{"id":87679,"date":"2025-02-14T12:34:25","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T12:34:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/books\/a-court-this-cruel-lovely-by-stacia-stark\/"},"modified":"2025-02-14T12:34:25","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T12:34:25","slug":"a-court-this-cruel-lovely-by-stacia-stark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=87679","title":{"rendered":"A Court This Cruel & Lovely by Stacia Stark"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"AA Court This Cruel & Lovely<\/strong> by Stacia Stark<\/a>
Series:<\/strong> Kingdom of Lies #1<\/a>
Narrator:<\/strong> Tim Paige<\/a>, Meg Sylvan<\/a>
Published by<\/strong> Dreamscape Media<\/a> on October 24, 2023
Genres:<\/strong> Fantasy<\/a>, Fantasy Romance<\/a>, Romantasy<\/a>
Pages:<\/strong> 562
Format:<\/strong> Audiobook ARC<\/a>
Source:<\/strong> Publisher (Netgalley)<\/a>
Add to Goodreads<\/a>
Buy on Amazon<\/a> \u2022 Buy on Audible<\/a>
<\/span> <\/p>\n
\n

For years, when I fell asleep, I dreamed of a man with blazing green eyes and a cruel smile.<\/p>\n

The day I meet him, the ruthless mercenary leaves me for dead.<\/p>\n

Just hours after humans are born, the gods take what little power we have. In return, they protect our borders from the vicious, merciless fae.<\/p>\n

The humans who manage to keep their power are known as the corrupt.
And they are burned.<\/p>\n

When my forbidden power is discovered, I\u2019m forced to flee my tiny village and the life I adore.<\/p>\n

To survive, I make a desperate bargain with the mercenary who abandoned me at my weakest.<\/p>\n

Our deal is simple: I\u2019ll help him and his mysterious friends sneak into the city. And he\u2019ll help me learn to wield the strange, dark power I\u2019ve always kept hidden. The power that may just be the key to my survival.<\/p>\n

But the ruthless mercenary is hiding secrets of his own. Secrets that threaten the safety of everyone I love. Secrets that could tear this kingdom\u2014and perhaps even this world\u2014apart.<\/p>\n

Please note: A Court This Cruel and Lovely is an NA\/adult romantasy book with steam. While this series is slow burn, the chili pepper rating will increase for each book.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Last year I was needing something to quench my thirst for a Fourth Wing<\/em> kind of story while waiting (a long time) for Onyx Storm<\/em> to come out, so I explored many romantasy books looking for that feeling of being completely entranced by a book and unable to think about anything else. I also love ACOTAR, and I\u2019d read that this gave off similar vibes so I gave it a go. Long story short, this is no ACOTAR. And can I sidebar for a second and talk about how much I hate how many books have given in to the \u201ca court of whatever and whatever\u201d trend? I feel like it tricks readers into thinking they\u2019ve found THE book everyone is talking about. \u201cWhat\u2019s that \u2018a court of\u2026\u2019 book my friend likes so much? Oh, it\u2019s this one!\u201d And then it\u2019s not. lol. Similar title\u2026 also about fae\u2026 you get the picture. Anyway, I listened to this one because I love dual narration. I was crocheting, the narrators did a great job, and it was a thing to listen to that helped distract me during a hard thing I was going through personally. But it left many<\/em> things to be desired, and I\u2019m struggling to articulate my feelings in a way that makes sense. This is also one of my more negative reviews and the guilt is setting in a bit as I re-read this before scheduling it to go live soon. I hate writing negative reviews, but I feel obligated to do so since I received this for review from the publisher. So here are my honest thoughts.<\/p>\n

To sum it up, this book didn\u2019t feel unique to me. You\u2019ve got the over-used tropes like fae versus human, enemies to lovers, found family, a feisty heroine who doesn\u2019t know she\u2019s magic, etc. These story elements cannot stand on their own existence, though. I feel like they were just there because that\u2019s what people look for. I can tell that this book set out to check off a lot of boxes to please readers, but there was no strong framework, no intricate worldbuilding, and no details given that immersed me in the story. I can\u2019t tell you what anyone looked like, what the world looked like, or anyone\u2019s backstory or defining characteristics. The cookie cutter main characters were unremarkable and flat. The secondary characters were background props. I couldn\u2019t help but feel like the desire to write a unique cast of memorable characters and a rich world\u2026 wasn\u2019t there. It seemed more like the goal was to give me enough to remind me of characters I loved from another book and then fill in the blanks on my own with their traits and their personalities. I felt like I was supposed to patch the plot holes and supplement the information I was given with information from someone else\u2019s fully developed world. That\u2019s just, for lack of a softer word, lazy writing.<\/p>\n

The spicy moments were uncomfortable for me, and the romance didn\u2019t feel believable and all-consuming. The pacing was off, with a lot happening all at once and then nothing happening at all. The story really dragged in places, and the same things kept happening. There was a lot of telling and very little showing. The more I think about this book, the more confused I am as to why I finished it. I tend to abandon books when I\u2019m feeling like this, especially when they\u2019re this long. I was clearly engrossed in my crocheting and needed a distraction during a difficult time when I didn\u2019t have the brain power to absorb something deeper. I was able to drift in and out and not miss anything, and I think that\u2019s a big part of why I finished it. I also liked the soothing voices of the narrators. It was very easy to keep listening to it, and sometimes that\u2019s what you need in a book. I wanted to love this so, so much, but I will unfortunately not be continuing with the series.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Court This Cruel & Lovely by Stacia Stark Series: Kingdom of Lies #1 Narrator: Tim Paige, Meg Sylvan Published by Dreamscape Media on October 24, 2023 Genres: Fantasy, Fantasy Romance, Romantasy Pages: 562 Format: Audiobook ARC Source: Publisher (Netgalley) Add to Goodreads Buy on Amazon \u2022 Buy on Audible For years, when I fell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[410,42922,3468,42923,6573],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-87679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-court","tag-cruel","tag-lovely","tag-stacia","tag-stark"],"yoast_head":"\nA Court This Cruel & Lovely by Stacia Stark - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=87679\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Court This Cruel & Lovely by Stacia Stark - 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