This books was a fun ride for sure, but the more I consider the details for this review, the more holes I find in it. So if you're in for a gritty, magical, romantic tale with a killer FMC, then this is for you. Diving deeper, it has a few issues.

Pacing: The beginning was slow. I put it down several times in the first 10% of the book, and felt discouraged at how long this book was. I felt a bit blind as to what the magic system is, understanding the overarching plot, and the yearning.

Character development: There's a small group of main characters so it wasn't overwhelming to learn who everyone was. But even at the end of the book, I couldn't envision them, or feel any true emotional tie to any of them, even the FMC and MMC. Grey and Kier were a pair of mage and well, they did their quest, but that's kinda it.

Magic system: I was intrigued by the magic system, of always having someone giving and someone taking. The beginning of the book also explained some of what the mages could do with their magic, but it was never expanded beyond that. And I realized as I look back, every time Grey/Kier did some big magic, we did get to see it. There was battle and gore and lots of healing, but she blacks out and then her retinue glosses over the aftermath, so we don't feel the consequences of her magic, ever.

Grey/Kier's relationship: I guess it's slow burn, and yearning, and some light fade to black spice. There's moments of clarity for them, which made me think alright, now let's go kick ass, but nothing much changed. I feel like the whole tether thing could be fleshed out with more emotion and words, rather them still guessing at each other's feelings all the time. What is the point of this unique tether if you still can't communicate?

If you don't look too closely and just read it for the quest, and get past the first 15-20% of the book, it's hard to put down. There is a definite "I wanna see what happens next, what will she do/decide" mentality. And it's a standalone, with the story tying up at the end.

Thank you to Forever Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own

Thank you NetGalley and Forever for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I let the hype get to me a little bit on this one. So many people are absolutely loving this and doing an amazing job telling people how great it is and after a month with no five star reads I convinced myself this was going to be the one. I wanted to be immediately drawn into this world of bonded knights and mages fighting for their lives in a continent at war. Unfortunately, I found the beginning of this to be so slow. It's hard to tell with a digital copy but it felt like the chapters were quite long. I didn't find myself really starting to get invested in the story until the quest part of the journey began and some side characters joined our knight, Grey, and mage, Kier as they journeyed to deliver the supposed lost heir to raise her sunken kingdom. (I went back to read this synopsis as I wrote this and wow that really spoils such a big part of the first section!) We have another knight and mage pair, Ola and Brit respectively as well as a regular solider, Eron and the heir, Sela. I loved how all the personalities of this group meshed and worked together.

I found the magic really interesting in this world. Magic is not possible within the continent this is set at without a pair of people. You need a mage and a well. The mages are the ones doing the actual magic but they cannot do magic without a well to draw power from. Since the countries have been at war for nearly two decades the wells we see are all knights, since they need to be able to fight to protect themselves and their mages. The mages are able to all do some basic magics like creating magelight in the darkness. However, they also have affinities for either flesh, materials, or elemental forces. These affinities are further narrowed down into specialties. Kier specializes with the heart and he is able to affect the hearts of others, capable of slowing or stopping it completely. Our other main mage in the book, Brit, is a materialist and specializes in metals. She's created a nice arsenal of weapons for herself and companions to use.

I can't end this review without mentioning the yearning. Grey and Kier grow up together and have known each other for most of their lives when Grey is relocated to Kier's small town after being orphaned. The intimate knowledge these two have of the other simply because they've been living in each other's pocket made this book so wild to read. The book is told from Grey's point of view using third person narration, so while we stay with her and her all consuming pining it is also so clear to the reader that Kier is right there with her but these two dummies refuse to see it! Overall, I did really enjoy this book after a slow start and am very excited to read the companion books.

Reading the synopsis, this should have been the perfect book for me but I really struggled to finish this. It fell flat a lot.

Part of my difficulty was that none of the characters had fleshed out personalities. It was so hard to latch on and care about anyone in particular, they all lacked substance. For a non-YA book with characters in their mid- to late-twenties, they should know themselves and be more three-dimensional. Compounding this problem is the super repetitive descriptions of people and places, though maybe this gets fixed before final publication. But literally word-for-word, copy + paste again a sentence I already read a paragraph ago. It was grating.

Another disappointment was the magic system. The bonded pair aspect was interesting, but no magic happens on-page! Grey feels “the power” and then blacks out as her mage uses her power for magic off-page. We don’t really see any magic/fantasy elements, which. for me, defeats the whole purpose of reading a fantasy book. We finally see some magic in the last couple of chapters, but it felt too little too late.

My last gripe is that this book is being marketed as a Lady Knight book when there’s really no battles in this book, the character rarely wears armor (even though it’s on the cover) nor does she use swords like ever, and her character literally doesn’t have the title of knight… If you’re looking for the vibes of a feminine knight story, you’ll be disappointed.

The Second Death of Locke by V L Bovalino was a highly anticipated book for me that unfortunately didn’t really go the way I had hoped.

It follows Grey and Kier as they are on a quest to return a lost child home. They are also hopelessly in love with each other but can’t communicate very well.

My main issue with this book is the lack of communication between the two main characters. I never really felt the love between them. They seemed a lot more like friends to me and the romance felt kind of forced. I also think the pacing was a bit strange for this being the first in a trilogy. It felt like a standalone but also didn’t have enough of the world in it.

I do think a lot of people will love this. I’m very picky about heavily romantic fantasy because there is always a balance issue but I can see myself recommending this to others that I think will enjoy it.

4.25⭐ rounded down to 4. This book started as a sooooolid 5⭐ for me. A lady knight? A bonded pair? A lost heir story with high stakes and captivating worldbuilding and lore? YES PLEASE. However, some irritants—especially in the second half—made me slightly lower my rating.

This book is enthralling, devastating, and refreshing. The prose is neat and it’s obvious that the author knows where she’s going with this. I often complain that novels feel “rushed” nowadays, i.e. that they lack editing rigour. But not here—here, the story feels well planned and the writing polished, and there are so many details that feel like they were added with a purpose. *chef’s kiss* It has everything I need to be an instant top read. I’m not going to go into more details about all that I’ve loved, since I feel it’s pretty self-explanatory. However, the 3 things that disappointed me might need a meatier explanation:

1. The romance. I didn’t find it believable that two grown people who are very close and very comfortable with their sexuality and very touchy-feely wouldn’t just errr… get it on. Don’t get me wrong—I love a good slow burn. But the sheer amount of denial here annoyed me at some point.

2. The FMC. I feel like Grey didn’t have much of a personality outside of her obsession for Kier. She also felt very immature for her age: impulsive, reckless, and self-centred. Most of her problems were of her own making! I feel like a dual POV structure would have made her more palatable.

3. The ease of resolution. Our MCs have their share of MAJOR barriers and issues to face, but there always seems to be a convenient solution at hand (deus ex-machina, side characters believing just about anything), which made the stakes feel lower.

In any case, I’m still looking forward to reading the sequel!

If you like single-POV stories with 3rd-person narration, epic fantasy series with a heavy romance subplot, lady knights, high stakes, political intrigue and warfare, chapter epigraphs, and the slowest slow burns, you’ll probably love this one!

🤍 Captivating magic system and worldbuilding
🤍 The MMC and side characters
🤍 Well-rounded, flawed characters
🤍 Complex political intrigue
🤍 Interesting chapter epigraphs
🤍 Neat prose
❌ Romance plotline (too slow and circular)
❌ Excessive use of convenient solutions
❌ The FMC (lack of personality, recklessness)
❌ Most issues of the FMC’s own making

Tropes to expect: friends to lovers, slowwwww burn romance, reverse “Lady and Knight”, forbidden bonding, lost heir, source of all magic.

Unfortunately, I started reading this and realized that I am not the target audience for this book. While I believe there are a lot of people out there who will love this book, I couldn't finish it. There are aspects to this story that are not enjoyable for me.

Points of Issue:
- pacing
- infodumping
- blah characters

Many thanks to Read Forever and NetGalley for the preview. All opinions are my own.

4.5 stars

OH THE YEARNING! Pump it right into my veins. This is childhood friends to lovers done perfectly, along the lines of, of course it’s always been you, you idiot. Add in some found family, questing, and sacrifices galore, and you have this gem of a book.

This is a gritty book; you can feel the mud coating everything, the cold and wet seeping through, the blood stains that won’t come out, and the gore still stuck in your hair. But you can also feel the longing, the shared glances, the understanding without words, and absolute certainty that these characters would die for each other.

I was absolutely gripped by this story, and Grey and Kier definitely brought me to tears a few times. I loved the whole crew, and their allies. This is a self-contained story with a super satisfying ending. I saw the author say that the future books will be interconnected standalones, and that makes sense with how this concluded.

Highly recommend! A worthy add to the year of the Lady Knight!

Lady knights is a trend I can definitely get on board with. While this is a fantasy with fantastic world building and writing, my favorite aspect was the romance. This honestly surprised me. I am not a huge romance lover. Maybe it’s just because I just watched season 3 of Bridgerton, but the love story in this was a far more extreme version of Penelope and Colin. The author wrote yearning so well. The two main characters were so in love with each other and such idiots for half the book, but in this best of ways. It is the first childhood best friends to lovers I have fallen in love with. Their love and devotion to one another was truly beautiful. I loved the setting and imagery all throughout the story. It was very atmospheric. Our FMC’s backstory reminded me a bit of Anastasia with her being the sole survivor of a noble family. The mystery of the isle of Locke kept me eagerly turning pages. This book is slated to be a series, but honestly I thought it wrapped up pretty well on its own. I am eager to see what the author does next.

I wanted to like this book more than I did. Female knights, bloody battles, politics, power plays, I’m all in. The missing heir, the magic system, that’s fine. But … while the book tried to deliver on a few of the ideas, it never followed through with any of them.

A bloody battle, great, yay! And Grey feels nauseous at the deaths and the blood, sick with worry when Kier gets injured, feels grief for every casualty on her side — but it’s all just lip service. She never feels anything beyond the first moment, and it leaves her looking rather callous. Politics, sure. Five kingdoms fighting over the missing heir to a magical sixth! But it’s all very simple and even with all the battles and subterfuge, it’s all surface level and simplistic. Now, this could be because, seen through Grey’s eyes, the politics aren’t all that interesting to her, but it’s still a miss for me.

But when I look back on the book as a whole, one thing really stands out for me: there are no consequences for anything. Grey and Kier use magic, a lot of it, with disastrous results. Grey goes unconscious so she never has to see the aftermath. Grey has a super duper secret, but her friends already know and are fine with it so she never has to deal with any of their suspicion or questions or opinions. Grey and Kier do another magical thing, and Grey passes out, only to wake up with everything already handled for her. There are never consequences — bad or good — to anything. It’s just a serious of adventures with the same characters and no sense that anything matters.

With everything just being action, action, action, the end … there’s never an emotional moment to go “Yay, they made it!” or “Curses, those villains, grr!” Instead it’s just, “Oh, Grey’s unconscious again. Time for a scene change.” Nothing Grey does means anything. Nothing anyone does means anything.

I’m sorry, this didn’t work for me. It’s repetitive, hollow, and lackluster. It’s not terrible, by any means, but I’m certainly not interested enough to read a sequel. Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC.

3.5 stars. I gotta say, I thought this would be a 5 star read but it ended up being kind of unremarkable. Everything that played out felt like a movie I've seen 100 times, nothing truly surprised me. This was not a bad book at all nor was it badly written, it just didn't captivate me the way I'd hoped. The politics and magic system are complex but easy to follow along if you pay attention. The developing love story is beautiful but again, I just felt like something was missing. The ending was very anticlimactic and while I was glad everything worked out for our main characters, I wish there'd been a twist or some other element of surprise. I would still recommend this. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

The Second Death of Locke was one of my most anticipated reads for 2025 and I'm happy to report it was everything I wanted and more!! The yearning and anguish were absolutely top tier and I think it's changed my brain chemistry permanently. I loved Grey and Kier's relationship and dynamic. Those two dinguses were SO obviously in love with each other but just kept convincing themselves the other was just nice like that. I enjoyed the action sequences and magic battles, along with a world with lore that engrossed me from the first page. I really have nothing but wonderful things to say about this book. Grey and Kier's story will live in my head rent free for a very long time, and I can't wait to read more from Bovalino! If you enjoy a tragic story with fascinating magic, unconditional love, mutual pining, and found family, pick up The Second Death of Locke immediately.

Thank you to Forever Publishing, NetGalley, and the author for sending me an early copy!

This was a solid 4 star read for me. I quite enjoyed reading about a lady knight! The yearning in the first half of the book was so well done and then the romance really picks up in the second half. I loved the themes of love and sacrifice and found family.

Highly recommend!

I am HOWLING. I am INCANDESCENT. I am clawing at the walls of my enclosure. This is SO GOOD I DO NOT HAVE THE LANGUAGE TO DESCRIBE IT. I do not feel like trying for it. I am going to sell so many copies of this book at my store, I am telling you now.

Coming back to edit my review with actual thoughts since really I should not have reviewed this so sloppily:

This was a really gripping romantic fantasy novel. The tension between the two romantic leads was soaked in history, and the passion between the two was thick, dense and chewy. The narrator had a clear voice, and the way she spoke about her love interest was deeply erotic.

The world-building is unique and fascinating. I loved the magic system, and I loved how magic worked in the novel. It didn't feel like it made things easier for them, instead it was a real and integral part of the book. This didn't have fantasy layered on like icing, instead it was embedded into the narrative.

The plot, the romance and the world building were all seamlessly integrated in a deeply satisfying way. My only complaint is that this book ends so satisfyingly I'm having a hard time imagining what the next books could be. I feel like I read a complete novel, and I don't really know that I need more between these two characters. Knowing that this is intended to be the first of a trilogy has me curious where there's left to go, because this novel didn't leave a lot of wiggle room.

4.25 stars!

The yearning, the DEVOTION! This is romantic fantasy as it should be and surely the start to a great trilogy.

A mage is nothing without their well, and beyond their magical connection Grey and Kier have developed a heart-wrenching devotion to one another on and off the battlefield. When the lost heir of a sunken nation surfaces and they are sworn to protect her, secrets come to life and Grey and Kier are forced to acknowledge how much they would truly sacrifice for each other.

I love a magic system that relies on a pair of people and this is just one of the peak version of that. Grey and Kier have such a tender relationship that contrasts so well with the brutality of the war, court politics, and Grey's backstory. I think this balances romance and fantasy really well, in that the plot doesn't feel like it operates only to put them in romantic situations, but rather their romance has to persist despite plot events. Bonus points for the queer-normative world and the fact that Grey and Kier are bi4bi with I love. I could have used some more angst and drama personally, maybe a more slow burn romance as well, but I'm hoping that the next books in the series will ratchet up the political intrigue and that will be more satisfying, especially since I'll already be invested in the characters at that point.

Suffice to say I will be continuing the series and eagerly awaiting news of the sequel! Can't wait for others to get their hands on this.

Thank you to V. L. Bovalino and Forever for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!

Happy reading!

Wow! This was terrific!! I did not want this story to end. Thrilling and moving and romantic. So much happens in this book!! I’m sad that it is over. I’m dying to know what the other books in the series will be about. I was fully expecting a massive cliffhanger but this was a completed story which was so refreshing. Highly recommend!

The Second Death of Locke is an adult romantic fantasy set in a world full of knights, mages and magic. Grey Flynn is no normal magical well, she is the secret lost heir to Locke, a fallen island where all magic and its power is rooted from. Bond with her mage, Kier, they set off on a dangerous quest to retrieve a lost girl and accidentally set off a series of events that forces Grey to confront her greatest fears; will she bel able to sacrifice herself and her love in order to bring back her kingdom?

The Second Death of Locke is for the yearners out there. The affection between Grey and Kier had me immediately hooked right from the start because friends to lovers as a trope will get me everytime. I absolutely adored their dynamic as knight and mage and really enjoyed the world-building. Although, I will have to say for those looking for an epic high fantasy lady knight story, this one might not be the one. While there were some really great epic fantasy moments with a really unique magic system and lore, this is definitely a romance story at the centre with all the pining and longing you could want between our two main characters.

This is a standalone but I’ve heard that there will be more books set in this world in the future, and I am eagerly waiting for them now!

Thank you to Netgalley and Forever Publishing for this e-arc. All opinions in this review are my own.

4.25/5⭐️ A romantic epic fantasy with a quest and childhood friends to lovers arc? Yes please!

This fantasy and magic system felt so fresh. I've never seen a magic system before that requires two people (a mage and a well) to perform magic. I loved the bits of lore about Locke and the mage/well bond dropped throughout the story.

If you want a medieval knight fantasy with a solid balance of plot and romance then this will be for you!

Thank you Forever and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This has been briefly featured on my TikTok @alireadsanywhere twice but a full review will be posted later in the week!

I had to DNF. The concept was very interesting but the execution was a little sloppy. The writing style was not necessarily my favorite, gave a lot of random information in between important scenes for context, but it just didn’t flow properly to me

I adored everything about this book. The world and its magic system felt so fresh and unique. The fact that both mages and wells are useless without the other was so compelling. The relationship between Kier and Locke made me obsessed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen childhood friends to lovers done so well. There was nothing cringey about how they come together, and there was never any doubt that they didn’t love each other. The mutual yearning was to die for. Kier is now one of my top tier book boys. He’s ridiculously loyal, brave, confident, and very very aware of his partner. I loved how non sexual touches were emphasized as demonstrating love. This book was incredible as a standalone. Nothing felt rushed, and I felt like we spent so much time with all the characters. Their development was rewarded slowly but surely. The ending was so satisfying. It brought up interesting concepts of love and sacrifice.

4.5 - I loved it.

From the very beginning, the story sets itself apart. The relationship between Grey and Kier is deeply familiar and affectionate. The yearning and deep-rooted love was written so well, and a welcome departure from the formulaic relationships saturating the genre. I felt so deeply invested in their story, and protective of them when the stakes start getting higher.

The plot was interesting and paced very well. The magic system was cool and pretty original. I think my only complaint and critique has to do with the world building. The story could have benefitted by fleshing out the details of the history of conflict between the 5 nations. The story is very character focused, which is great, but as a fantasy reader I enjoy all the lore and detail of a well developed world and this one felt a little flat for me. Also, while I was fully invested in Grey and Kier, and even Sela to a point, I did not much care about any of the other side characters, Additionally, I thought the ending could have been slightly stronger, but I enjoyed the heartwarming note it did end on.

I am definitely recommending this book to customers and followers, it is one of my favorites of the year and a very strong introduction to this author for me. I am interested in reading anything put out by them in the future.