In this series we have the tropes of why choose, dark academy, forced proximity, trials.
This is book four of the Cruel Shifterverse series. The first three books in the series is about Sadie, her story and her men. This book and the next two after are about Aran and her men.
I often don’t like when a book series changes the lead character and so I hadn’t actually read these next three books straight after the first three. But now I have finally read them.
I have to say that I really liked this storyline. We also learn more about the different realms and seeing connections to the realms from Bonds of Hercules, another series by Jasmine Mas.
Aran, Arabella, now the Queen of the Fae Realm is transported to the Elite Academy as Lothaire deems her a powerful being under the guise of the High Court. The good part of this series is that we learn more about the High Court and their plans and their manipulation of powerful beings across the realms. She refuses to accept her position she doesn’t want to take up her position. She doesn’t want to be that person, so she continues to hide her identity and it backfires on her.
Aran is obviously suffering from PTSD, but instead of therapy, she turns to drugs and is tormented during her training at the academy. She is being trained in the Assassin program along with seven male beings. She is still wearing her enchantment ring, so everyone thinks she is male.
But I have to say, I completely understand Aran and her trauma and her need to shut down. And her drug use. It’s not necessarily a healthy option, but it works for her, especially when she manages to create a smoke crow who becomes her familiar.
Jasmine Mas really gets to crux of the trauma. ‘That was the funny thing about trauma; it didn’t need time to strip you of your personality and plunge you into darkness. It worked quickly. Mercilessly… It ripped you apart and left nothing. I was jagged shards of what had once been whole’ (p60). It’s very much how it can feel with deep trauma and depression brings you down. I really related to this.
I also feel her struggle with wanting to be powerful and not needing anyone’s help. But also wanting to be saved. Even with the scars on her back, curtesy of her evil mother. Though Aran still has thoughts of a partner, singular. Someone to fight next to, someone to look after her. For a being so broken, there is still this tiny glimmer of hope in her. And the desire for the feminine. Even though she hated it, she misses Sadie, she misses shopping and she misses her girly things and looking pretty. But also annoyed of missing it. This is clear when she is thrown into the assassin barracks. ‘Not a single throw pillow or sparkly candle holder to bring life into the space. My feminine chakra trembled with horror’ (p72).
I really like the writing of Jasmine Mas. She creates a truly scarred and traumatised young woman who really comes into her own, even with overprotective douche bags who initially hate these small women who end up being more powerful and stronger than expected. ‘Only those who have known what it is to be nothing can ever rise to be something’ (p86).
This is the third female character at the centre of a storyline. I know she has another book coming out later this year which I am excited about. But I wonder about the war that is coming. The Cruel Shifterverse is all aiming at a coming war amongst the realms. Will this also involve the Bonds of Hercules realm considering that the titan realm and Olympian realm are both mentioned in the Shifterverse. So, I am intrigued if a final book will combine all of them. All three powerful women coming together to fight. I totally wait for that book. All of these women refuse to bow down to societal pressures; they all fight authority and work to bring them all down. None of them like the way society forces them into their situations. ‘It didn’t matter if I was a man or a woman. A queen. A monster. They were all just useless labels constructed by society’s need to exert control over people’ (p120). But it is through Aran’s story that we discover just how manipulated all the realms and the societies in them are.
But Aran is probably one of my favourite characters. She feels the most real, and potentially the most relatable. She is intelligent, she refuses to back down, she is angry at the world, she refuses to breakdown while at the same time fantasising having a partner to look after her. I feel this every day. I want to do everything myself and hate everyone. But I also want a man who loves me, chooses me and takes care of me. Then at the same time the loneliness consumes you. The first time she breaks down is when Sadie appears at the Academy. It’s the first chance she allows herself to feel something. I love their friendship. The tiny combative angry friend and her blue haired taller friend who stops her from getting in to too much trouble.
Slowly Aran pulls herself together and starts to allow others in. It is a long and painful process. But once she allows it she finds men who are everything for her. ‘Only those who’re broken can be rebuilt. Only those who’re shattered can rise to new heights’ (p43).