This is not a fucking love story.
Odile has been through hell, but now she’s finally been given her chance. A chance to make a difference in her life, to make something of herself, and to finally break free from the chains that tie her to her past and to have freedom. True freedom. Well, at least it was, until she woke up with a doe tattooed on her chest. Now she’s been marked, and she knows exactly who’s responsible. The Holy Trinity. The Father. The Spirit. The Son. The three boys who broke her heart and steal her breath. Axel. Kaiden. Zie. They’ve dragged her into the Hunting Grounds. A sick and twisted game of survival, and she’s the grand prize. Their time apart has made the guys forget who she is. So even though she has no choice but to play their stupid, little games, she’ll do it her way. The hunted will become the hunter, and blood will flow like wine. All of them will be tested, all of them will be put in danger, and their bonds will be baptised by fire. Were they really meant to be together? Or was it one more lie in a giant web that they were held captive in all along?
I had no idea how I was going to write singular reviews for each of the books in this trilogy. So, I decided that the best course of action would be to write a review that encompasses the entire trilogy together. I felt that this was the best way to approach it because, while there were three separate books, it never once felt like I had finished one and moved on to the next. The story itself ran together flawlessly as though all books were one, between one book and the next, there didn’t feel like a space or gap in time had happened. Each subsequent book picked up from exactly where the previous had ended.
This story is one that will stay with you long after you close the back cover of the final book. This is a dark tale, one filled with pain, betrayal, trauma and abuse. Please make sure that you check the TW before diving into the rabbit hole, as once you start, I doubt you’ll be able to stop, and your mental health matters.
Told through alternating POVs as well as two different timelines, this story is a complex one. Mostly told through Odile’s perspective, we follow her from the minute she wakes up with the doe tattooed on her chest and walk through the flames alongside her. Not only this, but being told through alternating chapters of past and present, we also experience everything from her first meeting the trinity when she was a young girl. We essentially get to grow up alongside her and I loved that. I feel like it really gave me a deeper understanding of her as a character, and unfortunately an understanding of the trauma that she experienced. One thing that I loved in this story, is how North is able to write about dark, traumatic, heavy topics, yet do so in a manner that is gentle and full of tact. These moments in Odile’s history are not used as shock factor, they are handled delicately in such a way that I feel like it built Odile’s character up and showed that she is not her trauma. She is not what she’s been put through and she is not what has been done to her. She is not defined by the actions that were taken against her. While these portions of the story were by no means easy to read, the way that North has written them, it’s like they poured forth from her very soul in a way that was almost lyrical in its execution.
The characters were so full of life, so real and raw, so filled to the brim with flaws and mistakes and bad decisions. All of them. Odile, Axel, Kaiden, Zie. Even Hector and Saint. There’s nothing I love more than a character with so much depth that I feel like I’m drowning in their corporality. I felt like I was walking alongside these characters, like I was crying with them, raging with them, loving with them and celebrating with them. This. This is the kind of character development that I crave. Getting to watch these characters grow and evolve through the trilogy was wonderful and I loved how their relationships evolved with them. Their foundations, while broken, were still strong and what they built upon the rubble of their past is a thing of deadly beauty. The way that each of the MMCs gave Odile the different things that she needed is what I love about why choose romance. I love that in a fantasy land where my brain likes to frolic, that it’s possible to have all of the bonuses of multiple lovers without any of the mess and issues. *sigh* A girl can dream.
I’m so glad that I waited to read this series. Even though I picked up the BABE23 special editions of books one and two, I still hadn’t read them yet…like every single other book I picked up at BABE23. And after finishing book two at 11pm at night (on a school night mind you) I am so glad that I waited. That ending had me losing my goddamn mind and giving a friend a crash course in dark why choose romance and why I was flipping out. He learnt some things through that word vomit conversation of me needing to discuss what I had just read with anyone who was awake and would bloody listen. Let me tell you, I had him on a googling spree because he hadn’t heard a lot of what I was babbling about in my incoherent rants of “OH MY GOD!”
You better believe that I started book three as soon as humanly possible and this. This beautiful beast of a finale was everything I hoped for and more. The character growth, the relationship development and the last thirty percent of this book have left me speechless. The crescendo of emotions that over 1000 pages, of four lifetimes, of four threads entangled, hit a frenzied pitch for the last quarter of this book. Everything that I had been waiting for, I was given. I could not have put down this book if I tried, and believe me, I really had to try because I was reading this on my lunch break at work. When I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it, ruminating over certain aspects of the story and how they would turn out. And while I had one of the reveals pegged from the second that it happened, it didn’t take away from the swell of emotions that thrashed around my chest like a swarm of bats on crack. The anticipation of what was to come had me glued to my kindle and nothing, not even my young nephews bursting through the doors and running through the house leaving a tornado’s mess in their wake, could get me to put it down.
I’ve been giving a friend of mine a run down on the story, like the cliff notes version, and she is wondering, when’s the movie coming out?
This trilogy is honestly my highlight of the year, reading wise, so far. It’s going to be sticking with me for a long while yet, and I’ll be recommending it to anyone who will listen to me. Even if they don’t listen to me, I’m going to be telling them about it. I’ll buy copies to lob at people in the street if I have to. If you haven’t started this trilogy yet, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
THIS IS NOW A COMPLETED SERIES, SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR! Binge it, you know you want to! Have a picture of me with the gorgeous Crystal North from BABE23 where I left my books behind at her table and had to have them posted to me, fangirled harder than I thought possible, got photos with so many amazing authors, and also got some photos with some very nice-looking men.
Read Book. Repeat 