Storm Born
Thorn Queen
Iron Crowned
Shadow Heir
Note: This will be a review of the whole series
4 stars ★ ★ ★ ★
This series was pretty good, but it wasn't that great either, in my opinion. There were many things that I absolutely loved about the Dark Swan series, including the magic, mystery and intrigue. But then on the other hand, there were things that disappointed me a little.
Nevertheless, this series was very well written (as always, Richelle did an amazing job with her linguistic talents) and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who has loved Richelle's other works and anyone who has a soft spot for Greek mythology and shamanistic magic.
Warning. Spoilers from here on.
Eugenie was strong, independent, badass woman in the flesh, and yet she did disappoint me a little bit, especially with the way she kept jumping from Dorian to Kiyo. Now don't get me wrong, I understand that she was going through relationship issues and there were many times when I would have made the same decisions as she had done with her boy-issues, but there was just too much back and forth. At some point I really just wanted her to declare herself a happy single, as I think she would have been a lot more competent if she hadn't been tied down to all of the men in her life.
Speaking of men, I have to give Richelle one thing though: she knows how to write good, hot, sexy as hell sex-scenes. Now, on the other hand, I had a couple of issues with them in general, toe-curling writing aside (not because I'm a prude or because I dislike reading hot stuff, please) but because some of the stuff seemed a little strange. Again, I don't really have any issues with people being into certain kinky things, but at times it seemed like both Dorian and Kiyo were being incredibly possessive and aggressive whilst having sex with Eugenie that it almost came across as non-consensual. Maybe I misread and misunderstood the situations, but it definitely came across as that way.
That aside, I would also like to point out that the amounts of times anything sexual happened was kind of off the charts and abnormal. Kudos to anyone who does manage to get turned on that often, but it did add an element of unrealism to it that kinda turned me off after reading, like the tenth sex scene of one of the books.
Nevertheless, the plot developed very interestingly, especially the parts about the prophecy, Jasmine, Pagiel and Eugenie's little babies.
But oh boy did I hate Kiyo by the end of Iron Crowned. I already was extremely annoyed by his association with Maiwenn but I was like hell no you will not touch Eugenie's babies and her decision to deliver them. By that point onwards, it was goodbye Kiyo. At first I thought that maybe Eugenie and Kiyo would have maybe ended up together in the end, but all of that was shattered as soon as he showed his true colors. And the prophecy didn't even turn out to be Eugenie's! Sheesh. I kind of really wanted Eugenie to kill him and/or Maiwenn, but sadly that never happened. Oh well, maybe when Richelle decides to write a fifth book this will all be resolved.
I didn't really think the ending of Shadow Heir was a cliff hanger. Many people on Goodreads are very vehemently spouting their hatred on this supposed "cliff-hanger" but I don't think it was all too bad. After all, not every book, story or whatnot always needs to have all of the loose ends tied up, that's just real life. And also if, for example, all of the loose ends in Vampire Academy had already been tied up in the last book, Richelle would have never proceeded to write the amazing spin-off series Bloodlines. There's a silver lining everywhere, but all that matters now is that Eugenie and her children are safe, she is in good hands and Dorian and her seemed to have settled things between then (...well, until he finds out that the children are his but that's a story for another day...)
Either way, I'm glad how the series wrapped up and would gladly read any sequel that Richelle would write, and if she doesn't, that's fine by me too.
0 Comments