To Snap a Silver Stem

Crystal Bloom, Book 2

By: Sarah A. Parker

Narrated by: Chelsea Stephens, Troy Duran

I want him to hurt. To bleed. I want him to snap, just like he snapped me.

Once upon a time, my world was small and sheltered. Everything changed the moment I stepped over my Safety Line, barrelling towards a coupling with a man I hardly know.

He wants me. All of me.

Dunked in a charged political pit, I must secure the ships needed to quell the spill of murderous beasts still flooding the continent. But one wrong move could spur the war I’ve worked so hard to avoid.

I’ll wear the dress and the cupla and the shoes. I’ll do it all with a smile on my face. Because everyone's watching.

He’s watching—hunting a fissure in my frosty shield, trying to scrape back the layers and see my ugly insides. He’s unyielding. Unguarded. Changed. Why is he looking now when I’ve got everything to hide?

Secrets sprout, truths bloom, and more than one of us will snap.

Crowned in the crippling weight of my mistakes, I must atone. Even if it costs me my life.

Fear was my overlord. Now, it’s my prisoner.

To Snap a Silver Stem is the explosive sequel of To Bleed a Crystal Bloom, a dark Rapunzel reimagining full of immersive imagery and breathtaking angst.

©2022 Sarah A. Parker (P)2022 Podium Audio

Slow to start

The first book is a little obnoxious and slow to start but I love this whole series. It comes together nicely

LIFE IS SHORT! BUY THE BOOK!

So good! I loved getting to know the characters on a deeper level! I can't wait for the next in the series to come out!

Fantastic narration for a hauntingly beautiful story

I enjoyed the audio version of this book! Both narrator’s did a fantastic job bringing the characters to life and it was great to get POVs from new characters in this book. This is my second read through of this series and I’m enjoying it even more with the audio!

the gray areas between the goodness and the wickedness between people.

I loved this book. Some say they hated it and it was impossible...but as a person who experienced life altering events, it's not impossible to think of the dramatic changes it creates in people. This book was sad, hard, but still very well written. I want the next installment, because I can't guess the outcome and it intrigues me.

Huge let down

I’m so frustrated with book 2 of this series. There were some really interesting elements in book 1, but book 2 doesn’t deliver. It started going off the rails once the main character arrives in the south capital city. Her promised is an under developed character, predictable and boring. Olathe only made it out of her safe zone by running away from R but then she suddenly becomes this adventurous must discover the city girl and then starts taking chances left and right, most notably on this day she has guarded and chaperoned carriage tour, sneaks away from the guards then ends up at a sex club, looses her virginity to a random dude, sneaks into a park outside the city, falls asleep in the sun, then almost gets kidnapped, gets her necklace stolen, then burns everyone alive again, gets stuck in another dream/nightmare, wakes up naked (except her bag isn’t burned so it’s ok, runs away from a vruk through a sewer/mud, then cuts off a branch growing out of her shoulder while the vruk is still not that far away, she’s glowing and naked and bruised and bloody and freaking barefoot, then changes back into her fancy gown, then reveals her secret identity to the captain and his family who mistake her for a relative and she learns about the persecution of her people while having tea and getting bandages up, then miraculously sneaks back into the palace, convinces her dumb as rocks fiancé that she dropped her cupola and then he goes to the palace forge, which he can use because a spoiled royal like him totally would know how to use a forge, solders it on while burning her, then has a snuggly panic attack with R, then gets all angry with him while he has randomly become nice after being incredibly absent/cruel to her, instead of working together to form a plan—all I’m one day because that’s possible.

The nightmares have disappeared, the agoraphobia has disappeared, her issues with loud noises she started doing exposure therapy for but then disappeared, her ability to turn down R has disappeared, you could drive a spaceship through these plot holes and I’m starting to dislike all the characters.

Out of all that, somehow what bugs me most is that she doesn’t bring up some really obvious conversation topics like hey R, cool you like me back now, but aren’t you still engaged to someone else? She becomes all mean.

All this while she’s trying to train to get out of a pool with a piranha and octopus in it and her trainer is one of the cultists that murder her people and sell their body parts like crack cocaine.

I can do suspension of disbelief but this is just annoying now,

I smell him on this key, this shirt, this leaf…

I haven’t disliked a character this much in a long time but the whiney, stupid and ungrowing MFC is painful. The world building is really good and interesting and I really want to know how the story ends but I had to fast forward through so much of this book I probably missed something.

I am not sure if it is the narrator being overly dramatic or the book really being this annoying but having the MFC drone on and on every 10 minutes about smelling him was painful. I huff on this pillowcase he touched once, oh now I smell him from afar on this key, now it’s a small leaf a half mile away underwater and I know I smell him. If you can’t tell, I really hate this character. And it’s in the first two books and so far the start of the third.

She just doesn’t grow at all and waffles between I can do what I want and not think about the consequences and then just so much stereotypical female character guilt. I don’t get how anyone wants to be around her for any amount of time at all.

All that said I have bought the third book already before I realized how stupid this character was so I’m going to try to power through to find out what happens. I just plan on fast forwarding through all of the angst and whining and smelling. So will probably shave a couple hours off the time (I am not exaggerating my estimate).

If you can make your way through the constant pining and whining and unbelievable amount of tween level angst then the story itself is interesting and the world building is good. The book could have just been a couple hours shorter without all of the melodrama.

Cliffhanger!!

Ummm ok cliffhanger. I’m so mad that this ended how it ended and left me on read. Even with that slap in the face ending, it was still *chefs kiss*

So many questions were answered but way more questions still remain… a lot more. I found myself going back quite often to see if I missed something. I love the story line and it has completely gripped me from the beginning but I did get confused a lot throughout. I’m hoping that a lot will
Come together in the next book, so until then I won’t make my rating based on the questions that I have.

Now on to Rhordyn.😮‍💨 I must just be a toxic person with no pride or self preservation because there is no way I would be acting toward our MMC the way Laith is. I would have folded and climbed back to him in a second… because I’m clearly pathetic 🤣🤷🏼‍♀️ Are there several red flags when it comes to him? Maybe. Has he been a complete asshole to her for most of her life? Ok, possibly. You know, maybe he just doesn’t deal with his feelings very well? Maybe he didn’t have a good mom? Let’s give this angry, powerful, possessive, obsessive, protective, muscly man a break here. You just never know what others have gone through…… 😆🫣

The rest of the characters… my feelings fluctuate A LOT, so they are still being decided on. I think I love Baze and I think I like Kai? Maybe? I’m very curious to see where he comes in again when it comes to Laith. As for Cainon…. Yeah… not a clue… he’s questionable. One minute I really like him the next I don’t trust me at all.

Now on to the next….


Overall ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Romance 🩷🩷
Spice 🌶️🌶️
Darkness ☠️☠️.5

So many twists and turns

I feel like I’m getting little bit by bit information but it’s just enough to keep me absolutely interested. Listening to this whole triangle unravel, I’m really glad book 3 is already out. Although I’m sure I will be agitated when I get to the end and have to wait for book 4 LOL.

I’m devastated

This series has me in a puddle. MARCH 30th!!! I won’t have anything to soothe my wounded heart until March 😩

Omg!! My poor heart

Aaahhhh. March 30th needs to hurry up and get here! This book just broke me! So beautifully written!
The narrators are amazing! Ready for the next book now!