If you have been following me on either my blog or social media for a while, you know by now that Jennifer L. Armentrout is one of my autobuy authors. However, her newest book, Fall of Ruin and Wrath was one I didn’t eagerly await. I wasn’t sure about the synopsis and I just wanted to read reviews. Well, these reviews are all over te place: positive on blogs and mainly negative on Goodreads. However, the more reason for me to get curious. I eventually caved and got myself the audiobook, narrated by Soneela Nankani. Was I right to be hesitant?

• Title: Fall of Ruin and Wrath
• Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
• Series: Awakening #1
• Publish date: September 12, 2023
• Publisher: Bramble
• ISBN: 9781250750198
• Number of pages: 432
• Genre: Fatnasy

SHE LIVES BY HER INTUITION. HE FEEDS ON HER PLEASURE. Long ago, the world was destroyed by gods. Only nine cities were spared. Separated by vast wilderness teeming with monsters and unimaginable dangers, each city is now ruled by a guardian―royalty who feed on mortal pleasure. Born with an intuition that never fails, Calista knows her talents are of great value to the power-hungry of the world, so she lives hidden as a courtesan of the Baron of Archwood. In exchange for his protection, she grants him information. When her intuition leads her to save a traveling prince in dire trouble, the voice inside her blazes with warning―and promise. Today he’ll bring her joy. One day he’ll be her doom. When the Baron takes an interest in the traveling prince and the prince takes an interest in Calista, she becomes the prince’s temporary companion. But the city simmers with rebellion, and with knights and monsters at her city gates and a hungry prince in her bed, intuition may not be enough to keep her safe. Calista must follow her intuition to safety or follow her heart to her downfall.

although my expectations were a little diminished by all the reviews I’ve read, I still had a thoroughly good time listening to this book. Firstly, Soneela Nankani did a great job on the narration. Therefore, it was an easy listen, also because of the writing. Yes, it’s different from this author’s YA series such as “Lux” and “The Dark elements”, but investing nevertheless. However, there were some aspects I didn’t enjoy that much.

One of these aspects is the pacing. You guys, this book is moving so, so, so incredibly slow. I’m not sure whether this is common for adult fantasy novels, but my experiences with these books is that they are all moving slow. Gladly, the infodump is spread out and didn’t take up the majority of the book. However, the story needed a long time to get interesting. It took about more than half of the book before the plot started moving forward. But when it did, it did well. Up until that point, it was a tough read for me, especially when taking my energy levels into account. It’s getting dark earlier, so that means I easily fall asleep. I had to rewind Audible numerous times because of that. However, when the storyline picks up, it was hard for me to put it down.

another aspect I wasn’t really enjoying was Calista and her need to live her life by her intuition. Intuition is not always right and that was exactly what happened here as well. I was hoping that she would at least make some responsible choices regarding her being an adult and so on. Her age is never mentioned, but this book is targeted towards adult readers so i suppose Lis is an adult herself. In fact, I don’t think it was the best choice to target it towards adults either, but I’ll come back to that. On the other hand, Thorn is an interesting character, thankfully. He might be all nice and sweet, but he obviously has a hidden agenda and I can’t wait to discover more of it.

So, why is this book better off as a new adult than an adult fantasy? It really felt like a new adult story. It gives off similar vibes to From Blood and Ash, although that world being better built. In this book, there is close to no world building and that’s weird for a series starter. This is the first book in the “Awakening” series and I still have no clue what the world looks like. Anyway, this story contains lots of new adult elements and it’s all not that heavy that it automatically should be categorised as adult fiction.

Honestly, I really enjoyed the spice. Although it’s not extremely dark, I still chuckled a lot when reading the spicy scenes including the banter between Lis and Thorn. This is really promising for the sequel and it’s still proven that Armentrout is one of the queens of spice.

In the end, I was right to be hesitant for most part about Fall of Ruin and Wrath by Jennifer L. Armentrout. For more than the first half of the book, I had a tough time because of te slow-paced story. However, this drastically changed when the plot picks up. I’m still lost in the world, there is close to no world building. Furthermore, I don’t really like Lis yet, but I like Thorn and their banter. They made me chuckle when reading the spicy scenes. The final chapters made me curious for what’s next, because this book ends on a huge cliffhanger.