my little saddle club horse girl heart was absolutely living for this.
it's so nice to read a sports romance that actually deals a lot wirating: 4.25★
my little saddle club horse girl heart was absolutely living for this.
it's so nice to read a sports romance that actually deals a lot with the sport, but even better when it's one i actually enjoyed irl. the romance was great too (love the pas de deux metaphor for teamwork in a relationship) but dew look key stole the show for me, as pretty much any goofy animal personality does in stories.
please universe bring me more equestrian romance!...more
as someone who grew up reading misty of chincoteague, saddle club, and heartland, i desperately wanted an adult equestrian story with gossirating: 4.5
as someone who grew up reading misty of chincoteague, saddle club, and heartland, i desperately wanted an adult equestrian story with gossip girl-esque drama, and riders delivered satisfactorily (and then some).
this helped me live out my unfulfilled event dreams. set to the countryside outside london, riders follows the lives of several event jumpers who rise to acclaim and fame, as well as the interpersonal web of comraderie, competition, and infidelities stringing them together across the continents.
i loved rooting for fen, she’s such a spitfire. rupert is the blueprint for chuck bass, and i’d argue he makes chuck's antics look like child's play. delightfully unlikable yet undeniably charismatic, his enigma brings much entertainment to readers. he can be quite awful but his quips never failed to get a chuckle out of me.
a fan favorite i frankly can’t understand is billy. so many reviews rave for him as a sweetheart, but i think he’s a bit of a pushover. he stands by while rupert does sometimes atrocious things and (spoiler) (view spoiler)[takes advantage of young fen before crawling back to his awful ex wife (hide spoiler)]. while deplorable, at least rupert has a backbone whereas billy rides off his money and never puts his foot down. blegh.
jake i feel lukewarm about. i definitely sympathized but then greatly disliked some of his choices, but i found in the end i was really hoping for things to end ok for him.
at an intimidating 900+ page count, this was actually an incredibly fast read. i wouldn’t have guessed it was more than 500 pages if i hadn’t checked. it’s not necessarily fast-paced but i was quite engaged with all the characters’ journeys. it’s firmly british, set in late 1970s - early 1980s england, so it was fun discovering & figuring out new terms & phrases, as well as looking up cultural & historical contexts & references.
it was written in the mid 1980s, so there are outdated terms used and some situations that may offend / aren’t really to be used anymore.
overall, i really enjoyed this and i’m intrigued to continue the series (though i hear this is the raunchiest of them, so i might be let down lol)....more
“In his world there wouldn’t be four thrones. There would only be one.”
firstly, the book starts off w a suwhat's the opposite of second book syndrome?
“In his world there wouldn’t be four thrones. There would only be one.”
firstly, the book starts off w a surprise, then picks back up right where dark rise left off. each character only grows stronger as the dynamics evolve between them. pacat fully embraces a vividly imaginative fantasy world as we learn more about the shadows, light, and magical bloodlines.
it's easy to assume pacat would write characters that directly correlate to captive prince, and i can see the parallels, but he's successfully deviated from her debut series to create a whole new, vibrant cast. each character brings much to the table and i find myself rooting for nearly each one the more we get to know them (phillip and visander anyone?). and of course, i'd have to mention the various but ever-present queer identities in a pacat story. it's truly so exciting and rewarding to see pacat write the fantasy she's talked about wishing to see and read himself growing up as a fantasy fan.
“There must be a way to destroy it. When this is over. We’ll find a way.” He let the words sink in, James’s blue eyes wide. “If you still want me to order you around after that, I can.”
for the story itself, pacat once again brilliantly pulls off what he discusses as "writing two books" - the book you read itself, and the book that eventually reveals itself. i JUST read and i'm already planning my reread, plotting out where i need to look for clues and highlights. writing like this is what makes a series a timeless classic that's discussed and analyzed for years on.
He wanted to tell her again how glad he was to see her, that she was his star in the night. That he’d never really had friends growing up, and he was so glad she was his first.
"You think the war was the hard part? The war was nothing"
“He won’t kill you just for lying down next to me,” said James. “Who won’t?” “You know who,” said James. “My jealous master.” “I think he might very well kill someone for that.” The words just came out.
i could be really feral and go off on how obsessed i am with sarcean (me and the rest of the kingdoms), will and james' magnetic relationship, will and violet's beautiful friendship, cyprian's tragedy of lost identity and cult trauma, elizabeth as the precocious genius, the brief but emotional appearance of ettore, james and cyprian as brothers, visander the vegan icon, devon as louis from beastar, the hypocrisy of the stewards and sun kingdom regarding shadows, the undeniable horse girl vibes, etc... but i don't think i have the character space.
“But what is death,” said Kettering, “to one who can return?”
i think the dark rise series will be pacat's best work yet and i will spend the next (two years?) agonizing over theories and possibilities until we get what i anticipate to be an epic conclusion.
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holy fuck. i need a minute to collect my thoughts bc i'm just a mess rn....more