Name: Verity Guild
Series: Verity Guild #1
Author: Mai Corland
Publisher: Red Tower Books
Format: Kindle & Hardback
Genres: Adult, Mystery, Romance, Fantasy
🌶️: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
😭: None
Rating:
Synopsis: Goodreads
Secrets built this republic; one truth could burn it down.
High Priestess Kerasea Vestal has spent her life hiding the truth―that she’s the last surviving heir of the magical bloodline the republic slaughtered. One wrong step could be fatal. But when a senator is brutally killed and a temple blade is found at the scene, all eyes turn to her.
Praetorian Torren Morvane has made a career of dragging liars into the light, and Kerasea is the one person he’s vowed to ruin. But locked on a mountain with a murderer, scheming senators, and a prophecy of death, he’s forced to work at her side. The closer he gets, the more dangerous the truth―and their attraction―becomes.
With traitors closing in and a nation on the verge of shattering, Kerasea and Torren must risk everything to uncover the real killer…even if it means trusting their sworn enemy.
Review:
I had a lot of high hopes for Verity Guild, the genre blending of romantasy & locked room murder mystery (in an Ancient Rome inspired fantasy world!!) sounded amazing and I was absolutely up for it!! What we got, was a good murder mystery and a lacking romantic sub plot, with a fantasy world that I don’t hate!
The good: Murder Mystery
I really liked the locked room aspect of this mystery, it added to the tension that already existed because literally everyone in this damn council is sketchy and suspicious as hell! Because of this, although I have theories for what is going on, I could so easily be wrong. Everyone wants more power, or has a secret (our main characters included!). It’s a very good base for a mystery.
I liked the fact that both Kerasea and Torren have secrets of their own as well. Their relationship is already off to a rocky start due to things that happened off page, before the events of this book, and again their own secrets… And each of them having POV chapters added to uncertainty I felt surrounding my own theories… this probably doesn’t make a lot of sense, but once you read it you’ll understand.
However, the bad: the romantic sub plot
I like Kerasea and Torren, separately. I don’t understand the romance at all, however. I did not care for it, and I think this would have been a better book without it, or at least without it in this book. I wanted more time of them hating each other and relucantly working together before becoming lovers. In my opinion, the romance was rushed, there was no chemistry and it just felt a bit icky.
I haven’t had success with a Mai Corland book before, the only other one I tried I soft DNF’d because it just didn’t seem to be the book I wanted to read in that moment. I liked Verity Guild though, I like the world we’re in and I love the murder mystery. The characters, whether main or otherwise, are adding their own layers to this mystery because they’re all so sketchy and I love that. This is a messy situation for everyone to be in and it shows. The romance just let this one down.
I will still read the sequel, because I have to know what is going to happen to our main characters, and I still don’t trust one of the secondary characters AT ALL (he is the most suspicious of them all in my opinion!!). So, I’m very much invested… just not in the romance. At all.
“But a kind heart is nothing more than a meal to wolves.”
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