‘GRACELESS HEART’ Book Review (some spoilers)
by Isabel Ibañez
Publisher: Saturday Books
Pub Date: January 13, 2026

Thank you, @netgalley and @saturdaybooks for the eARC in return for an honest review.

My Thoughts:
4.25⭐️ I honestly couldn’t stop thinking about this book each time I go to bed, still unfinished. A standalone, magical, slow burn romance, and based on Florence’s history and sites.

What I liked is the MMC💕, pacing, romance, no cliffhangers, character backstories explained except of one. Maybe they’ll get their own book.

What I didn’t like: the FMC can be stubborn and annoying, predictability, multitude of characters for my taste or my brain to remember, some unnecessary.

All in all, I enjoyed reading this book and would recommend to anyone who loves magic, intense yearning, historical figures, world building, and family dynamics.

Whew, I was stressed towards the end, still kinda. Graceless Heart was a great read. I loved the world building and the character development. All I want to do is hop back into the book and explore the world more. The book focused on Ravenna and an impossible task to free magic stones from stone. She has to navigate politics, religion, and her heart in order to save the ones she loves.

I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC for me to read, in exchange for an honest review. I was interested in the description of the book, the title, and the cover. I did not know anything about the author prior to this book.

Obviously, this book is several months away from publishing, so there were some typos and errors that I found at times. Hopefully the editors are well-equipped to tackle those with attention to detail. The main pitfalls of this book include only a few things:

- Some sections are drawn out and way too puffed up. The number of times Saturnino is repeatedly described in the same, contradictory way gets old fast. Every male love interest in these newer fiction and fantasy novels just has to be brooding, mercurial, and violent, doesn't he? I would disagree, but what do I know? I'm just a lifelong reader who studied English at a four-year, major university and spent a lot of time examining human nature through literature and history.
- Pacing. Sometimes the pacing was just so slow and I was reading chapters from third-person limited point of view, with characters I did not care about at all. I understood how they served a purpose in the story and gave us information to round out the reading experience, but I still felt some chapters didn't really need to be there, and this pacing critique also ties back to the extra words dedicated to stuff that just isn't terribly important to the story. The entire novel is written in third-person limited, but sometimes the narration is attached to other characters apart from the main character, Ravenna. A feature, that might also be a flaw.
- Lastly, the romance. A pitfall in the grand scheme of things. I was not convinced of their love, because so much time was spent proving that Saturnino was a jerk. Then he became not-a-jerk-anymore, but it happened rapidly following one scene. There was a point I asked myself whether the romance would turn out better posed as a tragedy. Not many romance novels these days will risk the ire of their readership to give us something deeply sorrowful and memorable. It's always happy endings, often to the detriment of actually saying something meaningful. Modern romances seem to like rushing those declarations of love, and immediate consummation after, which feels cheap.

The magic system is rather simple. Don't expect anything complex or deep.

I'll still give it three stars, mainly because the storyline was still interesting enough for me to keep reading. I don't feel like there's enough in the romance to set it apart from others, but overall I don't regret reading.

A separate note: I don't feel the cover design properly demonstrates the overall tone and feel of the novel. The bright colors will catch your attention in a bookstore, sure, but this book doesn't quite capture the vibrant colors of the jacket in its prose.

this had such a strong start, but around 30% i grew bored and tired. i'm not a fan of insta love, and this was pretty insta lovey. i loved the italian setting and the historical elements, but i don't think this was for me. please still give it a try if you're interested. your favorite book may not be mine ☺️ thank you netgalley for the arc!!

Graceless Heart is a historical romantasy set in Medici-era Italy that follows Ravenna Maffei, a sculptress, as she enters an art competition for an immortal family in order to save her brother from certain death. In order to save him, she uses a secret magical ability she possesses, which is forbidden, catching the interest of the dei Luni family, who then make her their captive. Why? They need her to release Nightflame from stones for a reason they won't explain.

To make matters worse, the Pope's war against magic is reaching fever pitch, and he wants to use her as a spy to get what he needs. As a result, Ravenna is caught in a tug-of-war between the pope's treachery and the seductive connection she feels for the merciless Saturnino dei Luni.

All in all, this was a richly drawn historical fantasy. I liked the Florentine backdrop, the Medici era time period which was full of religiosity and restriction, and the magic element, which was present but not overwhelming. The romance and magical mystery fell a bit flat, but it was still a pleasant escape.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for my review.

unfortunately this book didn’t really do much for me. i previously enjoyed trips to egypt with the author, but though i think medici era florence is fascinating (i would have hated them if i was alive then, lbr, but i’m not so they’re fun) i just did not like this. her writing can be pretty flowery, which is lovely scene-setting, but the plot just didn’t really make altogether too much sense to me.

the gist is that a sculptress-in-training, ravenna, has magic, but after a terrible accident as a child she grows up hating magic and never ever uses it, both because of her parents’ hatred and the catholic church’s hold on her soul. never ever—until chapter 2 when she needs to win a sculpting contest but isn’t good enough to do it on her own, so she whips out a magic rock that she’s kept handy this whole time and then exposes herself as a witch to her entire town. she’s whisked away by the powerful & immortal luni family, and taken to their estate where she learns they have set a task for her and it’s either complete it or forfeit her life. one of the sons is enchanted by her, the only human he’s ever not been disgusted by. there is a plotline where his sister is obsessed with him seducing her, there is a plotline where ravenna makes a demand of the family and instead of killing a family member and forcing her to do the task which is absolutely what they would have done, they pretend like she has some sort of hold over them and they acquiesce, which is how the medici’s & one leonardo davinci are introduced. a gruff and mysterious courier who can’t help but aid her against all previous character building, a corrupt (obviously) pope, a spy in the palazzo, an easter mass massacre, a joust & a war dragon happen. we love ombretta the cat. a saccharinely sweet ending.

i was very annoyed at the continuity issues—the lunis explain their top secret task, threaten ravenna with horrible death, and then just let her maid deliver biscuits to their top secret dungeon? it took ravenna 54% of the book to wonder why the lunis had set this task for her. saturnino tells her their origin story that no human has ever heard, but then they freely discuss it in front of household staff. ravenna & saturnino have like, complicated and extensive conversations via eye contact. i think it kind of felt like the author had a bunch of scenes and plot points really clearly in her head, but when it came time to connect them it was just glazed over so we could get to the next elaborate thing.

i suppose i was meant to be charmed and intrigued by the MMC, saturnino, but he was weird and SO many times he whispered things at her temple or against her forehead and if you think about the logistics of doing that—it’s really weird. very weird. also, at one point he was described as having a, and i quote, “yuletide scent,” EXCUSE ME?

i wish that we could have seen more of the stones in action & i wish that the pretty cool title came from a better place than a throwaway line about the pope.

some notes i made while reading:
- idk man if i knew a magical creature was scaring everyone & doing murder at will i just would not care how good looking he was. i think that’s my big problem with these kinds of books. murder’s like a hard deal breaker for me.
- saturnino hates christianity that’s my kinda book bf!!!!!!!!!!!! (apparently murder isn’t a hard deal breaker)
- i hope she doesn’t get a UTI from the bathtub. i can’t imagine they have great medication for that
- what in the edward cullen?? he cannot possibly renesme her. no. he’s marmor lunense.
- very convenient re: the witch’s blood thing slowing down her aging now that she’s of age but didn’t slow her down in her youth. also who gave her her powers, btw?

overall, this wasn’t for me, but i think it’s a personal preference and if you like her previous work you’ll enjoy this. thanks to netgalley for the arc!

My thanks to Netgalley, St. Martin's Press/ Saturday Books, and Isabel Ibañez for thr eARC in exchange for a review of this book.

This is the first book by Isabel Ibañez that I've tried to read. As much as I enjoyed the world, the desciptions and writing, I'll admit, it took me too long to read this book. I wanted to love it but within the first couple of chapters, the FMC, Ravenna, just started to make me grumble.

Graceless Heart follows Ravenna, a young sculptress who helps her family run an inn. When her brother ends up imprisoned, Ravenna decides to enter a contest hosted by an immortal family. Her prize would be to have her brother released and all his charges dropped. Except, in order to win the contest, Ravenna decides to reveal her magical ability, something she has only told her family about and has kept a secret for years. Her reveal makes her a target and she is kidnapped by the Luni family, taken to their home in Florence, and told they expect her perform a miracle for them, using her ability as a sculptress and her magic.

It all sounds so good, honestly. I was hooked on the cover art, the synopsis, the info at the beginning of the book about the "Pietra Magiche." I thought, definitely, absolutely going to like this book. But then Ravenna starts making some foolish decisions. The book opens with Ravenna sneaking through her hometown, carrying a ladder, so she can try to break her brother out of his cage. There's a curfew and she's not supposed to be outside at all. She also decides to enter the contest, which is frowned upon because she's a woman. At the contest, she gets ready to blurt out to the people around her about something she saw the night before and I just thought, WAIT, you are actually going to admit in front of everyone snarling at you for your audacity of entering the contest that you were out past the curfew?

But it was early pages, no bother, right? Except this continued with Ravenna. She was impulsive in a way that made her seem childish. I double-checked the synopsis and I'm not sure I would call this an "adult" book. The more I read, the more I felt that Ravenna came off as a teenager. Maybe this would have been better marketed as a "New Adult" story but I don't think that distinction really exists in Fantasy Romance. In the end, this felt more like a young adult release, which is not meant as a slight to the book. It just doesn't seem to fit with the characterization given to the main female lead and I had certain expectations for the character that did not fit with what I thought this book was going to be.

To make matters more frustrating, once Ravenna starts to interact with Saturnino, the eldest son and heir of the Luni family, most of her thought process becomes "he's so handsome, he's a killer, he's seducing me to get what he wants, but he has to care for me, even just a little, I'm such an idiot for believing his lies," etc., ad nauseum. Which again, made me think she's just a kid. Besides that, Saturnino is given barely any characterization outside of he's a knight, he's ruthless, he's in charge of keeping Ravenna in line. It takes too long to see anything more than that facade for the character and it left me feeling unimpressed by him and his connection to Ravenna. Their "love story" felt like it needed more development, more actual interactions that didn't feel like a game of cat and mouse. For a large part of the book, I truly believed that Saturnino was just stringing Ravenna along so when everything started rolling and their love story ended up being true, I was left feeling like it didn't work for me.

Then add to that Ravenna's driving motivations for everything she does, the salvation of her immortal soul and the love of her family. Seems reasonable enough for motivation except that nothing given in the book made me like her family. Ravenna has spent YEARS making herself indispensable to her family, doing absolutely anything and everything she can with running the inn and taking care of her siblings so that her parents will love her in spite of her magic. Which right away raised so many red flags for me. But then, on the morning of the contest, Ravenna goes to give her mother a kiss goodbye because it is highly likely she won't see her again any time soon and the woman flinches before Ravenna touches her. NO, just no, I don't see family devotion, in any way shape or form. Later in the book, Ravenna claims that she and her brother Antonio are "best friends" and I thought, since when? You have literally never spoken of him like that. There have been no reminiscences about childhood antics, about how he spent time with you, helped you with chores, encouraged your sculpting. Nothing at all and yet, when Antonio enters the story again, we're supposed to feel Ravenna's anguish at trying to reason with her brother and I thought, nah, I don't buy it. There is just not enough to convince me that this girl should be so motivated by the love she has for her family.

I also had an issue with the pacing of the book. The story felt like it had nothing happening except for the same scenes over and over again. Ravenna tries to do her task, the Luni family threatens her family back home, Saturnino watches her work, and Ravenna struggles with her attraction to him. Wash, rinse, repeat. I had to put the book down and do something else because I was getting tired of the same scenes again and again. Ravenna has a deadline to complete her task, she has multiple people demanding that she work for them OR ELSE and yet I felt no urgency to her dilemma. I didn't care about her family or where she came from, I didn't believe her growing connection to Saturnino, I didn't care for the side plots involving the villains motivations. In the end I was left feeling a bit, I guess underwhelmed, is the word I'm looking for.

I wanted more from the world building, about the magic system but because Ravenna was raised to believe her magic is a sin, readers aren't shown anything more than what we are given at the start of the book. We're told other magical creatures exist, vampires, witches, the fae, but they have no real bearing on the story. Again, I was expecting more than what was given based on the book description. The world is so wonderfully detailed, from the descriptions of the colors to the architecture but it's just background. The characters and their troubles just fell flat on their face. I wanted to like them more than I did and that is not a good feeling to end a book with when all is said and done.

Rating on my scale: 4.5 Stars. This book has so many ingredients that should have worked and for me but it just left too much of a sour taste and a feeling of just being disgruntled overall. So many people were against Ravenna and it left me feeling frustrated and in the end, I'm left analyzing everything I had issues with as opposed to remembering everything I enjoyed about the book. I'm glad Ravenna got everything she wanted, it was the least that could come about for her in the book. I might try another book by Ibañez in the future, maybe, hopefully. Fingers crossed, and all that jazz.

Thank you netgalley for the arc!

Absolutely love the cover of this book. I found it to be well-researched. Would definitely recommend to someone who enjoys historical fiction. The setting is very well thought out and written out which added to the story, Characters are well developed. I’m not sure what it was but at times something felt off about the female main character to me, maybe it was a personality thing. But overall I did enjoy reading the book. Would say it’s a little bit more historical fiction than romance.

Obsessed. Ibanez is quickly becoming an automatic read for me. I loved the What the River Knows universe and enjoyed the book she released before that as well. This feels in the same vein as The Familiar. Apparently I love Italian/Spanish, dark/gothic, vaguely religious romantasy. The characters are great, diverse, a bit unyielding and all fighting their own battles in the context of a larger rebellion. Mixing in the famous Medici excited the history nerd in me. The magical element is well developed without being unnecessarily distracting. I ate up the romance. We love a man who yearns. I devoured this in one sitting.

This is certainly a book that kept me on my toes. I couldn’t predict some of the twists and turns and I greatly appreciated that.

first the cover is AMAZING, it draws you in enough to grab it based on that alone, the story is just a bonus.
While there was somethings I really didn't think fit, the writing was beautiful enough that i was able to look past them and put it up to minor differences.

Ravenna is a secret sculptor, not revealing her skill because it is forbidden for females. Her brother is a rebel who gets caught and in order to save his life, Ravenna joins a sculpting contest in order to win a boone from a powerful and rich family. Who also are immortals and happen to be looking for a sculptor with hidden magic. Which Ravenna has. Just writing this makes me go huhhhhh....but even with how odd the plot sounds, it works. Mostly.

Ravenna is head strong and will do anything to save her family. The MMC is immortal with his own agenda that stays hidden till the last few chapters. I'm still confused on how they work together but they do. The story was interesting enough, but did drag in the middle for me. I loved it was a historical fantasy, but it gets bogged down with the out there premise.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the eARC.

Thank you NetGalley for the chance to review this ARC!

I should come to expect that this author will make me audibly gasp and have to take a minute to process what I read. The amount of times I was shocked by what I read and clutched my chest, was just like reading another duopoly of hers. This book is by far a 5 star read, if not higher!

In a world where magic exists, but those who had magic are ostracized from society by the pope. The on going battle between Rome and the Medici Family uproots our main protagonist, Ravenna. Riddled with a secret of her own and determined to save her family, her brother, she puts herself into a dangerous situation with the immortal family. Throughout her time with the Luni family to perform a “miracle” she learns if she cant trust her heart and the most lethal person she’s met.

The story was beautifully written and captured my attention straight from the start. From there the story just became wild and twists and turns when you least expect it. In all my time reading about magic and the creatures that inhabit these worlds, I was not expecting what was in this book. I had to stop and really think about it. That’s how I know this was a good book.

Every single character was so well written and I felt some sort of emotion for. At times I thought about throwing my reader across the room at the actions some took, and to me that is another reason why I enjoyed this so much. I felt something, whether it was rage, compassion, kicking my feet because the yearning. This book was so good end of story. 10 out of 10 will be picking up the physical copy of this book!

Loved this standalone fantasy novel! Thank you for not making me wait another year for another book. It was a really well researched historical fantasy/romance but was not anywhere near "What the River Knows" duology that I was hoping for. That romance was stronger and the mystery was more intriguing. Overall, this is a solid 3 stars. Nothing to rave home about, but definitely wasn't a bad book and will be a hit for some readers. Unfortunately, I wasn't one of them.

With gorgeous prose (as always) Isabel gives us a stunning historical fantasy standalone. She clearly did her research because Renaissance Italy was promised and delivered throughout this book. Our main character is determined and clever. The romance was not my favorite here but nevertheless I loved the banter between them. Definitely recommend giving this one a read!

Also how gorgeous is this cover??

Huge thanks to Saturday Books and NetGalley for the ARC!!

Thank you Netgally for the arc! The book cover is beautiful, and the plot sounded so unique. The first few chapters were incredibly intriguing, but then the developing plot and romance fell flat for me. I thought the FMC came off as whiny, and at times it was difficult to stay motivated to read.

Thank you netgalley for the arc!

The cover is really pretty but the romance fell flat for me. This book isn’t bad it’s a well-researched historical fiction set in Renaissance Italy, with solid writing, interesting details, and some standout moments. If you're into rich historical settings and decent characters, you'll likely enjoy it. However, if you're looking for a sweeping, romantic love story, it may not fully deliver on that front.

I have previously enjoyed Isabel Ibañez’s “Secrets of the Nile” duology and was greatly looking forward to this release. Unfortunately, this fell flat for me.

In the first half of the book, the writing itself was problematic for me. There is a lot of repetition (both in action and in phrases), and I struggled not to dnf.

The activity picked up in the last quarter of the book, but the pacing was off and the character reveal and action predictable. The religiousness of the book also was problematic.

The scene in the river was poignant, but overall this read as ya. I really like the cover and can imagine this as a beautiful edition. Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for the e-arc.

Like with many of Isabel Ibanez’s recent books, I leave this one feeling many different things. One of my favorite things about her writing is the research she does and the way she weaves in gorgeous historical elements, and she delivered once again on this front! Beautiful descriptions of the various settings, cultural aspects, and political conflicts. I was a little thrown off by the reveal that Saturnino was a statue who had been brought to life. I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about it, and it took me out of the story a bit. While I never fully bought into the dynamic between Ravenna and Saturnino, I did enjoy the scene where she made the choice to save him from repeatedly drowning. I had been feeling like the story was losing me, but that scene pulled me back in! With that being said, there was something that felt off about the pacing of their relationship, and by the ending certain things felt rushed or like they were happening without the necessary build-up scenes. While this book was not my favorite of hers, I will continue to read the stories that Isabel Ibanez puts out! She does have a gorgeous writing style, and I love her historical knowledge.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

I never knew I needed an Italian renaissance fantasy until now! I really liked this! It was a 4 star for me until about 60% through and then it got really good. I liked how unique the plot and setting was. I could tell the author did a lot of research and was so passionate about it. I loved the magic, the history and especially the romance. Also the cover is so beautiful!