“God, give me patience or an untraceable handgun, I thought.”

Welp. Another disappointment in the fantasy category. Another book I heard great things about and was very excited to read that ended up being just really meh for me. 2.5 stars.

This is kind of a hard one to review, because parts of it were pretty good and held promise, while other parts (the majority of them) were quite subpar. I hate to say it, because it seems like a gross generalization, but this book read very amateurish and “self-published.” It did not seem like an established author wrote this and instead felt more like reading an outline than an actual novel.

Sidenote: I just found out that this is a 6 book series!!! 6 books?!?!?! Are you joking??? There was barely enough plot for one under-developed 300 page book, let alone 6 of them. I have zero idea if I will be continuing with this story, but hearing that it is a 6-part series makes it even less likely that I will invest my time further.

This book opens with an interesting scene of our main character Fortuna trying to escape her captors. They are trying to sell her at a black market for magical beings/items, but they underestimate her Nightmare abilities. A couple things. One, I don’t like it when book title is just the character’s name. It seems so…unoriginal and arrogant. Only Harry Potter can do that. Second, I have seen a lot of people talking about how Fortuna being a Nightmare is SO original and SO unique but like…it’s not? Having the ability to sense someone’s fear and plant visions in their mind is very, very common among fantasy novels.

Anyway. At this black market, Fortuna is helped by a mysterious dark haired Fae stranger so she can escape. Because of course she is. When she does escape and enact revenge and return home, guess who follows her there? You betcha. Handsome Fae stranger. Who of course turns out to be super powerful and offers to help her find her long lost brother is only she will marry him.

Bleh. There were clichés upon clichés upon tropes upon predictable, tired plot devices here. It’s one thing to use a common trope and still use it well. I love certain faerie tropes! I love a forced marriage trope and a shared bed trope and a bargain trope and a trial tripe and a “losing sense of your own humanity to get ahead and survive” trope. But lemme tell you, these were not well done here.

The author once again seemed so inexperienced, it was painful to read at time. The writing was clunky and very simple. It was so telly the entire time and Forutna had a very irritating inner voice. My main complaint, however, was how short and poorly planned this book was. There was hardly any plot and what there was, seemed like the author just wrote scenes she wanted in the book and then filled the in-between with random, nonsensical scenes to pass time. Fortuna was always sleeping in order for the time to pass (even if she did visit her weird dream-sex friend all the time, who was such a boring “nice guy” character). There was no substance to this book! There was no time spent on anything and that right there is such an amateur mistake, because I have done it a hundred times. When the author doesn’t properly outline and develop a story, the narrative just rushes through everything. This gives the reader no time to acclimate to the world, become invested in the story, or come to care about the characters. Fortuna’s trials (which, let’s be real here was the most blatant rip off of A Court of Thorns and Roses there is. In fact, a lot of this book is just a K-Mart version of ACOTAR) happened so fast there was literally no time to care. They were rushed through in a matter of pages, hell paragraphs sometimes. You’re really not going to spend more than 2 pages on the fact that Fortuna had to risk stabbing her own brother to win the crown? It’s just sloppy.

I do think this author and the story itself has potential, I’m just not impressed with what I have seen so far. I did enjoy how brutal and dark the world was. Y’all know I am a Holly Black kind of faerie fan. And, despite myself, I am intrigued by what was revealed about Viessa, Laurie, and that werewolf. Honestly, at this point, the werewolf is my favorite character and one of few reasons I would read the second book. Who is he??? Why did that Fae woman have him chained up?? Why won’t he change back??? The intrigueeeeee. Fortuna, Collith, Damon, and Oliver can all go shove it, though. They are so PREDICTABLE; nothing they did or said surprised me or made me go oooo how interesting. Collith seemed like he would be cliché but worth it in the beginning, but throughout the book, he got more and more bland. He was suddenly all nice and full of love, which was freakin weird. Where was the transition?? Fortuna just sucked. She was dumb and “feisty” and stubborn = annoying. She is all sad because she thinks she’s a monster now. Like girl, shut up.

So yeah. This was kind of a flop for me. Even the erotic scenes were bland and kind of uncomfortable. Just all around not a very good book. I feel bamboozled by my Youtube chicks that said this was just as good as Sarah J Maas. Ha!!! Who knows if I will read the second one. Maybe. We’ll see.

Have you guys read it? Do you agree with me?

Thanks for reading! ❤

Title: Fortuna Sworn (Fortuna Sworn #1)
Author: K.J. Sutton
Genre: Fantasy| Paranormal | New Adult | Romance | Urban Fantasy | Fae
Publication Date: June 23rd, 2019
Page Count: 314 pages
Buy It: Wordery | Book Depository