Review: Ruthless

Ruthless by Gena Showalter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.7 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. 

Strike first. And last. No exceptions. 

I would highly suggest reading the first in this series (Heartless) before picking this up. Ruthless takes place about 11 months after the truce that was called between Micah the Unwilling and Kaysar the Unhinged and his wife Cookie the Uncrumbled. Immortal Enemies is a series that, mostly, takes place in a fae realm called Astaria with it's four courts and the Dusklands and Forgotten lands. All of the world building is explained in the first along with the characters we see here. One of the mysteries from the first was what happened to Kaysar's younger sister Viori, here we find out that she raised herself in the woods. Viori's glamara (fae power) is similar to Kaysar's and his gift of song except she can create elemental beings, like large trees and stone beasts, but they take so much of her power, she often falls into deep sleeps that can last for centuries and can sometimes take her to the mortal human realm. As a teenager Micah came upon Viori in one of these sleeps and was scarred horribly by her tree beasts before they realized he didn't mean her any harm and he kind of fell in love with the sleeping pretty girl and brought her gifts until she woke up scared, screamed and had her beasts chase him away. 

She stood before Micah, her dagger shoved into his gut, his hand shackling her wrist as warm blood dripped over them both. 

There is the outside conflict of Micah being Viori's brother's enemy. Viori misses out on a lot of Astaria happenings because of her deep sleeps but she does know her brother's story and how he was mistreated, which she blames herself for because she thinks she killed their parents, which set them on the road of traveling through the forest where he got taken prisoner. Viori thinks she must somehow make it up to Kaysar before she can be with him again, once she learns that Micah is Kaysar's enemy and their truce is ending soon, she decides to hide her true identity and be a spy in Micah's camp to learn his weaknesses. 

Micah is still drawn to Viori and is amazed that she isn't in pain around him, something all others complain about because Micah is a chimera, he has two glamara that war with each other causing an uncomfortable atmosphere around him. Something with Viori's glamara matching up with his is the sort of explanation given for why it's not painful for her to be around him. The biggest conflict keeping these two apart is how they were raised. Micah as an orphan was taken in by another chimera and told to live by rules that included always protecting others and be honorable. When his mentor is killed by belua (what Viori's “children” are called) he devotes his life to killing them. Micah always wanted a family and is lonely but tries to hide this want because he doesn't think it will ever be possible because of his scarred body and how being a chimera causes people pain when they're around him. He eventually becomes a King and is now in charge of the Forgotten lands and waiting for the one year truce to be over so that he can reclaim his land and castle from Kaysar. 

Viori had to raise herself and as she was extremely vulnerable, was taken advantage of at every turn, so she learned to never trust anyone and that everyone is out to hurt her. There's some mention of a human man she fell in love with who betrayed her, so this pushes her to not trust Micah even more. Since a lot of the world-building was done in the first, Viori and Micah do get to spend a lot of time together and even though they have that initial lust/attraction, they do spend time getting to know each other. In the beginning, Viori is constantly throwing out Micah “Should just beat her then!” and as he calmly shows her each time that he's not like that through his actions and not just words, he starts to build her trust little by little. Around 40% Viori concocts a plan to marry Micah, she obviously is getting emotionally invested but justifies it as a way to protect Kaysar as she'll be Micah's queen and at halfway they are married. However, instead of having the third act break-up so much later in the story, it comes at the halfway point when Viori's true identity is revealed, along with some other information. This gave ample time for the two to work out the break-up issue and I loved how Viori and Micah got to use this time, it created a not rushed and more believable relationship between the two. 

I also enjoyed the tone and pace change from the more chaotic first, this slowed things down and focused a lot on Viori and Micah. There was still the outside world issues happening and developing, the truce coming to an end between Kaysar and Micah and possible traitor/s in Micah's camp but the story gave us a strong romance focus between Viori and Micah. There was some heat with the sexual tension, flirting, foreplay, trying to entice and deny, and eventual bedroom scenes between the two which I enjoyed breaking up some of the emotional trust building with some spice. Along with Viori getting to be the more bloodthirsty, it was around 70% that Micah was the one to not only trust first but have his actions be based on that trust and I loved how he held his heart out there. Micah acting this way earlier made it feel a little out of character and disappointing when later he suddenly didn't trust Viori in a certain aspect to give us a mini third act breakup, it wasn't needed for me because of how it killed some of the glow from his initial trust. 

Whatever came next, they would overcome it. Together, they could overcome anything. 

The ending gives us an action battle scene that brings in all the new characters and ones we meet in the first to give a great wrap-up, showing how it takes everyone working together and leave some dangling threads for the next in the series. This was good with it's different pace and tone from first, kept and added interesting fantasy elements, and given time to romance focus with trust and attraction. This felt more controlled (still some wilding out moments/elements, Pearl Jean and Loch Ness monster origin explanation!) than the first and I think it made for a more solid story and characters. Viori and Micah were strong and bold characters but their relationship also provided some sweet and sexy moments.

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