Review: Heartless

Heartless by Gena Showalter
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars 

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. 

 Kaysar realized he had a choice. Save the girl and his conscience, perhaps condemning himself and Viori in the process, or walk away and condemn the girl and his conscience. 

With his parents having died of the plague, teenager Kaysar is responsible for his stopped speaking traumatized five year sister Viori. When he comes upon the Frostlines, the royal family of the Winter Court, in the woods, they capture him and he spends a year of torture at the hands of King Hador and his brother Lark. When he finally comes into his own power, using his healing song and glamara power of compulsion, he is able to escape his chains. He kills Lark but feels that wasn't punishment enough, so he decides to routinely make war on the Frostlines because of how Hador and Lark tortured and raped him and how he is still searching for his beloved sister Viori and what happened to her after he was captured. 

In the aftermath, he'd discovered only the hatred remained. 

After Kaysar escapes, the story then jumps centuries and we find out that Kaysar is now King of the Dusklands and his own created Midnight Court. He's earned the nickname The Unhinged One and he has jars of the Frostlines' tongues as his war trophies. Everyone in the land fears him but he still doesn't know what happened to Viori. When he is exacting a new plan of revenge on King Hador's son, Jareth, which involves kidnapping Jareth's new wife Lulundria, getting her to desire him, and then sending her back to Jareth pregnant and forced to have a child of Kaysar's in the Frostline royal court, a mortally injured Lulundria escapes to the human realm. Kaysar can't follow her because he isn't a doormaker but he did manage to sing a song of compulsion and order her to return to him. 

“Return to me, princess. Return to me by any means necessary.” 

Chantel “Cookie” Bardot is twenty-six years old but with a heavily damaged heart, if she doesn't get a heart transplant, she doesn't have long to live. She makes her living being paid to stream and play an enchanted forest video game and lives with a hypochondriac geriatric and an extremely picky cat. When she receives a call that a heart is ready for her, she can't believe it and a few months later when her hair starts to turn pink, she's seeing pixies buzzing around her, and vines are growing from her finger tips, she really can't believe it. As her and her roommate are finally confronting these changes in her, Chantel's vines create a doorway and she is pulled through. 

An angel merged with a devil, both haunting and haunted. 

The start to a new series, Heartless was amazing on the world building. The fae realm called Astaria and it's five royal courts, Summer, Winter, Autumn, Spring, Dusklands, and Kaysar's created Midnight court and the mysterious Forgotten court were engaging and fascinating. The creatures, magic, and land described by the author really placed me in this land and had me excited for the series on a whole. The author's choice to have Chantel be a professional gamer who just so happens to play a game that very closely resembled and copied the fae realm, allowing her to more readily accept her changed circumstances, felt a little too easy in the beginning but as the story went on, I thought it fit perfectly, especially since I think it was a clue to what happened to Viori. 

Use her. Protect her. Use. Protect. 

In order to be more accepting of Kaysar's consuming mindset of revenge, with a little feeling of childishness swings of emotions, you'll have to remember his young age when he suffered his horrific abuse; he's stuck in that age, time and place. His map making on himself, slicing his arms with the metal claws he wears on his hands, is obviously a coping mechanism to release the emotions and pain he never has learned to deal to with. This made it a little hard to fully come on board when he has insta-attraction and lust for Chantel, he felt too emotionally young for me to enjoy that dynamic he instantly had with her. As the story went on, he does grow and change as Chantel explains and is patient with him and I was able to go along with their sexual connection more. 

Kaysar de Aoibheall did not beg for anything. Ever. But he had promised to be better for her, and he always kept his word. 

The constant battle between these two is all about Kaysar choosing Chantel over his vengeance. Chantel is the child of divorce and with her two parents starting other families they forgot about her, she wants to be number one is someone's life for once, making Kaysar's one true love of constantly battling the Frostlines a problem for them. Along with that emotional battle, there was also physical battles that didn't skimp on some gory details. Towards the latter half, when Chantel and Kaysar hit the sheets, you could just call this the fighting and the fucking book because both are singeing the pages. 

Why was she holding on to her hurt, letting fear rule her life? 

Overall, this story was entertaining in it's, at times, wilding out elements and components. I thought both Chantel and Kaysar stayed too stubborn at moments towards the end that hurt the pace of the story and kept it longer than it needed to be and I'm not sure the whole thread of whatever outfit or costume Chantel wears changes her personality was needed, there was already a lot of magical components to keep track of and absorb in this story. Kaysar's slow growing might take too long for some readers but I thought his gesture at the end was good for a traumatized man learning to change a centuries long learned behavior and coping mechanism. As I mentioned, I'm into this world Showalter has created because it was at turns entertaining, wilding, gory, emotional, and sexy. I can't wait to see if I did catch a clue about Viori, if our redeemed Prince Jareth will find a new love, what King Micah of the Forgottenlands is going to get up too, and if Pearl Jean's sciatica will go away enough for her to bag a fae realm hottie. Immortal Enemies has the world building to be entertaining for awhile.

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