Having dyed things with walnuts, I can tell you how effective they are. Reading about Mila learning survival skills with walnuts reminded me of the wormy nuts we used to find in graveyards. And here it is: Mila’s life is a graveyard after the Caledonians conquered like ancient Romans, and she spends over two years learning how to survive in the woods. All that is overturned when she is captured. I felt like she was slowly being raped and demeaned, despite being resourceful and a spitfire.

I guess it is a guilty pleasure; I would never want any such thing in real life. The orgy scene is horrifying. The pampered slave life reminds me of peacocks in cages. This was a first novel? Unbelievable. The story is so graphic and realistically brutal that I was sucked in just reading the tiny details. The world seems real. The characters seem real, and it is scary.

Now I want to know what the rewrite looks like. I want to know if she ever figures out that chains go both ways. This is seriously dark and it reminds me of Quinn Blackbird’s stories.
#Dystopian
# Dark Romance
#Definitely NOT for kids
# Enemies to Lovers, possibly?
# Alpha Love?

The only thing I don’t understand is the Title. Whatever. I received this through Booksprout for a review. Lucky guess on my part. I read it in an evening.