Praise

Loved the 2nd book in Malec & Melodie /Allora's story. The world building,the writing,the emotions between these 2 characters is everything. Cant wait for book 😁 Thank you Nox cant wait to read more of your work

2nd book in the Free Black Canary series, a darkish fantasy romance with morally strained relationships and reluctant bonds, not my usual genre, but it definitely held my interest, and I'll be continuing the series. Great writing!

This book is for anyone looking to have a good time with a bit of chaos.

I loved how unhinged Kaelani and Nicolae (the main characters) are, they had me laughing so hard and rooting for their brand of crazy. This was a perfect balance of fun, unhinged chaos and important messaging around fair treatment of people. This is spicy, feminist driven fun that is so fun to read. These characters and this world was a joy to get to know.

Kaelani is reborn into royalty where she has become the Queen of a fallen nation, living in an ally kingdom as the King's ward. As former friends to her parents, when Kaelani's kingdom was attacked and her parents were murdered, King Hanz took her in. In this foreign kingdom, she finds friendship with the princes and princesses and enjoys having a good time, while not letting anyone forget that she is a Queen.

Nicolae is the fifth born prince so there is no chance to ever rule his kingdom but has found a place on the battlefield, protecting Queen Kaelani's lands and trying to bring peace. When he comes back from the war, his childhood crush on the Queen has not gone away...it's become an obsession.

When both of their futures are taken out of their control, they will each need to learn how to rely on those around them to have the future they choose and provide a better future for both of their kingdoms.

This was the perfect read in anticipation of international women’s day; it captured the struggle that many women have trying to dance to two different songs at the same time.
One person found this helpful

Im not sure why I was so drawn to this book, but Im glad I was. Very interesting read!

This story is really good - I love the idea of it and events that happened. The descriptions are so well done, and beautifully - so easy to imagine the setting and clothing, and food.

My troubles were the repetitiveness throughout that slowed the story's pace. Every single chapter, at least twice, the MMC's eye color is mentioned. All through the book. Every chapter, I swear. Emotions were constantly repeated only a few paragraphs apart, often repeated again in the next chapter. Certain words were used all the time, it grew tiresome to read them. Although significant in meaning, they began to mean less since they were repeated too much. And the overuse of metaphors bogged the read. Especially when they were used more than twice and/or paused my reading as I tried to imagine what they were describing. Some of them made little sense. A couple spots even had complete copied paragraphs following each other. A few times, the FMC was giving info to the reader she had yet to learn herself.

I loved the characters. Melodie's spirit is strong. She is strong. And Malec was intriguing. Their relationship a tossing and turning sort of thing. How this story ended left curiosity of what happens next. And as much as I'd like to find out, if it's heavy with the repetition and metaphors, I don't know that I'll continue. I'd rather read the story, be pulled into it, than swim through information I already know again and again, and get stilled by flowery comparisons.

Glad to see this is a series and excited to see what comes next. Has a little bit of everything, romance (slow-burn, enemies to lovers vibes), a fantasy/sci-fi feel, political disarray, action etc. Liking the look of this cover art more so than the red/black I saw previously offered.