I don’t often go for fantasies but I did enjoy following this Southern girl who heads to Dublin after her sister is killed and finds herself in a world of Fae, vampires, and otherworldly portals. Mac learns that she has powers that allow her to see past the glamour of Faes and gets sucked into this fairy fight along with a very sullen bookseller/possibly nonhuman creature.

I really liked the main character but what I really found annoying was the constant description of her clothing, her nail polish, and her boobs (honestly thought it might’ve been written by a man at some points). She’s meant to develop from a “dumb blonde”, self-centered stereotype into a more aware, caring person but the detailed passages about the exact clothing she wore each day felt overdone. I think there are plenty of other ways the author could have set up this development. I did like the character though; she’s sarcastic and stubborn and it really works for her.

The book also seems to hint at a developing romance but there really wasn’t anything in this first book that would make me classify it as a romance. I'm interested in the potential male love interest but we learn so little about him, in terms of his background as well as his behaviours, that I just don’t feel any pull right now in seeing the two characters together. As a content warning, I will caution that there is some on-page sexual assault involving another character.

I agree with some reviewers that it is doing a lot of set-up work here, as we get introduced to the characters and conflict but there are a lot of questions raised and the development of relationships that seem to only be dealt with in future books, but I'm looking forward to the next in the series.