Dates Read: December 28, 2022 – December 31, 2022
Expected Publication Date: February 7, 2023
Source: ARC via Naomi Lane and Gena Showalter in exchange for an honest review
The Phantom hits shelves near you on February 7, 2023! Pre-order now wherever you order books!
HOW does Gena keep doing this!? I am SHOOK. Just when I think there’s no other couple who could top my current favorite, Gena releases another book…
Once again, my former reigning couple has been displaced by this new amazing couple who didn’t even have to TRY to make their way into the number one spot on my “favorite couples” list. It’s like they were always meant to be there but I just hadn’t met them yet.
Blythe is so amazing. She’s strong, independent, steadfast, and she loves with a ferocious fierceness. She’s firm but reasonable. Calculated and questioning. She’s all the things I love in a female MC. I loved the character-building and the relationship-building as seen through her eyes. She knew what she was feeling but she still wanted to hold on to her morals and decency. She didn’t want to forsake her past consort’s memory by shacking up with the guy that killed him. She was always thinking of her daughter. No matter what was going on, her daughter mattered more to her than anything else and I loved their relationship in this book.
Oh. Ok. So… real quick, just for a little context here…
Blythe the Undoing is a bit Undone when Roux appears in her city and kills her consort/father of her child. Harpies are known to only have one consort in life. No other will be able to claim them after their consort dies. So it comes as a shock to Blythe when this ruthless killer, who murdered her consort before her eyes and the eyes of her daughter, begins to stir things within her that should not be. Can a harpy have two consorts? Will she ever even be able to see past his transgressions from that day? Can she find it in herself to forgive and move past her guilt to maybe find a shred of happiness after losing the man she loved? These questions begin to find answers when Blythe makes it her life’s mission to exact revenge by killing Roux. She follows him with a plan on just how to end him… but finds herself in a situation that could very well be the end of HER.
Roux. *Sighs* Ya know, in the beginning, I was thinking that I wasn’t going to like him. I was thinking he was just going to be this cold-hearted, ill-willed, mean-spirited man who would say and do hurtful things throughout the story. But he wasn’t exactly what I thought. I just wanted to squeeze him. This man was so full of internal anguish and endless guilt. There is so much more to him than meets the eye and I enjoyed reading his story as well as experiencing it in flashbacks. I loved Roux so much. I loved the banter between not only him and Blythe but also every other character he came into contact with. I just loved Roux a lot.
The plot of this book is NEXT LEVEL. I was not ready for the ADVENTURE this book took me on! I absolutely loved it. Even if I hadn’t of like the characters, the plot and the premise of what was going on would have kept me hooked throughout. Such a cool idea and I really enjoyed reading it. Even the less steamy scenes kept me enthralled. It was seriously so much fun to read and kind of chaotic in the best way possible. There were all kinds of wild things going on. A tournament where only one could be left standing all while Blythe was trying to figure out how to finally kill Roux and succeed in exacting her revenge. There were just so many facets of this story and I loved every single one of them. I never got bored and I certainly never wanted to put this one down. I also loved how it tied into the two previous books in the series. (If you haven’t read those yet you should really go dive into those first. You won’t regret it. 😉)
This book was so so good and I highly recommend it. I was laughing, I was crying, I was banging my chest to try to get my heart to start beating again… I was on a serious rollercoaster of emotions and I loved every second of it. This book is going to be one of my yearly re-reads for sure!
All hail the new King and Queen of Showalter. Roux and Blythe. Long may they reign. (Until she murders my heart with the next couple I suppose.)
House Of Cats Book Reviews 
Leave a Reply