I absolutely hate writing negative reviews. Especially when it’s a NetGalley read. But, thank you NetGalley for the chance to read this book early.

I’m dnfing at about 25%. The idea of this book is fantastic. A forbidden romance? Yes, please. Unfortunately, at this point, it seems like it’s not really forbidden. Just that Saphyr’s father wants to marry her to some old man that has more money than Corvus.

The plot was going way too fast. There’s not much worldbuilding so it’s kind of confusing as to what exactly is going on. The book starts off with a coup and you don’t really even know exactly why there’s a coup going on.

The characters also have no personality. I didn’t like a single one of them.

I really wanted to like this book. I mean, look at that amazing cover. It’s so freaking pretty.

The story follows Corvus, an heir to one of the noble Houses of the Sun Empire. A coup he is planning with the emperor’s general goes awry and he is forced to leave the kingdom with his friend and the princess Saphyr.

The plot is solid and I was intrigued by some of the events, but the story telling fell flat and the Christian god in a high fantasy book turned me off of it.

We get plunged right into the world, which was slightly difficult to catch up on with the amount of worldbuilding. It also seemed like it started later on in the story than it should’ve, I wanted to see the reasons behind the political warring. I would’ve also appreciated if the story was shown to us instead of told. For example, the general’s son Brenen saying “You are aware that my father and I despise each other.” This seems lazy; I would’ve liked to be shown that they do not get along instead of a one-off line. I hoped the romance would’ve been more fleshed out but that’s hard to do when Saphyr was not fleshed out. Is Corvus really overthrowing the emperor for this girl? I did not feel a connection. My main concern was the amount of times God was mentioned. Full on paragraphs of how God loves them, praying heals… I thought this was supposed to be a fantasy.

Immortal Souls had the potential to be one of my new favorite books: aside from that stunning cover (I can't resist when they're so beautiful, ugh) it features a lot of things I love: fae, forbidden romance, political intrigues, drama. The premise sounded very intriguing however, the execution did not deliver what I was expecting, so much so that I had to DNF this book - something I very rarely do. Since the first page, I felt like this story needed more editing: sometimes it was too fast-paced, other times it was too boring. It's said multiple times that there are deep bonds between the characters, but you can't really see it, or feel it. The characters actually feel terribly one-dimensional. The relationship between Corvus and Saphyr was so out of nowhere, their first kiss completely emotionless. Some scenes were also pretty confusing and not well described. To wrap up my thoughts, I feel like the author needs to work a little bit more on his writing, and actually get a good editor to work with.

I really appreciate how the first-person POV narrative was handled. The characters were quite intriguing and I'm quite happy for the male lead. However, the female lead was a little bland in comparison and what the story missed was electricity, tension, and epicness. It was a nice fantasy setting and a touching love story, but it needed more spark.

This standalone YA fantasy book follows Corvus, a teenager who is the sole heir to an upper-class family, who starts out the book organizing a rebellion to overthrow the king because he is in love with the crown princess, Saphyr, who is about to be married off by her father. After being betrayed, he is forced to go on the run with Saphyr and his best friend, Kanis, eventually working to take back the kingdom.

The pacing of this book was excellent for a standalone fantasy book. Although the beginning had relatively little exposition, which made it a little difficult to get my bearings, the rest of the book was very well paced; it never felt too slow, and it never felt rushed. The plot flowed very well; although there were some aspects that I had a little difficulty understanding the logic behind, for the most part events led very nicely into each other. While the plot wasn't overly complex, the constraints of writing a fantasy story to fit a single, relatively-short book mean that that didn't bother me at all. Although I think this book alone could easily have been expanded into a duology or trilogy (I'm unsure if the author intends for there to be further installments or not, but I'm referring to this book's plot in itself), I'm glad that it wasn't; the condensed nature of a single book definitely worked for this story. The worldbuilding was also interesting; it incorporated sirens, selkies, dryads, and some other elements of folklore, all of which I very much enjoyed.

One central issue that I had with this book, and the reason for my 3-star rating, is the characters. I found Corvus to be very unlikable and arrogant. Additionally, Saphyr had essentially no agency, and the way that Corvus treated her and reacted to her had some sexist and overly-possessive undertones. Kanis, meanwhile, had essentially no personality other than serving as a plot device for issues between Corvus and Saphyr. Frankly, the only character who I genuinely liked was Morgana, the queen of the sirens; I would have read an entire book just about her. The book also doesn't give a lot of justification as to why we are supposed to like Corvus or why he should be the person at the head of all of the action of the book. I think the story might have been more successful and had more intrinsic logic, both plot-wise and character-wise, had the plot remained essentially the same but featured Saphyr (with a more multidimensional personality) as the protagonist. Although I had a couple other issues with it, such as the occasional clunkiness of the writing style and some of the worldbuilding aspects (the religion seemed to essentially just be Christianity, and there were some portions that felt like unexplored on capitalism/communism, neither of which are problems in themselves, but which are both aspects that I feel could have benefitted from being addressed more), the characters were definitely my biggest issue with the book.

Overall, I did enjoy reading this book, and would definitely recommend it to anybody looking for a relatively quick YA fantasy standalone without too much complexity, or who I think would enjoy the more folklore/mythology based aspects..

Such a good YA, fast-paced, good romance book! Will definitely recommend it to friends and family! Totally one to read! The cover is also stunning.

Overall really enjoyed the premise, reminded me a bit of a darker Swan Princess but with more court intrigue. Some of the descriptions are a little weird but could just be me. It was an easy read and really flew through the book.