Fate of a Faux

Lord of Rathe Duet, Book 2

De: Meagan Brandy, Amo Jones

Narrado por: Teddy Hamilton, Aubrey Vincent

The King of Darkness is dead.

It’s time for a new one to rise....

London Crow isn’t who I thought she was.

She’s worse.

My hate for her knows no bounds.

My need for her has no end.

But it’s my inability to have her that might just end us all, as the fates refuse to be ignored.

Now, there’s a darkness sweeping the streets of Rathe, threatening to destroy the Kingdom we know and love, and it’s all because of her.

The mate I can’t have.

The bond I can’t let go.

There is only one way to restore balance, and it begins and ends with her.

The problem? I broke the girl into a thousand tiny pieces without a second thought. Earning her forgiveness won’t be easy, but that’s fine.

If she won’t give it freely, I will take it.

One mistake at a time.

©2023 Meagan Brandy and Amo Jones (P)2024 Audible, Inc.

Great story

Had many twist and turns. The back and forth between main characters was annoying but also funny. Hoping there will stories about the brothers to come finding their mates.

4 Stars!

Being a fan of Amo Jones, I couldn’t wait to read this Fantasy collaboration. Wow! The plot twist, push and pull was everything and more. This being my first book by Meagan I am now a fan. The narrator’s did an amazing job! I highly recommend this book .

Modern Demon Love!

I loved the funny, quirky kick ass heroine and the modern day trending music amd movie pop references within a Dark Fantasy Demon Enemy to lovers twist. plus the naughty brothers was very fun to read!

A lot of action

So much happened in this story that some was a little hard to keep track of what was happening. But love when the characters realize they can’t live without each other. And these narrators are truly amazing.

Ummm…this Duet could have been a lot better if the details had been clearer.

It seems there’s a place for another book. I however won’t be reading it. I love Duet stories, but not this one. Sorry.

Good but confusing at times

This was a very interesting duet series. I really really enjoyed the deep enemy fated hatred from the first book that carried into book 2. Then chapter 14 hit and a huge shift happened in the story and it seemed really displaced and I actually checked the actual book to see if maybe there was a recording issue but no it was meant to be that way. It all worked itself out but I was really confused for a bit. I feel like this could have been a three part series with all the information given and seemingly rushed. Don’t get me wrong I did enjoy these books but at times timing just seems off and the amount of characters was a lot to place. Definitely give it chance if you want an enemy to lover fated mate demonic magic story. Teddy and Aubrey were really great and I’ll definitely keep an eye out for more Aubrey works.

I like this one less than the first one

I hate it every confusing part of this book it’s confusing, again the MC it’s an ass without reason I guess to made it the bad boy until the last hour nothing is interesting 😒

Much Better

Ok a lot less confusing than the first one, but I still felt like there were parts of the story missing. There was a moment when London was in Rathe after reading the "acceptance letter" I had to go back over it in order to figure out what was going on and before realizing what Knight did. So I guess there were some transitions that were not as smooth as they should have been. All in all though this was a good story and since it dealt with their time in Rathe it was a little easier to follow. It would have made it easier to follow if I had known what creatures we were more dealing with before understanding they were demons, usually when the fantasy stories I have read refers to Prince of Darkness they are referring to Vampires but obviously they were demons. I feel like there is a third book coming that will have Hades and the younger brother. With the whole you are my mate I would have liked more heated scenes. The narration made the story worth listening too for sure.

Got a little weird, but I would read more

I don’t even know what to say.

The plot is all over the place and covers basically anything and everything you can think of? If you’re reading this book just to be entertained without having to think too deeply about the story, you might enjoy this a lot. I like an unhinged and unpredictable plot, and I…guess this book delivered?

We do spend a lot more time in the fantasy world than the human one in this one (almost no time in the human realm actually). And I feel like if you made it through all of book one, you’re here for book two because you have to keep reading after that cliffhanger. I wouldn’t say I hated this book, because I would actually read more books set in this world (the authors have said they have more books planned) and I would re-listen to this on audiobook.

There’s going to be plot spoilers in this review. So, stop now if you don’t to read any spoilers.

*****SPOILERS AHEAD*****

Content notes include suicidal ideation, suicidal attempt, self-inflicted violence, visions of a love interest having sex with someone else, amnesia, erasing an MC’s memories, death of parents, mentions of the death of a sibling, presumed death of one of the MCs, beheadings, kidnapping, murder, torture, and abuse.

This starts off really tense considering where we left off in the first book. Those events left London pretty upset (to put it lightly). She’s extremely suicidal during this time.

Meanwhile, Knight is deeply unsympathetic to her plight and actually really awful to her for most of this book. If you’re wondering how he redeems himself…I would say he doesn’t. He’s the alpha that he’s always been and it’s kicked to the max here. Yes, London and Knight get a HEA but do I care that they get one since he never actually grovels or tries to make it up to her? Eh. This is a dark romance, but I did expect him to experience a bit more regret from how he’s treated her.

The first of many “wtf plots” is this…do you miss watching The Bachelor or reading the Selection series? This book has it. It’s so random. There’s a whole subplot where Knight rejects London as his mate and so his mother decides to throw him a whole event testing all the eligible women in the realm to find out who will be Knight’s new wife. Honestly, I’m just shocked the whole selection process doesn’t turn into an orgy considering how Knight used to love all that before he met London. No, this was rather Recency histrom and quite tame compared to my expectations.

But does that mean there’s no murder during this time? NO. This book is exceptionally violent and there’s a lot of deaths. In fact, one of the MCs gets murdered by the love interest MULTIPLE times. Immortals are hard to kill so no one is DEAD dead, but was this all necessary? I want to say no.

London finds out about her true family and history, and why she seemingly has abilities that no other human does. I don’t think the reveal is a huge surprise. But it was interesting. I can’t say I fully understand the whole “unlocking your ethos” or whatever the authors were going for where mates who finally find one another unlocks their true potential, but I’ll just go along with it. London’s now very powerful. I don’t know much about Amo Jones’ books but I will say that when London comes into herself and gains confidence, it reminds me a lot of Meagan Brandy’s heroines like Raven in the Brayshaw High books.

AND SPEAKING OF THE BRAYSHAWS. They don’t show up here. BUT. The authors decide to name drop THEMSELVES into the book when London spots a couple books on someone’s bookshelves and it’s Brayshaw High and the Elite Kings (by Amo Jones) books. It’s too on the nose and I felt like I was going to die from secondhand embarrassment. It’s just unnecessary.

I don’t think I realized London and Knight’s heights in the first book but they have an immense height difference. London is apparently 5’0” (appx. 152 cm) and Knight is 6’3” (192 cm). It’s noted multiple times how short London is in this book. Which makes you think she’d escape Knight and his brothers easier if she’s that tiny. But she doesn’t.

However, this book isn’t all doom and gloom. I think it’s quite hilarious how much they both despise their mating bond. Have we ever seen two love interests hate each other and their mating bond to this degree? A true lovers-to-enemies-and-back-to-lovers situation going on here.

One main issue I had (and there were many small issues throughout but I want to talk about this main one) is the amnesia subplot. Was that needed? I feel like that’s a common question I have for this book. I thought my audiobook was having a glitch. Chapter 14 is almost an entire copy and paste from a chapter in the previous book and I was so baffled for the first few minutes. I think there were better ways to write and convey all that? The amnesia plot was interesting but the way it all got resolved was less so. Just a projection of her actually memories inside a magical cave? PLEASE.

Then we get to the naming of things in this book. We have Yemon, some disorder in the universe when a royal (in this case, Knight) rejects his mating bond. The name is fine if you’re reading the text but I was so confused in audiobook because it’s definitely just pronounced like the actual country Yemen. A brother called Legend is suddenly “Ledg” at the end of the book when no one called him that before (that I can remember).

And we have a place called Exile Island, which, you guessed it. Where creatures are sent into exile. The island is quite packed and they’ve got a real LOST (the tv show) situation there. We do gain a new character and female best friend for London, which she did need. The new character’s name is Haide and I look forward to her book! She sounds fun. It looks like she’s going to be with Legend but you know, I wouldn’t mind throwing Silver (one of Knight’s best friends) in that too and having a polyam situation. I do wonder about her having so much freedom to travel back and forth between the island and out of it, because has she really never left before? I’m confused how that works.

The real elephant in the room, or a dragon, if you will…is London’s best friend Ben. Look. Knight murdered him at the end for book one. I think it would’ve made more sense if he stayed gone. But then we wind up finding out in this book he’s a DRAGON now? Maybe if the lore was that he was always a dragon shifter and when he got killed, being a dragon saved his life but now he’s stuck in this form. Like, that would make more sense than whatever happened here. He was human, Knight somehow made Ben into a dragon after he killed him, and now he’s just permanent stuck in dragon form and can never be human again? PLEASE. I need this to be fixed in future books. I hate it. Let him be human again.

It was curious to me that London barely mentioned her uncle, who is her guardian, in this book. We do get that tread wrapped up at the end when he suddenly makes a very short appearance, but there should’ve been more about the man who raised her and who would be very worried about what happened to her.

I have questions about how the royalty thing works in this family, because yeah I can kind of see how being the first to find a mate would supersede the order the heirs were born and that person would be the new king. But why are they suddenly ALL deemed kings in this book? I like that the brothers are close, but come on.

The audiobook was enjoyable. I would say I just have the same issue here like I did with the first book. The narrators, Teddy Hamilton and Aubrey Vincent, canNOT agree on how to say Stygian. They both pronounce it differently, and I’m leaning more towards Teddy Hamilton having the correct pronunciation for the word over Aubrey Vincent.

The ending of this book felt very Meagan Brandy to me, or at least with how all the stuff got wrapped up with London and Knight after he realizes he’s actually in love with her. But I’m going to have to read some Amo Jones after this to learn more about her writing style and books and see what sticks out to me with which parts are by which author. I enjoyed the ending and as unhinged as these two books have been, I would 100% read more books from them set in this world.

Not great

Had so much potential, but like all bully romances, lacks any strong/competent FMC. I kept waiting and waiting for the MMC to treat her decent or grovel for his actions (he is her mate after all), but even when he “accepts” her, he still does things like spit in her face, tell her he wants to rip her open, destroy her, ruin her, treats her like garbage. And then after he literally kills her, makes a mockery of her in front of everyone and rejects her publicly while allowing her to be thrown over a railing, courts other women and seriously considers making them his queen, locks her in a dungeon and just ignores her while she spirals into suicidal thoughts and even tries to off herself/goes without food and water….she rides off into the sunset with him because apparently her vagina and hormones can’t deal. Just STOP! I expected so much from the same author of Say You Swear but this was just sad. The characters just sucked. I sat in my kids hockey practice listening to this and literally yelled at the book and had to take a break. I don’t like DNFing books so I kept at it and waited and waited for that groveling scene or at least an apology. C’mon female authors! Let’s stop writing bad female characters who are doormats and start writing strong, smart, capable characters with self-worth who can bite back.