldn't simply page back if you missed something or wanted to keep the characters straight. I made it only to about 30% through before I realized that my time was more valuable than to waste any more on listening to a book I was not at all enjoying. Going to say "pass" on this one. Sorry Ms. Legrand. I will look forward to trying your next one though based on the earlier books. Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this book early in exchange for my unbiased review.

I am so incredibly honoured to have received an arc for this authors latest trilogy.

I hadn’t read any of her work prior but immediately picked up Furyborn after reaching the end of this because I was desperate for more of her work!

I think that the description of this being similar to a cross between Bridgerton and ACOTAR is incredibly on point.

I also need to say that I am IN LOVE with Mr Bask and am desperate for the next book purely because of him.

The performance for this audiobook was sensational and really helped me get swept up in the story, which helps because the dialogue is tonally more historical fiction.

Claire Legrand's adult debut coming in with a bang. Gemma Ashbourne is the beautiful youngest daughter of a wealthy family, a family anointed with magic from the gods. Unfortunately, she's the only one in her family with no gift. In fact, magic causes her constant physical pain to even be around; not great in this world. At one of her family's lavish balls, she meets to the handsome and charming Talan d'Astier, and sparks fly immediately. He's full of secrets, though. He's there in an attempt to join high society and redeem his family name. Gemma seeks an end to her family's feud with the Bask family. Therefore, they strike up a bargain to help each other. As they grow closer, more dark and dangerous secrets come to light. Their troubles may just be connected, but answers will not come easily.

I am a big fan of Claire Legrand's Furyborn trilogy, so I was quite excited to start this new, more adult fantasy series. I wasn't disappointed. This is a great start for the trilogy. Our protagonist, Gemma, struggles with chronic pain, anxiety, and depression, and the first person pov gives a clear look into her state of mind; painfully relatable. You can't help but feel for her, even if she's not always the most likable. The romance... very spicy. Talan is one attractive man. I'm interested in the magic of this world for sure: the varied gifts given to the anointed, the mystery of the Middlemist, the powers of the demons, etc. There's a lot left to be explored in future books. I really liked the looks into the lives of Gemma's sisters, Farrin and Mara, and I can't wait to see more of their stories in the future entries. I really enjoyed this dark fantasy overall. The narrator in the audiobook is also great.

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for this ALC!

- the biggest issue I had with this book is it felt way too long. The pacing was off, and the first half really dragged. If I hadn’t had the audiobook, I would’ve DNFed because there’s no way I would’ve pushed through the beginning.
- I really did not like Gemma during the first half of the book. It felt like she was supposed to be a little morally grey, but she came off as an overly selfish and impulsive character who did not show any self reflection that resulted in growth.
- the spicy scenes felt really forced. For a book that compared itself to ACOTAR, it really reminded me of that line about his growls of pleasure drowned out the cries of the dying. It didn’t make sense with some of the other events happening, and it made Gemma’s selfish decisions feel more ridiculous.
- one thing I do feel like was unique and well done was the way Legrand incorporated mental health and chronic illness into her magical system. The idea of someone having an allergy-like reaction to Magic while being from a magical family was really intriguing, and the way that Gemma dealt with that was raw and caused the most humanizing scenes.
- The Magic system overall was unwieldy and hard to grasp, especially when you add in the second half of this book.

I really enjoyed this audiobook! The narrator was great, I loved her smooth voice. At first the main character Gemma wasn’t my favorite. As the story goes on though you get to learn more about her and realize there’s a lot more to her than just good looks and partying. The world building and storyline are very unique and intriguing in this book! I enjoyed the chemistry between Talon and Gemma. There were definitely a lot of twists and surprises in this book too. I can’t wait to read more of this series and get some more answers!

I really enjoyed this audiobook! The narrator was great, I loved her smooth, relaxing voice. At first I wasn’t sure how I liked the main character Gemma. She came across as someone shallow and vein, who cared for very little besides parties and beautiful people. As the story progresses, though you get to see who she truly is and why she came across that way. There are definitely some twists that I did not see coming too. I can’t wait to read more books in this series!

I was disappointed. The book is quite long (over 21 hours for the audiobook) and felt like it could have been edited down a lot or even divided into two books (I'm aware it is bk #1 of a series but could have been the first 2, perhaps). I didn't really like or feel drawn to the characters. The very few descriptive sex scenes made me roll my eyes and even laugh out loud sometimes. Sorry, I don't like writing negative reviews because my parents taught me "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything" - so I think I've already said too much?! The world-building was decent so I'm thinking 2.5 stars instead of 2 (so 3 on Goodreads).

Gemma is from a wealthy, and magical, family. Though the rest of her family has magic, her body repels it. She meets Talan and decides to strike a deal with him: she’ll help him navigate high society if he helps her take down the Basks, a rival family. But everything quickly spirals out of control…

Something that caught me off-guard was the amount of sex in this book. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, but I just wasn’t expecting this aspect.

As I have only read one other Claire Legrand book, and that book was a YA horror whereas this one is an adult fantasy, I had no idea what to expect going into this. However, I did end up enjoying this and I’m interested in reading more from this author!

DNF @ 40%

Overall,
I really love Claire Legrand and her other work. This book just did not work for me. I found the main character incredible annoying and struggled to find any connection with her which lead to me not caring at all what happened. I was hoping for some kind of pivotal character growth that would show that there was at least some chance that I would come to enjoy myself. Unfortunately, by the time I reached 40% I could not force myself to even pick the book back up. The story itself and the world building is interesting and I think that other people will enjoy this story. It was just not for me.

***I received an Advanced Audio Copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for a free and honest review.***

Ok honestly this was kinda weird. I’ll break up my review into 2 parts, the actual narration and then the story itself.

The narration at first was so breathy and quiet I struggled to hear it even with the volume turned up. It did improve as it went on and I think the dual narration worked well as we started to get Casamir’s POV. I will say that the narration style will likely be make or break for folks. It does feel like what you would imagine from a Grimm fairytales narrator, it feels a bit old world, stilted, and mysteriously. The narration isn’t overly emotional or dramatic, instead rendering the story very starkly. I found myself getting used to it as it went on, but certainly felt different than most audiobook narration I’m used to.

For the story itself. Well….listen do I come into at St. Clair books expecting masterful prose? No. Was it entertaining? Kind of. It wasn’t nearly as smutty as I expected, but it’s definitely got that hallmark hormones beyond reason aspect that I think St. Clair is known for. You’ll HAVE to suspend belief heavily and let go of a lot of the things you might usually expect like character development, romantic development, and an emotional arc as those are scant here. Everything moves very quick from one page to the next and while that’s somewhat expected for a novella, it’s definitely even more compressed here.

I didn’t hate it, didn’t love it, but I don’t regret reading this and I do think that for those looking for a dark, semi smutty fairytale novella, this will hit the mark. This isn’t in my usual genre of reading so it’s expected that this didn’t land for me but I think for St. Clair fans, this will be fine.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5, rounding up to 3.

Gemma and Talon,

I loved the world that this took place in! I found the mist to be a very interesting mysterious “big bad”.

The Trigger Warning at the beginning of the audiobook was important!! Gemma was not a main character that I could relate to. She was so interesting to attempt to read the narrative through though. I have never had self harm thoughts like her so I can’t speak to how accurate the portrayal was, but it felt like learning your best friends most intimate dark secrets through Gemma.

I found the book slowly paced as many others did, but it wasn’t enough for me to put down. All of the different family powers were so interesting to me and I wanted so badly to figure out why Gemma was the only one ever, to be born without a power. Following that in to the next book!!

I was so wishy washy on Talan. He’s the bad guy, he’s the love interest, he’s lying, he doesn’t care, he really does care! It was a roller coaster for sure. I did really like that the time period it was set in was sex positive! None of the women must save their virginity but men can explore.

Will be reading the next book when it comes out!

An exciting first book in a new series filled with magic, demons, and steamy romance! I understand other readers' opinion that the main character is unlikeable — she can be very spoiled and selfish — but I expect the character development seen in this story will likely continue throughout the trilogy, which I'm excited for.

I have also been really enjoying the increase I've been seeing lately in fantasy books including people with disabilities! Not only does Gemma suffer from panic disorder, anxiety, and depression but also chronic pain and illness due to her body's reaction to magic. It's interesting to see how magic affects her, and it adds to the world-building in a fascinating way.

I look forward to future books in the series!

3.5/5

Thank you Netgalley for providing a digital ARC.

The story starts strong but loses momentum halfway through, with an uneven pace that rushes romance and drags out certain elements. Though the ending sparks curiosity, overall, the book fails to meet my expectations. Evelyn Rose's narration in the audiobook adaptation, however, is a delightful experience, showcasing impeccable pacing and skillful use of tones and inflections that breathe life into the characters and enhance the storytelling, resulting in an enjoyable listening experience.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for providing me with this audiobook in return for my honest opinion.

DNF at 33%... I really always try to push through eARCS/audiobooks that I've been provided in order to give them a proper review but I just couldn't do it guys. If I do manage to go back and finish it (highly unlikely) I will update my review.

There is nothing wrong with the narration, the narrator does a really good job of separating and giving each character their own voice. I've bumped up my rating from a one star purely for the narration.

The writing isn't bad, I just feel like the plot is so so slow, it's just not really getting anywhere... And the FMC is just not likeable at all, I could not sympathise with her at all, she was insufferable! I also could not buy the love story, it feels forced and there's just no chemistry at all between Gemma and Talan.

Overall this book felt very YA, which is not a bad thing, but I believe it was marketed as a Bridgerton meets ACTOR.. That is definitely NOT the case. There was a lot of hype about this book but unfortunately it just falls flat.

3 stars!
Hmmm I loved the audiobook narrator but the plot pacing was really slow... At first, I thought the pacing would increase but it just got slower 😭.
I kept wishing for more plot depth and the writing style seems more YA than NA??? I was like is this NA or YA and then there's cringey spicy scenes and I'm like oh this is a NA. The chemistry between the main characters doesn't seem to be there...

2.75
This book had a very intriguing premise and good writing but sadly it turned into a bit of a slog for me. The gothic setting is fun but I didn't care about the character or the plot as much as I wanted to. The audiobook is very well done and the narrator's voice was nice to listen to even when the story wasn't engaging me.

Lady Gemma lives in a world of magic and yet she has none herself and experiences something similar to anxiety or depression when it is used around her. Her family is locked in a feud and their only hope is to slay the demon that started it all to end it. Gemma meets a handsome man named Talan who appears to be the perfect solution to both her loneliness and her family's dilemma. She makes a deal with him so that they can defeat the demon together, only she begins to wonder what all Talan is hiding from her...