Whitney A. Miller

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: A girl and something? A love square and a cult!

Opening Sentence: “Before.”

The Review:

The Crimson Gate picks up right after The Violet Hour ends, so on that note I would suggest you pick up the first book before reading The Crimson Gate. Otherwise, you will have no clue what is going on. Harlow was just a girl who heard voices, it turns out that voice was Isiris who is like a goddess, maybe, still unsure, but she is also a dead ringer for Harlow. So Isiris leaves Harlow trapped in the temple and takes Harlow’s place.

Isiris then plans to destroy the world and kill everyone and it is up to Harlow to stop her. Harlow begins to work with Hayes and the Resistance to beat Isiris. Harlow shared a kiss with Hayes in book despite her love for Adam, hence why I said love square because in the Crimson Gate, Adam is with Isiris and Harlow is sort of with Hayes. It’s all a little confusing.

I wanted to really like this book, but I found the first book confusing. This one wasn’t much better. A lot of interesting elements but no real clarity on what is going on, for example is Isiris a goddess or does she just have some kind of magic? Harlow gets a taste of this power in the book but why does she have Isiris’ power? Just more questions raised than are ever answered. Plus, the love square, although I did like Hayes quite a bit more than Adam, and by the end of this book I firmly wasn’t in the Adam camp.

I am not sure why Isiris and Harlow looked so much alike either, Harlow referred to her as her doppelganger and the synopsis refers to them as twins, but that is never really explained. I think I would have enjoyed these books if everything was a lot clearer. If the world building was better and I could understand what was going on.

Notable Scenes:

“In my gut I knew it was something terrible and I was going to have no choice but to face it.”

“I tried to imagine a way this could all play out to a happy ending.”

“And after that I was going to get the hell out of here and go kick some doppelganging ass.”

FTC Advisory: Flux Publishing provided me with a copy of The Crimson Gate. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.… (altro)