Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Zion’s life is falling apart. His home burned down, his obnoxious ex-boyfriend is scheduled to get out of jail, the managers of the magical Renaissance Faire expect him to do a month’s worth of work in days, he hasn’t seen his sick sister in nine months, and he’s discovered a hidden room filled with secrets in the rubble of his library.
Usually, spending a few hours practicing rope bondage would be enough to clear Zion’s head, but not this time. This time there’s too much going wrong, and none of his problems are going away. In fact, life is throwing him yet another curve ball in the form of a handsome architect named Vin—the same Vin who spent all of last year trying to climb into Zion’s pants. Zion resisted then, but he’s not so sure he can do it again. He’s not so sure he even wants to.
Zion’s mountain of problems just keeps growing, and it’s only a matter of time until he gets buried beneath them.
First of all, I haven’t read the previous books in this series. I read the blurb for “Faire Secrets”, which is book four, and thought it sounded interesting. I went back and glanced over the blurbs of the previous books. Since this couple didn’t show up in any of them, I figured it should work as a standalone. Unfortunately it doesn’t. That’s totally my own fault and has nothing to do with the quality of the book/series. So I’m going to try to keep my rating as fair as possible and not punish the author for my own mistake.
The world of the Faire seems very intriguing. It looks like a lot of world building has happened in previous books and I really like the little that still happened in this book. The author has obviously put a lot of thought into her world and shows a great love for little details, which make the place even more alive and real.
Zion is an interesting man. I can’t help but relate to his work as a librarian, since I work with books as well. I always love to read about characters who truly appreciate books. Unfortunately for Zion, his world is currently in the middle of falling apart. Everything’s a mess. Usually, a bit of rope bondage helps him calm down, but that’s not enough this time. While Zion likes to be put into elaborate bondage and loves the feel of rope on his skin, he’s not into any other BDSM things. He’s neither a submissive, nor a masochist. He’s just kinky. I really liked that about him.
The sex scenes were very hot. Vin and Zion are very versatile and open to new things. The scenes were a good mix of explicit and non-explicit. Not every single time the two of them had sex was described in elaborate detail. Instead, the author chose to only show us the times when the sex was important to the plot and the relationship.
I liked that Vin was so open from the beginning. He told Zion that he wasn’t good at the guessing game and thus needed to be told explicitly what he was supposed to do or not do. I hate it when MCs don’t talk to each other and just assume things all the time!
I especially loved reading about Zion’s work with the ancient texts he found. I think those were my favourite scenes by far.
There isn’t much to complain about. The plot wasn’t exactly full of breathless suspense, but I still felt well entertained. I just wasn’t fully invested in the story all the time, which was probably a result of my lacking knowledge of previous events.
I’m sure I would have liked “Faire Secrets” even better if I had read the previous instalments. It has definitely made me curious about them and I want to read the first three parts now.
The cover by Fiona Jade is a bit generic. I think it could have done without the shirtless man. A greater focus on the books and scrolls might have worked better.
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Book details:
ebook, 257 pages
Published May 17th 2016 by Loose Id
Series: Part 4 of the Faire Folk series – add to your Goodreads shelf here:
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 