Willa Knight: Dweller. Slave. Non-magical being. In Minatsol, being a dweller means that you are literally no better than dirt. In fact, dirt might actually be more useful than Willa. Her life will be one of servitude to the sols, the magic-blessed beings who could one day be chosen to become gods. At least her outer village is far removed from the cities of the sols, and she won't ever be forced to present herself to them... Until one small mistake changes everything, and Willa is awarded a position to serve at Blesswood, the top sol academy in the world-a position that she definitely did not earn. Under the sudden, watchful eye of the gods, she will be tasked to serve the Abcurse brothers, five sols built of arrogance, perfection and power. They are almost gods themselves, and under their service she is either going to end up sentenced to death, or else they are going to ruin her so badly that she will wish for it. Either way, she is in trouble.

MY THOUGHTS

World building is integral to a fantasy story, and the world building in this series wasn’t bad, but it took me some time to get a relatively clear perspective. It also took me a little time to warm up to all of the characters. Willa in particular seemed pretty annoying at first. The build up for the romance was good, though (again) it took a while to really where they stood with each other.

About the Characters

Willa is gutsy, clutzy, sassy, and snarky. Honestly it’s all surprisingly endearing and has made a resilient character with a good heart. Emmy is super smart, caring, loyal, and fearlessly fierce. Cyrus (neutral) is a very intriguing combination of asshole and ally. Siret (Trickery-book 1) was probably the first to fall for Willa and is the funnest of them all. He might be my favorite. Yael (Persuasion-book 2) is very competetive and a bit of a control freak. I like him, but there were definitely some questionable uses of his power at times. Aros (Seduction-book 3) is teasing, yet distant, and the one I was most concerned about regarding monogamy, but he’s always there for Willa and is even the voice of reason on occasion. Rome (Strength-book 4) can be pretty gruff, but with her especially, he’s really just an over protective teddy bear. Coen (Pain-book 5) is almost dual natured as he can be a little teasing at times and completely overbearing at others. Mostly thought he falls somewhere in the middle.

Things I Liked

Willa’s inner monologue could be annoying or hilarious, but I found it mostly amusing. I really liked the Panteras and wish we’d gotten to see more of them. The relationships felt good for the most part and I really appreciated the grey areas regarding the gods.

Things I Didn’t Like

I feel like the series could have been fewer books. The story was kind of a clusterf*ck with a very cyclical feel to it. I also really didn’t vibe with the “keep it even” mentality regarding intimacy with the guys. It takes away some of the organic authenticity from the romance. The book names seemed to have no correlation at all to that book’s content, except maybe the color of the dress Willa wore in that particular book.

More Thoughts

The important bits of the story were very predictable, but that that is terribly important. Staviti is the big bad guy, but he’s honestly seen all of maybe a handful of times throughout the five books, which I found strange. This was a really popular series in my RH reader group, so I had relatively high expectations, but I was just kind of left wanting more and not in the best way.

Bottom Line

This series was an exciting tale of societal change, fighting for your loved ones and what you believe, and self discovery and acceptance.