Fate & Furies (The Legends of Thezmarr, # 3) 2
By: Helen Scheuerer
Publication: February 22, 2024 by Alchemy
466 Pages
Genre: New Adult, Fantasy
Source: Personal Kindle Library
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Goodreads description--“I always knew you would be the end of me.” With darkness cursing the world around her, Althea Zoltaire is desperate for vengeance. But as she hunts Wilder Hawthorne across the kingdoms, brutal secrets begin to unravel. Not knowing what – or who – to trust, Thea and her companions find themselves entwined with a destiny far greater than one man. Together, they must navigate the haunting revelations that could shatter the very foundations of the midrealms. Yet it’s not only the world at stake, but Thea’s heart too. As everything teeters on the verge of destruction, her fate collides once more with Wilder’s. Will their reunion ignite the fiery passion between them amidst the ashes of betrayal? Or will it end in a heartbreaking, deadly showdown? In a journey fraught with danger, where the lines between enemies and allies blur, Thea must decide where her loyalties lie, and who will stand at her side against the looming evil. Get ready for an epic adventure brimming with steamy romance, and a sprawling world of magic and monsters. Fate & Furies is the penultimate book in the spellbinding epic romantic fantasy series, The Legends of Thezmarr and is perfect for fans of Fourth Wing, The Bridge Kingdom, and The Witcher.
Oh man! The cliffhanger ending for book 2, Vows and Ruin, was killer! And because I just had to know what was going to happen, I devoured Fate and Furies. I had to know if that cliffhanger was just a misunderstanding or if there was more to the story that met the eye. Of course, I could make assumptions, but I had to know.
***This is all the warning you will get that there will be spoilers ahead for the previous two books in this series.***
Thea is reeling from Wilder's betrayal. She is hunting him to bring justice to him for his traitorous actions. But mostly for revenge. Yet since that day, she hasn't been able to access her magic either. Kip and Cal are with her, hunting him. Wilder has been throwing one creature after another at them. And he always seems to stay just out of reach. Yet, Thea learns that there's much going on in the midrealms that she doesn't know about or understand.
I appreciated that Thea and Wilder's reunion wasn't a smooth transition. Thea captures Wilder, and he wants an opportunity to talk to her. Yet she isn't quite up for listening. Her heart is broken from his betrayal. And even though he has been working behind the scenes for Thea's good, even when she couldn't see that, Wilder is hurt, too. He thinks Thea should have trusted him and what they had together. His reasoning was a bit of a cop-out to me. Out of the previous two books, where they had worked together on many different scenarios, I think he would have been open with her about what he believed might be going on. That's the entirety of many book plots. Two characters have minimal information but work together to discover the truth. But if he'd done that, then there would have been no conflict. I do appreciate that these two had things to work through. Because that's real life. We all have baggage and trauma that we bring into relationships. And those things hurt our partners more often than not. We have to work to overcome them. And we have to overcome the idea that our love is so big that we could never hurt each other. Everyone hurts the people they love. Most of the time, unintentionally. But we are all imperfect people. Learning how to forgive each other and work through all of those feelings is real. And I appreciated it being included.
I do like the build-up that I'm beginning to see of Torj and Wren, and I can't wait to check out their spin-off series. Wren is a force in her own right.
Too many of my favorite quotes:
-The unrelenting sadness came in those quieter moments, with the scent of leather in the wind, with the sight of Hawthorne's tin of peppermint tea sticking out of her saddlebag. Cursing colourfully, she untied the horses. All the midrealms were in uproar over his betrayal, even twelve months later, and though she wore the same mask of anger day in, day out, the sorrow beneath that surface grew taut. Sorrow for what she had lost, including the flicker of hope she'd had for the future.
-With more vigour than she intended, she unbuckled and unlaced the outer layers of her armour, hating that he'd been the one to give it to her. Every time she put it on, she was plagued with the memory of him kneeling before her, his touch skimming across her body as he strapped her into it. A small part of her had considered getting rid of the set for that reason alone, but it was too fine a make, too good a fit, and she'd never find a decent replacement on the road. So every day, she wore it with resentment, and every time it saved her from bodily harm, she cursed Wilder Hawthorne anew.
-He had been content once, slaying monsters, across the midrealms and answering to no one. But now he mourned a different taste of life. True happiness had found him for a brief pocket of time. Flashes of memory assaulted him, snatching the air from his lungs.
-The noise hauled him back to reality, the one in which Thea wasn't his, and he was only hers in the sense that he was her enemy.
-"I don't want you," she told him, knees buckling. "I don't believe you." He closed the small gap between them, still clutching her hand. "My shirt smells like you," he murmured, the sound a low rumble in the shell of her ear. "I still have your marks on my back from our last night together. You claimed me long ago, Thea. You don't get to say I'm not yours now."
-It had taken him years to accept what he knew about the shadow-touched folk, years to pull these pieces into place about what had been transpiring in the midrealsms for all this time. But what he could not accept was that Thea didn't believe him. He had thought they were stronger than that, that she understood what he felt for her, that it was more powerful than any darkness descending upon them.
-"He loves you. That was never in any doubt. Not to us. I'll wager that everything he does is for you."
-"I told myself that it was enough," he murmured into her hair, his voice hoarse. "That I should be grateful for the time we had. It was more love than most people get in a lifetime. But the truth is, Thea... A thousand lifetimes with you wouldn't be enough."
-"You didn't trust me with the truth," ... "You didn't trust me, full stop."
-"No more questions?" he prompted. Thea seemed to consider this before she spoke again. "I have endless questions," she told him slowly. "But I feel as though I no longer have the right to ask them..."
-"Who do you want to be, then?" she asked, pushing her plate away, unable to eat another morsel. "Someone worthy," Wilder replied...
-"What measure of time is enough to be life-changing?"
-"...the smallest blade can make the biggest difference."
-"When I stand against the gods at the end of my days," he told her fiercely, "I will regret nothing. Not the lies I've told, nor the lives I've claimed or the rivers of blood I've spilt. I do not regret a single moment, because every one of them led me to you."
-"You have my word as a Warsword, sire; justice will be served."
Even though I hate doing this for review purposes, I went straight into book 4 without sitting down to write my review of Fate and Furies. When I do that, it makes it hard to separate the events of each book. I'm so thankful to be able to highlight on my Kindle so that keeps me straight.
Fate and Furies was a fast read for me. The cliffhanger from the previous book drove me to keep reading. I needed to know if the characters I loved would find forgiveness or if they would be forever enemies. And I dove right into the next book in the series as soon as I finished this one. Language and on-page description are high for me, but the plot makes those things I'm willing to skim or skip over for the most part. Fate and Furies gets 4.5 Stars. Have you read Fate and Furies? What did you think? Let me know!
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