Crown of War and Shadow by J.R. Ward

TL;DR: This was… aggressively fine.
Source: NetGalley, thank you so much!

Plot: Special girl goes on a journey with broody mercenary named Merc (I think that sums that up).
Characters: A bit bland for me, I quickly grew tired of the same behavior over and over.
Setting: This didn’t come through at all after a point. We went on a journey and it focused instead on ‘Oh no.’ and lust the whole time. No setting.
Fantasy Romance: It’s definitely set in a fantasy world, that’s about as much as you’ll get. And the romance was dry as a bone for me. No good.

Summary:

The Fulcrum is failing, and demons are slipping into the mortal world, stalking the night.

No one is safe.

Especially not Sorrel. An orphan and an outcast, she’s spent her whole life within the walls of her small village, ostracized for her mystical abilities. She wants to survive…and maybe find somewhere she can call her true home. But Fate has other plans.

Sorrel has been chosen. Cursed.

She must cross the Badlands to return the Queen’s crown and convince the fearsome female to save their world from destruction.

Well aware she’s no brave hero, Sorrel makes a dangerous deal with Merc, a brooding, commanding mercenary known only by his unscrupulous profession.

The deal? A night in his bed that she will never forget, in exchange for her safe passage.

But Merc has secrets of his own, and even though passion runs hot between them, enemies are around every corner, and danger and betrayal threaten at every turn.

Thoughts:

I was super hyped for this, especially once I started it. I loved the feel and style, the beginning was so promising. I thought we were going to get a new romantasy with a touch of old school fantasy and it would be fantastic. Unfortunately as soon as our characters boots hit the road it fell into a lot of tropes and boring scenes I didn’t care for.

This really suffered for me in that we end up with some real cardboard cutouts of characters. Sorrel was so forgettable I forgot her name between reading sessions. And Merc, his name memorable only because he was a mercenary named Merc, had all of the personality of a piece of paper with ‘Shadow Daddy’ written on it. No thanks guys.

I was annoyed and frustrated by the end of this. I was hoping for something different from this author but this read like every other ‘Blank of Blank and Blank’ I’ve read. A knock off of a hit, that just never quite makes it. A miss for me guys, and I really have to stop pre-ordering these. Someone hold me accountable.