A unique retelling of King Midas, love the twists and character development in this series. The writing and character relationships remind me of SJM/ACOTAR which is always a plus for me. The first book is a little odd, the second was my favourite by far, third is a little slow in the middle. I’m keen to see where she goes with the series and it’s an author I’d read from again, fair warning though this first book was a little strange ( )

this book had me so riveted. the sex scenes were raunchy but the storyline hooked me. an underdog and female lead a growing an intriguing storyline..I love/hated how Kennedy ended the books on a cliffhanger it forced me to read on to find out what the conclusion was. this book series distracted me in the pandemic and I'm impatiently waiting on the continuation which I did preorder. ( )

I heard so many things about Gild that I was expecting a masterpiece. Sadly, it wasn't. Again, Booktok deceived me. ( )

Great start

First off, this cover is gorgeous. The book wax much different than I was expecting but it was still good. Great worlds building and setting that world to continue on with these characters. This isn't my normal subgenre but the author got me invested.

Looking forward to what happens next. ( )

This is a hard review to write. Hell, this was a hard book to read. I want to give the author some benefit of the doubt but she doesn't make it easy. I can tell what she was trying to do, she just didn't do it well.

So it's not that you can't write a good book about a woman who was a child slave, groomed, and has Stockholm Syndrom that takes place in a very misogynistic world full of rape and objectification of women, but you can't write a whole-ass 400-page book as the first in a series without framing it properly in that book and still make those things the focus of the book. It's really hard not to see this book as anything but torture porn, just due to the fact of all the senseless on-page sexual and violent content. There was absolutely no reason to start the book off with a voyeuristic orgy scene except to shock the reader. There was really no reason to repeatedly write men calling women "cum-filled husks" and and objects only good for pleasuring men against their will over and over and OVER AGAIN except for fetishization. There was NO REASON for us to read the detailed, violent rape of a woman just to reveal information about the main character except to insert degrading sex into the story. Rape and objectification of women is not a good story by itself.

Why do we spend 6-7 chapters dreading the rape of the main character only for that to get derailed at the last possible moment, on not one, not two, but THREE SEPARATE occasions? It's not suspenseful or titillating to read about how much the main character doesn't want to be forced to have sex with rude, disgusting, sleazy men for 50 pages at a time. It just makes me feel depressed and gross.

And the pacing was fucking GLACIAL. (Ha, pun not intended.) I'm actually very confused about this being said to be fast-paced. Not a lot happens in this book outside the repeated threat of rape, and we're in Auren's head where not a lot goes on. Let's be real. She just doesn't do much beside sit in a cage, watch the King's orgies, and be gawked at for 10 years, so she really just doesn't have a lot of interesting things going on in her head right now. The last 30% of the book takes place over a single night, and still the danger and suspense is just the threat of rape.

Another thing that added to the slow pace was repetitive and overly descriptive prose for things that don't matter. I swear for the first 30% of the book, we are subjected to reminders of the GOLD castle, the GOLD plants, the GOLD clothes, the GOLD skin but not teeth or eyes, don't forget that GOLD. We have to read every minute, strange feeling this girl has in her gut. Every night when Auren looks up to the sky to see the sunlight fade away into darkness.

Also, truly, a woman who was forced into sex slavery and poverty as a child cannot be this naive. I'll accept her being groomed into her love for Midas and thinking he is a good king who would spread his wealth around the 6th Kingdom, but after realizing he's not and didn't uplift his kingdom, why is she endangering her own life and the lives of her guards and consorts to get out in the slums?

And the rape scene was so fucking unnecessary. We have to read, from the perspective of our weak main character, a violent rape in front of the main character. I'm really upset over it not only because it was hard to read, but really because the other character is pulled in at the last moment just to stall the rape of the main character, because god forbid after all the threats of rape and close calls, we actually read the main character get raped? It cheapens the horrific experience of the other character by using her as a plot device to reveal the twist about the main character. Also, why did it have to be so violent?

And do not get me started on the fucking spine tentacles. I'm so confused. There's no logic to them. Are they sentient??? ( )