Review: The Marionettes by Katie Wismer

Name: The Marionettes
Series: The Marionettes #1
Author: Katie Wismer
Publisher: Ahimsa Press
Format: Paperback (available on KU)
Genres: New Adult, Fantasy, Romance, Paranormal
Noted Tropes: Slow-burn, Deadly Trials, Forced Proximity, Reluctant Allies to Lovers, Magical School, Cliffhanger, Vampires, Witches
Steam or Spice: A little spice

Rating:

Synopsis: Goodreads
A betrayal. A deadly secret. An unlikely ally.
Valerie Darkmore’s entire life has been building up to this moment—her initiation into the Marionettes, the prestigious league of witches sworn to serve the vampires. As one of the last remaining blood witches, her spot is almost guaranteed. At least, so she’d thought.
The academy is full of sabotage and secrets as the tasks begin, and Valerie quickly realizes she has more than her spot on the line. Her survival seems just as uncertain.
The closer she gets to the final trial, the more she learns everything—and everyone—around her isn’t quite what it seems.

Review:

Advance trigger warning: torture is described in GRAPHIC detail towards the end of the book.

While reading The Marionettes, I wanted to give this book 3 stars – it was a fast read which was nice but there wasn’t really anything that was gripping me and telling me that you’re going to want to finish this one and the series…

We’re following our FMC, Valerie who is a Blood Witch (there are a lot of different kinds of witches) as she goes through the trials to join The Marionettes (which is a group of witches that support and serve the Vampires), which all of her family before her have done. She’s also one of the few Blood Witches remaining which means the Queen (Vampire) is also keeping a close eye on her and even pairs her with her own Son for the trials portion.

I actually do like Valerie! It isn’t annoying or frustrating to be in her head. The authors writing style is quite easy to read, which I liked and although there was a lot of world lore to get to grips with, I felt like it was intergrated nicely with the story as opposed to thrown at you when it needed to be just so you had the background information.

But as I said, not much was really happening which had me thinking 3 stars was as good as it got. But then as things ramped up a notch I thought perhaps 3 was a harsh rating, but truly elements of this book were just kind of lost (like the trials) and just weren’t that interesting. The ‘romance’ isn’t really there either, but it is certainly developing and has a lot of potential in later books!

And then IT happened – though I can’t say what, because it absolutely would be a spoiler. And everything after that moment fully had me in a choke hold – I couldn’t stop reading. I have questions and I want answers and I am thankful that the only waiting I have to do to get those answers is getting the next book delivered.

If you want a fast read, this is a great option. What I was expecting was not what I got however – I was really expecting a focus on the academy and the trials that were part of the initiation into The Marionettes, and whilst they were there, they were by no means the focal point for me.

The first… I don’t know… 80% of the book is a little lost on me. I’m not really sure I could tell you what happened because I’m so focussed on the last 20% of the book! Because of this, it does not deserve a 5 star rating but the initial 3 I considered feels too harsh. I’m giving it a 4 star because Goodreads doesn’t do partials and WordPress only does .5 partials, but it isn’t quite a 4 star rating either – more like 3.75.

I will read the sequel as it does have a good cliffhanger, but honestly if I spend as much time in that one forcing myself to read on because ‘surely something has got to happen at some point’ then I won’t continue with the series. The Marionettes gets one more chance!

Let’s see where we go from here.

Unfortunately, nothing stood out as particuarly quote worthy, so no quote to end off this review!

Reading With Tyler