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A review by voxvenati
A Game of Hearts and Heists by Ruby Roe
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
This was a fun, steamy romp around a magical land torn in two.
I liked the dynamic between the two main characters. They both had pretty substantial lives outside one another that came into play within the story. The scenes with them were steamy and sometimes cute. I also liked a lot of the other characters. They were fun, and I think it did a good job setting up the couple for the next book.
There were a few detractors for me. To start, the setting was wildly confusing. On the one hand, there’s motorcycles, crop tops, sleeping bags, and katanas. On the other, we’ve got semi-sentient palaces and mansions imbued with magic, legacy magicians, and assassins guilds. It didn’t feel like it was quite a contemporary nor firmly a fantasy setting. The world building was also pretty light and didn’t help explain it.
Some of the prose felt juvenile, a little YA maybe. This is true for some of the dialogue as well. This came across in some of the action sequences, and they can be kind of silly as a result.
The last thing that took this down some stars was the pacing. It really felt like it was dragging until ~70% mark. Sure, you get a lot of steamy scenes leading up to then, but it was kind of disappointing how little time was actually spent in the Borderlands.
If you’re looking for some sapphic fantasy-lite action, it’s not bad. There’s just not a huge amount of world building to support the plot, so don’t expect it.
I liked the dynamic between the two main characters. They both had pretty substantial lives outside one another that came into play within the story. The scenes with them were steamy and sometimes cute. I also liked a lot of the other characters. They were fun, and I think it did a good job setting up the couple for the next book.
There were a few detractors for me. To start, the setting was wildly confusing. On the one hand, there’s motorcycles, crop tops, sleeping bags, and katanas. On the other, we’ve got semi-sentient palaces and mansions imbued with magic, legacy magicians, and assassins guilds. It didn’t feel like it was quite a contemporary nor firmly a fantasy setting. The world building was also pretty light and didn’t help explain it.
Some of the prose felt juvenile, a little YA maybe. This is true for some of the dialogue as well. This came across in some of the action sequences, and they can be kind of silly as a result.
The last thing that took this down some stars was the pacing. It really felt like it was dragging until ~70% mark. Sure, you get a lot of steamy scenes leading up to then, but it was kind of disappointing how little time was actually spent in the Borderlands.
If you’re looking for some sapphic fantasy-lite action, it’s not bad. There’s just not a huge amount of world building to support the plot, so don’t expect it.