A heartwarming romance between our main guys amidst a trio of friends adapting to lived experiences.

A few critiques:
The storyline was hard to get into at first due to the present and background sharing feeling a little convoluted.
Mal tumbles right into sex with Griff after saying that he's never thought of another man that way... considering his wary and jaded nature that felt like a big jump. (not that I'm complaining! :P)
Griff's moral compass is a bit confusing. He's introduced as a staunch rule follower that's training to be a Warden, but he's easily swayed into a heist where they steal a mule and kill a man in the process. Only Alys is effected by the murder. Later, Griff says he wants to continue his Warden training in order to take heat off of Mal.
Lastly, the location of Griff's wound. Why was his chest being wrapped in the beginning if his wound was bisecting his beltline?

All in all, I wish I had a solid trio of friends like that! Watching them let go of their preconceived notions of what the other "should" be and instead fall in love with the scarred and lived version in front of them was a rewarding experience.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

This one started off a bit shaky for me. The premise is intriguing and I was interested to see where the story would go, but the writing felt unpolished and weighed down with details that didn’t really matter. It kept pulling me out of the story instead of pulling me in.

The pacing also didn’t work for me. Big moments happened so often and so quickly that they lost their impact, and after a while I just lost interest. The characters didn’t feel fully developed either, and their conversations came across more staged than natural. If the dynamics between them had been stronger, I might have overlooked the weak plot, but it fell flat on both fronts.

Overall, I think this book had a lot of potential, but it didn’t deliver the way I hoped. With stronger writing, tighter pacing, and deeper characters, it could have been something really good.

A story that feels inspired by lord of the rings and DnD, we are pulled into a world of adventurer heroes. But our main character are the kids of those heroes and those are some big shoes to fill all 3 have taken it differently. Mal, Griff and their companion Alys, due to circumstances are on a job to find and return some lost treasure.

Along the way these 3 have a multitude of issues and disasters but also building back their childhood friendships. Griff finally has his chance with Mal and they mend their personal issues together.

I enjoyed the journey but struggled with the overall timing of events it felt slow at the beginning and middle then seemed to speed up a lot at the end. Also the writing felt a little all over the place some time we got great details and descriptions but then other times it was vague and wishy-washy.
Enjoyable but the balance felt off sometimes, the two MCs are a beautiful couple who learn to give second chances just wish the rest of the plot didn't feel consistent throughout.

This story definitely felt inspired by Frodo and Sam. It was a relatively low stakes journey with some action along the way. I enjoyed the dynamic of the three, Alys brought a refreshing break to what otherwise would have just been a romance with an adventure thrown in. The relationship was sweet and I did fall in love with Mal a bit myself. While there were hints of fantasy, it definitely was not the focus and I think I would have liked to have seen just a bit more of the fantasy side. Overall, it was an ok story, mildly enjoyable but sadly, not exciting or memorable.

Liked this book the style of writing is approachable and though it tends to drag at time the story flowed nicely. I like how the whole story did revolve around the 2 MC's but there was also a quest and an adventure at the same time. The world that the story is in sounds very relatable but has elements of magic and mystical creatures to give it the fantasy feel.

The main villain had so much build up and it seemed the last battle was a little anti-climatic but overall I enjoyed this book.

DID NOT FINISH: 58%
Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this eARC!

First off, I loved the setting of this book. The world building was done in a way that I was genuinely interested in learning more. Sadly, that's the only reason I made it passed the halfway point before DNFing. I was hoping for more information on this world and how it works, and all I got was poorly written dialogue and characters that are very one sided and not in any way likeable.
As a reader you are thrown into the world with conflict between two characters. However, since we as readers didn't experience this conflict and are just told "it happened and it was horrible, horrible things were said", it's difficult to feel like the conflict is real and feel invested in the resolution of said conflict. We're given a ton of different character names right off the bat, and most are barely delved into. Alys doesn't feel like a real character in this story, just a buffer between the two main characters and is quite literally written off the page when it best suits the two main characters, regardless of whether or not that is a logical thing to happen.
This may be the book for some readers, but sadly it was not the book for me.

Thank you NetGalley, faber and Moira Buffini for the ARC and the opportunity to read this book before its release. All thoughts are my own.


2.5 ⭐️

Our Rogue Fates follows the story of two ex-best friends that after a fight and unsaid things, lose track of each other and then end up hating each other for their life choices. A series of events brings them together on a quest to find treasure, discover themselves and uncover a new way to live their relationship.

I had such high hopes for this book, that when I saw it, against all judgement, I not only requested it right away, but also read it immediately, completely inspired by the premise and plot.

The story starts quite strongly, I really enjoyed the vibe and world building. It was giving a sort of DnD world, vaguely reminiscent of Legends & Lattes.
I started enjoying it less once I realized the characters development was not the greatest and it went progressively worse the more I read.
The conversations felt predictable and yet also slightly cringe. The characters emotional depth could probably fit in a teaspoon but the way they talk to each other, feels almost staged, both between the male leads and the third wheel friend going through a mid-life crisis (while also being pretty young of age). And the plot made little sense to me.
There’s a pretty big, plot point, that is completely forgotten and not really brought up for most of the book until it’s conveniente to make them go thought a very short third act break up.

The love story should have probably been a grumpy/sunshine thing, but the MMCs feel like the same person sometimes, their voices completely interchangeable and therefore it really didn’t made me feel the tension or their personalities. And, I know they clearly always had hidden feelings for each other, but still felt a bit ista love to me.

Overall an easy read and a nice vibe, but I just couldn’t get invested with no story and not well-rounded characters.

Thank you to Alcove Press & NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Checking out Our Rogue Fates on NetGalley, I was sure I’d love it, with the cute premise and hints at an interesting plot filled with twists and turns, but sadly this novel didn’t live up to the hype for me. Overall, it wasn’t absolutely horrible—there were some redeeming parts and qualities—but I personally had a lot of problems with this one. First off, I’ll say that this is definitely an 18+ read; it had at least 7 sex scenes as far as I can remember, so please keep that in mind before going in. If this were not an ARC, I probably would have DNF’d it.

In terms of those redeeming qualities I wrote of earlier, Our Rogue Fates can be very sweet and wholesome at times. Some scenes are super cozy and cute with descriptions of sunsets and dogs and warm blankets, but then I did feel like some of the… more adult or otherwise violent scenes that would follow took away from the wholesomeness. I got mental whiplash from some of these scene transitions, but I’ll still stand firm with the fact that Our Rogue Fates has some really rewarding and sweet scenes. Secondly, I love, love, love Alys’s character. Her backstory and emotions and trauma were written very well, and I find her a super compelling protagonist. Honestly, I think I’d like this novel a lot more if she were the main main character. Finally, the worldbuilding in Our Rogue Fates was straightforward and easy to understand and remember unlike a lot of other fantasy novels I’ve read. I wasn’t having to remember obscure names or refer to tons of lore drops in the exposition, but it was still set in a new and memorable fantasy world. I could see Our Rogue Fates was trying to go for a very sweet thing, but I felt like the execution was really off for me; I didn’t connect with or enjoy it much.

I had a lot of problems with this novel. First off, where is my suspension of disbelief? Both for the emotional gymnastics Griff and Mal go through and the actual plot, I could not personally believe what happened (not in like a “this was unbelievable!” positive way, but in a more “this doesn’t make sense” way). Starting with the plot, I felt like the quest they took on—the one that world-famous heroes died doing and a nearing-omnipotent Shadow Queen cannot even do herself—was far too easy to accomplish in the end. I’m not going to go into spoilers, but I almost face-palmed at how simple their solution to their final problem—the one that killed their father—was. I didn’t enjoy the plot structure of this novel, either. The group has a goal but every chapter it’s like “Oh no! Something got in the way of our goal! Let’s fix it!” then they fix it and the next chapter something new gets in the way, and that cycle got old for me quickly. I was hoping for a more complex plot structure with mysteries and denouements, but the only mystery in this novel I don’t really find that intriguing or suspenseful. There’s nothing that keeps me wanting to turn the page.

Onto Griff and Mal’s emotions, they didn’t make sense to me. We don’t hear much at all about that ill-fated argument that splits their relationship asunder, except for the repetitive anger and guilt it festers in Griff and Mal. We don’t hear why they’re angry at each other, only that they are, and I felt this happened with the romance, too. I don’t see the unique characteristics of Griff that Mal loves him for or visa-versa. We get a lot of more physical attraction described well, but I still never see why they have that deep emotional bond, especially when the novel keeps iterating over and over how much they hate each other. I also felt like Our Rogue Fates had too many sex scenes, especially for its length. It had at least 7 from my memory, and the novel’s only 350 pages long—that’s one for every 50 pages. I was actually enjoying the ending after the quest and finding it super wholesome, and then not one but THREE of these scenes happened. Even if overused, if they were written well, that might have been another thing, but I also felt like a lot of these scenes relied way too much on euphemisms and tongue-in-cheek metaphors (for example, they’d say stuff like: “be my foreman,” “I have an offer [in terms of construction diction] for you…”). This style of description expanded beyond the erotic scenes and into some of the general descriptions in the novel, making them not as immersive for me and not as enjoyable to read through. Finally, I really disliked the use of aphorism in this novel. The author would start one paragraph with a phrase and repeat the next 6 paragraphs with the same starting phrase, and do this whole “trick” about 5 times throughout the early novel. The first time was done well, but I felt it was overused (after the first maybe 6 chapters, this did not happen again, though!).

I’ll close by talking about the main characters. I found them (Griff and Mal, not Alys) to be kind of horrible (they were written well, but as people I disliked them) and not very compelling. I cannot go into big spoilers, but I feel like we’re supposed to be rooting for them and maybe care about them, and some of their morally horrible actions for proportionally very little gain (for example, killing 3 innocent people who are literally just camping to steal a single mule) early-on in the novel take away from that. Also that whole thing with Liam (I am still FLUMMOXED about that … that was WILD to me) really put me off from liking Griff from the start. I also feel like Alys deserves better, at least from the Mal and Griff at the beginning of the novel. They kind of disregard her; she’s forgotten when their arguments and emotional drama start (which of course makes for realistic characters and good development for later on in the novel, but it also makes me not like or care about Griff or Mal early on).

Unfortunately, though I love what it’s going for, I can’t say that I recommend Our Rogue Fates. Neither its fantasy plot or romantic/emotional appeal were done well for me, and though I feel it has a lot of cute and tender moments, those are overshadowed by a lot of other scenes that weren’t done so well.

Note: While I'm still rating novels through these 3 ideals of a perfect book, their score in these three categories will now not relate or correlate to the 1-5 stars I give the book in general.

Concept: 2.5 Stars [What the novel is supposed to be about.]

Writing Style: 2.25 Stars [How the author writes the novel, chooses words, and describes the story.]

Plot: 2.25 Stars [How the author executes the concept. What happens? How does the first sentence lead to the last?]

Overall Rating: ⭐⭐ (2 Stars)

Unfortunately this book was not for me. I made it to the 60% mark and had to dnf. I never fully understood why the mmcs hated each other, or suddenly why they wanted each other. The breakup with Liam made me hate Griff! Cheering this book on because I love to see more gay Romantasy, the story just didn’t work for me and I didn’t feel a connection to any of the main characters! I

Well, this was certainly... an experience. After seeing all the glowing comparisons to Lord of the Rings and Critical Role, I was expecting something with a bit more substance than what Our Rogue Fates delivered.

Look, I get it. Sarah Glenn Marsh was clearly going for that cozy fantasy adventure vibe with a side of romantic tension. But here's the thing: when your entire plot hinges on a treasure hunt that feels more like an afterthought, and your "enemies-to-lovers" arc is really just "friends who had a misunderstanding and spent years being dramatic about it," you're not exactly breaking new ground.

Griff and Mal's relationship felt frustratingly shallow for two people supposedly harboring years of complex emotions. Instead of getting genuine character development, we're treated to endless circular conversations about their mysterious past conflict that honestly wasn't worth all the buildup once revealed. Meanwhile, poor Alys is just... there? Tagging along like the world's most patient third wheel while these two work through their feelings.

All in all, Our Rogue Fates isn't terrible, but it's disappointingly mediocre for something that promised so much adventure and heart. Save your time for something that actually delivers on its ambitious comparisons.

Would not have finished this if it wasn't an arc. Gonna start there.
First, this feels like it was originally a fanfiction that failed to be edited properly. While the side characters (Alys in particular) actually feel like real characters Griff and Mal are so flat. Everything about them is being just told to me. It feels like the author thinks I am already familiar with the characters so they don't need to do any work giving them depth. Honestly if the whole story just followed Alys it would have been much more readable.
Second, and probably the biggest one for me, I CANNOT get past the psuedo-incest. They're literally raised as siblings. They both view Alys as a sister. Griff is literally looking at Alys topless and thinking about how it's not weird because they were raised together but Mal is topless and suddenly the man is frothing at the mouth horny when they have been siblings for the same amount of time. They kept having sex over and over and all I can think is "please stop having sex with your brother I'm begging you"
Third, the pacing felt weird. The begining was fine but the whole trip to the mire felt redundant and formulaic, then the climax felt short and a bit dull, and then the ending just.... kept going. The last three chapters felt like they should be the end but it just kept going.
I requested this book for two reasons. First, the cover is gorgeous. They did pop off with that no complaints. The second is that it was described as "for fans of legends and lattes" and I vehemently disagree with that comparison. They both are queer fantasies with orcs but that's roughly where the similarities end.
Overall this was a major let down. I'm glad it's over

I think a major problem that books have nowadays is that they attempt to associate themselves with another well-known book. This in turn create this expectation of this book that we are reading will be good if not better than the book that they have referenced. That isn’t always the case and attaching your book to a name like the Lord of the Ring, even if it is a love letter to the series, is still a very bold thing to do. Could I say this book took some inspiration from the Lord of the Rings, yes, however, it only possesses adventure and plays upon the idea of friendship. Not the rigorous world building with heavy structure of world building with intricate characters that we see in the Tolkien universe.

Speaking of friendship, the friendships that are happening in this book seem extraordinarily surface level, and you spend the majority of the book learning about the past of said friendships and them reconciling, but that reconciliation is surface level at best. I actually wish that we got to read/experience the past events to create the connection with the characters. Third character just third wheeling during this whole entire trip was off putting and honestly I have zero idea why she part of the journey in the first place as she doesn’t really add anything.

The trope of enemies to lovers for the “romance” isn’t an actual true enemies to lovers. It’s just them realizing there was a misunderstanding, the miscommunication trope if you will, which personally I am not a fan of as it causes more frustration as the reader. There is spice in this book, but its pretty tame and not overtly explicit except for this weird scene with the griffen statue at the end of the book. Random watersports kink out of nowhere.

My main problem with this book is that its premise is extraordinarily simple, which is not a bad thing, but the book lacks characters that are dimensional and make you feel attached to them. This is where this book falls flat for me.

Our Rogue Fates sounded like a book that would be right up my alley, and it was okay, but it didn't quite live up to my expectations. I am not sure I would have compared it to The Lord of the Rings in the promo, as the story is not really similar in any way, so that puts you in the wrong mindset from the start. The premise of two former friends coming together for a quest and discovering their true feelings for each other is a good one. However, it was hard to care about the characters when we saw nothing of the events that led to the current rift; we were only told continuously that they used to be friends but now hate each other. I think their reconciliation would have had more impact if we'd been privy to their earlier relationship and its meltdown. The story as a whole felt very repetitive too: in one chapter they'd be attacked by a foe and someone would be injured and nearly die, then in the next chapter that person would recover, talk about their feelings a bit, and then... repeat. As soon as a new danger appeared, I began to intuit how it would play out, and I found myself starting to skim-read through the second half of the book. The finale too, felt rather anti-climatic, as the villain was defeated so easily yet I still had questions on several points. All that said, though, I didn't hate this book despite these issues. It still had its moments, and those who enjoy MM fantasy at the spicier end of the scale will definitely find something to enjoy within these pages. I think managing expectations is the key here. Don't pick up this book expecting intricate, epic fantasy because of the promotional tags. It's much lighter fantasy, with minimal world building, but features an opposites-attract pairing (more than real enemies to lovers) with a slow-burn start followed by spicier content. I am giving it 3 stars as a middle-of-the-road score.

(This review will go live on my blog and Goodreads at the links below on 6 October 2025. I will share on social media too at that time.)

The most stabbings and revenants I've read in a cozy romance, but it so works. The world building was so interesting, and I want to know more about the elves, the Wardens, the Shadow Queen, all of it. I would read a dozen spin-offs to absorb this world. The character growth of and between Mal and Griff was so real and so satisfying. There were moments that felt rushed, but nothing took away from the overall delight I had in reading this book. I will definitely be recommending this book to others as it is heartwarming, engaging, and leaves so much more to be explored. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to review this book as an ARC reader!

Thank you, NetGalley, Sarah Glenn Marsh, and Alcove Press, for a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Final Verdict: 3/5 Stars

I’m sad to say that I’m DNFing this one at 30%. While I see that the description of the novel has changed compared to when I initially requested it (it is no longer claiming to have a strong Lord of the Rings influence with an enemies-to-lovers inspired by Aragorn and Legolas or Sam and Frodo), to something more fitting, it still sadly wasn’t what I was expecting it to be.

I sadly found it hard to connect to the characters and the world-building with this one. Not to say that Marsh doesn’t have a decent grasp of the English language, there was something about this story that I found hard to grasp. After continuing to pick it up and putting it down, I’ve decided to stop trying to force it. While this may not have been for me, perhaps it will be for someone else!

Ive only read 20% of this book but had to DNF, this book puts a lot of the world’s lore in the first chapter and it feels very overwhelming and convoluted and i struggled to keep up. I also found Griff to be incredibly unlikeable and the pacing was far too fast for me to stay focused. This is only my opinion and i think the cover and the ideas , also the second chance at a romance is really exciting, but the book was just not for me.

I will be honest, I usually do not rate books that I DNF, but this book was so egregious I felt I needed to leave a review. I read maybe the first 20% before I finally decided that this book was so bad that I was going to DNF it -- so keep in mind that my review only reflects the first 20% of the book. I had so many issues with this book, first of being that all the backstory is heavily dumped on the reader in the first chunk of the book. You aren't slowly learning over time, nothing is being revealed; instead the author spends long pages describing every single aspect of each characters previously relationships with each other character in a way that felt like a Wikipedia summary. The main characters have no real personality, and I struggled to know whose perspective I had because they were indistinguishable. The author reveals something of one of the MMC surrounding his boyfriend in the beginning of the book that I found so off-putting that I knew I would not grow to like this character at all. I honestly have no idea how this book got to publishing, it seems more like bad fanfiction that a real fantasy romance. I'm sorry to sound so harsh but I really hated this book.

This one fell a little short of the mark for me. When I read the blurb and saw the reference to Lord of the Rings, I thought, ok, so this must have some great world building with an amazingly structured plot. But I feel like there isn't enough back story. The book feels more focused on the rekindling of the relationships between the 3 childhood friends finding their way back to each other. Which is totally fine! But the book describes this all-important treasure hunt to buy Mals freedom and ensure Griffs safety from 'The dark queen', that's kind of all the context you get.
I feel like their spicy scenes were very tastefully written, and I did enjoy seeing the emotional growth unfold for all 3 of the main characters.

Alys, now she is a treasure for sure, I would have absolutely loved a chapter on her and Leo's bed time story telling for the troll. 😂

Many love this book. It's just not one I personally overly enjoyed, so please do check out some other reviews beforehand as you may find details others have picked up on that you like in kind.

***Thank you to netgalley and Alcove Press for the ARC. The above review is my honest opinion and has not been influenced in any way.

“Who wants easy?”

This book is perfect for fans of DnD, Legends & Lattes, a Fantasy mission plot with a romance subplot, and a Trio on a treasure hunting quest. These characters have a lot of history that happens off-page, which was super interesting to see how they deal with their past actions and overcome their faults to move forward together. Overall, the story is about finding forgiveness and companionship along your journey.

“You’re my biggest dream. My castle. My world. None of it matters without you at the center.”

The Book Riot podcast talks a lot about how blurbs don't often have any impact on readers, and let me say that this one is an exception. By describing this book as "a love letter to fans of The Lord of the Rings" and having a blurb from THE Sean Astin, I knew I had to see what it was all about. That all being said, this book is not compared to Lord of the Rings, nor should it be, because it is anything but an epic quest! Much more similar to T. Kingfisher's Saint of Steel series or Tusk Love than Tolkein.

In this book, Mal and Griff grew up together and were extremely close until they had a heated falling out that led them to not speak with each other for about six years. Part of the falling out stemmed from the fact that Griff was in love with Mal, but he didn't think Mal would reciprocate the feelings, so he left rather than talk about his feelings. This falling out is a deep emotional wound for both characters, but it is all in the past and only spoken about in small pieces throughout. I think we could have felt more connected to the characters if we had experienced this falling out with them, rather than just assume there were great feelings involved. I enjoyed the backstory in that it gave a meaning to the instant deep love the men had for each other, but its existence only in the past rids the reader of experiencing that with the characters. That being said, I enjoyed the journey. It did take a while to wrap up towards the end, though.

I'm a bit new to reading books with a lot of spice, so I don't know how to properly rate that - but there's a decent amount of on the page sex. No comment on that being good or bad, just something some people might want to know.

Going back to the blurb - I am sorry but who in their right minds was rooting for LEGOLAS and ARAGORN when GIMLI WAS RIGHT THERE?! I think Legolas and Aragorn were chosen because they look more like the characters in the book, but no one saw Legolas and Aragorn interact and thought there was sexual chemistry. No one!

Thank you to Alcove Press and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!