Review: Starling by Fiona Paul

Series: Secrets of the Eternal Rose Trilogy (Book 3)
Format: Hardcover

Pages: 324
Rating: 2 Stars
How I Got It: Purchased

               

                I basically had to force myself to read this. I really enjoyed Venom, the first book, but after the series went downhill. The romance has been bothering me since book two, but in this book the mystery plot was also weak and Cass started to get annoying.

                I’m still completely uninterested in the romance/love triangle. Belladonna clearly showed that Ms. Paul though Luca was end game and then had to take back everything she built in the first book. Honestly, there’s just no chemistry between Luca and Cass. I think I said this in my previous review: the series would have been better without the romance.

                The mystery plot with The Order was what redeemed Belladonna. But I thought this was book was slow and choppy. There would be an issue and then it got resolved in a chapter. This happened several times. I’m just used to bigger conflict in a final book. Plus some…ok a lot…of the conflicts were resolved quickly.

                And then there’s Cass. I actually liked her in the first two books. But in this book I felt like she got whiny. She was very woe is me. And I could tell Ms. Paul was trying to give her some strength or agency by teaching her to fight. But it was so brief (like many things in this book) that it fell flat. Personally, I felt like she was constantly talking herself into loving Luca.

                I did like some parts of the book. Mostly it had a lot of potential that wasn’t fully developed. We learned more about Cass’ aunt which was interesting and I wish there had been more. I did enjoy most of the ladies from the brothel. Those were the parts I liked the most and there definitely could have been more.

~Thanks for reading!

Holly