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A review by crissimarie
A Dawn with the Wolf Knight by Elise Kova
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I was really hoping that I was going to enjoy this book a lot more than I did, but honestly, it was just okay. This is the fifth book (and I believe the last) in the Married to Magic series, which consists of separate standalone books set in the same world. I do appreciate that these books very well as independent standalone fantasy books because sometimes I feel like an author will advertise their books as standalone books but they do rely on the reader having read the previous books to have a full understanding as to everything going on because the books are too interconnected and I personally feel like you shouldn't really advertise something as a standalone if it requires you to have previous knowledge from other books in order to understand everything going on. I feel like these books you can probably just jump into any of them, and you wouldn't really have to know about what happened in another one of the books to get the full picture. There is very minimal mention of things related to the previous books but it's presented in a way that doesn't leave you confused if this was your first book read in this world so I do really appreciate that. I've read all the books in this series and I really enjoyed the first three but these last two I wasn't the biggest fan of which is kind of a bummer because I feel like I'm leaving this series on somewhat of a low note. I definitely enjoyed this one better than A Duet with the Siren Duke, which was my least favorite in the series, but while I liked it better than that one, it still left me a bit unsatisfied with how the story played out. All of these books draw some inspiration from fairytales, and this one was a bit inspired by Little Red Riding Hood (although very loosely). You have Faelyn, who is a witch that was gifted a magical red cloak from her grandmother who died, and there are lykin in this story that are wolf-shifters. Faelyn gets wrapped up with the lykin after stumbling upon Aurora, the moon spirit, and accidentally getting stuck with some of her magic during a ritual. Faelyn helps Aurora evade the lykin who are after her, but later, they are both captured. The Wolf King wants Faelyn for the magic she now possesses, and he has this magical charm that leads her to be sexually attracted to him, but Faelyn is also drawn to one of his wolf knights Evander. I feel like this is a book that inconsistently kept my interest. There were aspects of the plot that I didn't enjoy, but there were also other moments that I liked. I liked the spirits and found their magic interesting but I kind of found Faelyn a bit frustrating and too trusting of Conri in the beginning but perhaps I should forgive her since technically she was under a magical charm. I'm not sure how I feel about how her relationship with Evander developed and the reveal that they actually knew and loved each other when they were younger. I liked that Aurora was the one who ultimately ended Conri even if she died as well, but I think the rest of the ending wasn't my favorite. All in all, I feel like this was an okay read, and while there were moments that I enjoyed, it also featured quite a bit that I didn't like.