Bend Her: A Dark Beauty and the Beast Fantasy Romance

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Bend her is part of the new The Transformation Trilogy, which follows Lisane a princess and Rhaim a mage. I glanced at some other reviews of people saying they didn't like the world building, but personally that didn't matter to me because I was more interested in the romance. Their fates collide when Lisane is brought to Rhaim's doorstep, gifted to him by her father in exchange for his efforts in the ongoing war towards the Deathless. The characters were unique and the story is not overcrowded with a plethora of fantastical beings to track. The MMC's pov was meant to explain the magic system to us; that was it, but the author tried to stretch it out, and it made his story feel almost silly.

I definitely enjoyed the tumultuous emotions and character development of the the heroine, Lisane, especially the slowburn build between her and Rhaim. Most of the story really followed around Rhaim working with the King to kill the Deathless and Lisandra struggling to learn magic. He is a great mage but with a taste for our sweet main character Lisane and of course he uses his knowledge to his advantage. I requested an ARC not knowing much about the premise other than "dark beauty and the beast," and when I saw the trigger list included heavy impact play, I almost had instant regret. The story - especially making it fantasy - would have benefitted significantly more backstory, not only for the main characters, though this is the most glaringly obvious, but for the magic, all of the other characters, and the world/universe the book takes place in.And so, when a group of soldiers brought a bound and drugged woman to my doorstep, to bribe me to fight in their war, and pulled the bag off of her head and I saw her there—the woman from the vision at my Ascension, and who has haunted my dreams ever since—I knew it was the beginning of my end. Lisiane is a proud female and her pride is at stakes when she agreeds to let Rhaim master and control her body in exchange of being trained into becoming a mage. Seeing the relationship between Rhaim and Lisandro gradually grow and develop (slow burn for the WIN) was so satisfying, and kept me turning the pages, so eager to find out what would happen! It is a dark tale laced with pain for our innocent beauty who was betrayed by her own father the king.

The very thing my father had been afraid of for me for my whole life—and the reason I lived in a gilded cage, only getting to leave the palace when I had throne-sworn mages by my side—had apparently happened.

This was recommended to me in Liv Zander's reader group for something to read after KOFAB because that left me in such a slump (IYKYK) and this just immediately sucked me into its world. Cassie Alexander has layed down the ground work with a interesting storyline and some great storytelling and I can't wait to see where this is heading in book 2 Break Her coming soon. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Also I've got to say that I've read many books with different animal side characters but Finx the spider cat stole the show!