Obviously with how much everyone adores this book I had to pick it up. I actually got it for Christmas after desperately wanting it for months and having been on a book buying ban since the start of November.
So Poppy is the maiden, blessed by the gods, and linked to the ascension of hundreds of other people. When they ascend they become closer to the gods. However, this means Poppy lives a life veiled and restricted by many rules to keep her pious and holy. We meet her when she’s snuck out to a tavern full of gambling, drinking, and sex. There she meets Hawke, the dark, handsome new guard everyone is talking about. A case of mistaken identity leads to Poppy’s first kiss but they’re interrupted before more, but when Hawke is assigned as one of her personal guards things get very interesting.
Okay that so doesn’t do the book justice. But hey its six hundred pages long that’s difficult to capture in a paragraph without major sopilers.
So I did get spoiled for this book relatively soon into reading it but I likely wouldn’t have waited six hundred pages before reading the end anyway.
What I loved about this book. I loved Poppy so, so much. Even though she’s been controlled most of her life she’s still strong and defiant. It was nice to have a character that went against the world they were living in already before some big climctic reveal. She was just an awesome character.
Hawke was also a tantilising character. I adored how he treated Poppy like a real person and obviously like he’s super hot and all. Who doesn’t love a dark, handsome man who’s struggling with inner turmoil.
Obviously since I was spoiled I can’t comment much on whether certain revelations were surprising or not. I questioned the history Poppy had been told from the start and the truth wasn’t that surprising.
I do struggle a lot with vampire and werewolf books (I’m looking at you twilight) so initially with the craven I was a bit like ‘is this for me?’ but I did end up really enjoying the storyline and they definitely seemed to be done in an original way. The only part I truly hated was the Duke and Lord Maveen. Their scenes made my skin crawl.
I’ve gone back and forth between a 4.5* and a 5* for this book. I’ve finally settled on a 4.5* because it just didn’t quite wow me enough for a 5*. I think if I’d read it earlier it might have but it definitely did live up to the hype and I’m excited to read the rest of the series. Also I can now acquire all the stunning artwork for this series.
The London Faerie 