Rose in Chains

False advertising, not a foil edition.

Given how ominous the content warning at the start was, and how dark the story was in general, I went into this very cautiously - but I actually enjoyed the heck out of it. I could barely get anything done in between reading sessions because this book was all I could think about!Telling the story through dual timelines was such an immersive way to show the downfall of Evermore and Briony's complicated history with the Hearst family.I need the next book already please, waiting after that ending might just kill me!

I love a hard cover book and my aunt recommended this book so excited to read it but the cover and pages look fine

I would support Julie Soto as I have enjoyed all of her online works. Even though the internet is divided on their opinion about dramione FanFiction turned into traditionally published books, this author has put in the work(both in her fanfics and her traditional published books), and her work has given me so much joy that yes I will be buying the rest of the trilogy too.This book was good, a solid 8/10. I felt there wasn’t a necessity to introduce so many characters all at once in the first 50 pages, it really takes away from the story, the people who haven’t read the fanfic could just DNF because there’s just excessive characters in the beginning who don’t really do much in the story, and the people who have read the fanfic would just be mapping the fanfic characters to this book’s character in their head to make it make sense. But it’s a possibility that these characters would all start making sense in the other two books of the trilogy.The two main characters don’t feel powerful yet and maybe Soto has taken that direction with these books. The romance is okay, flashbacks seem nice. The cliffhanger made me rethink if the FMC is actually the “main hero character” or not, and the MMC hasn’t actually done anything swoon-worthy as of the first book.I did laugh out loud 3 times so that’s a win.Overall decent read.Looking forward to the rest of it.

Hands up, I'll admit that I have never read Dramione fanfic (younger me only had eyes for Remus and Sirius boys my own age were meh, including Draco). I have heard of The Auction through my time on Booktok. I'd read the blurb of this without realising the link until I noseyed at some reviews.The blurb sucked me in! I was very lucky to be passed for an ARC and, let me tell you, I was SUCKED in! I naively started this book near midnight on a work night and inhaled the first 30% without stopping (or sleeping).The tension between Briony and Toven could be cut with a knife! The flashbacks of their acquaintance through school helps to set the scene for the enemies to lovers. But all is not what it seems with the defeated Evermore revolution and the new Bombardi government.The first third of the book leading to the auction was rife with danger and tension. I literally couldn't stop reading until I found out how it ended! And the ending set up the next book perfectly! I did feel a bit of a lull within the 60-80% mark, some repetition of events, but it didn't take away from the overall story.Quite a tease in the romance department 😏 this is slooow burn romance at its best and the addition of some mind magic scenes left little to the imagination of what might be to come in book two 👀