Adelaide Forrest

I am super torn about it. A lot of that hinges on where the story actually goes because it is not clear from the completely open ending in this one.
Let me first get to a few general criticisms I have.
The insta-lust was just so extreme that it stretched credulity a lot.
Don't get me wrong I am all for an interesting and spicy conflict between mind and body and all that but it just feels like it went too far too quickly too often in this one. Even among the bodice rippers, this falls on the strong side.
Next is the academia setting. This feels tacked on and only seems to serve two purposes. First, the protagonists need some kind of environment to interact in, and being forced to go to some sort of magic college is as good an excuse as any. Well, among excuses. But how about a setting that isn't just an excuse? Nothing in this story actually requires or even uses the academia setting for anything really. Second, it seems to me like the choice of academia was primarily driven by an attempt at baiting the target audience. On the one hand, this comes across to me as cheap if attracting a certain audience is indeed the primary motivation, but on the other hand, it's a good bet that just putting academia into the book leads to a lot more people finding this book that might thoroughly enjoy it.

Now I want to talk about the story beyond the insta-lust and the unnecessary academia.
The book already warns about this but this is not one of these ambiguous romances where the ML is a domineering alpha-hole that crosses lines but is kinda repentant at the end and is more or less redeemed in the end.
The ending of this book very much gave me the impression this could simply not end in any kind of HEA. This book made it actually plausible for this to end in tragedy and I LOVE it.
There are so many possible bitter-sweet endings I could see here but this might be the biggest downfall of this series in the end because the author can't possibly write an ending that even half of the readers will be happy with.
Call me a sadist all you like but I honestly wouldn't mind the FMC making the ultimate sacrifice, leaving the ML alive but mortal in the process, and having the last chapter be just him being eaten up by regret and futilely trying to work for forgiveness for all he has done despite knowing she is already lost to him until he dies.

On a side note, my bullshit radar went off quite a bit because of the wonky world-building. It's all incredibly vague and the author is careful to not establish any hard and fast rules that might get in the way later but despite that, I frequently had this nagging in the back of my head that all this doesn't quite work in terms of world-building or even plot. But I was so deeply invested in the story and the MC in particular that I never got hung up on any of these so I couldn't honestly tell you what was fishy exactly and why. Just be aware that if the story doesn't capture you there might be quite a bit of frustrating bs waiting for you.… (meer)