5⭐️ 🌶️3

Fionamara, a skilled smuggler, utilises her unique abilities to navigate the hidden portals between dimensions, transporting contraband between worlds. However, a botched mission leads to a coup against the reigning immortal of her territory, putting Fi’s home in the crossfire. In a world where humans are sustenance for the Daeyari, the monstrous overloads wield immense power, exchanging sacrifices for feudal protection and essential resources. Despite the odds stacked against her, Fi finds her needs align with Antal, the overthrown Daeyari overlord, and they forge an unlikely partnership to reclaim what was taken. But as their plans gain momentum, surrendering to her intensifying feelings for Antal might prove to be her most dangerous undertaking yet…

Thanks so much to Orion Publishing Group and NetGalley for the ARC.

If I could give this more than 5 stars, I honestly would! I’ve read some really great books recently - I’m on a really good reading streak - but this was something else!

It’s a wild and romantic monster romantasy with detailed magic systems and a rich lore. The world-building is brilliant! It’s imaginative, evocative, and immerses you right from the beginning. It has an array of awesome characters and an exciting plot that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end!

Fi may be one of my all-time favourite FMCs. She’s witty, tough, and independent, but she also acknowledges and embraces her vulnerabilities (She’s also 32 years old - YES for a FMC in a fantasy book over the age of 30!). I absolutely loved her, and loved Maclean’s style of writing her point of view. Antel is also not your typical dark and tortured alpha type MMC either; he’s a lot more complex and interesting. If anything, Fi is the more formidable and demanding one in many respects, and I love how their relationship evolves!

I got about 70% through the book before I panicked that it was a standalone and I was almost done. But worry not, it’s the beginning of a duology! I’m just not happy with how long I’ll have to wait for the next one now that I’ve finished book one so quickly!

Wow. I wasn't sure what to expect going into this - but just wow.

This is not a book for the faint hearted. It deals with adult themes and subjects, and doesn't shy away showing the gore or the emotional damage that follows. But it is a fantastic book, a deep and rich world full of lore and stories - I particularly enjoyed the little fairy tales and rhymes scattered throughout.

The MFC is spikey, but hurting, putting on a brave face while she deals with past trauma and past choices. The MMC is a beautiful disaster. Avoiding emotion by hiding in a snow bank or in the rafters? Hiding feelings behind threats or sarcasm? Showing he cares when the MMF get hurt? Perfection. His tail is a little traitor too, betraying how he is really feeling.

Both have made bad choices in the past, and in this book that all comes back to bite - ha - them.

The supporting characters are great too, from an old friend turned enemy to a loyal brother, to a pain ridden friend who has her own reasons for hating the MMC. All wonderfully written, all come to life and despite the large page count, I couldn't put it down.

It works as a self contained book, but I do hope there is another. Perhaps we could spend more time in one of the other season planes then.

5/5

Voidwalker asks the age old question, what if you romanced your inner demons and the result is the best fantasy romance I have read all year. S.A. MacLean understood the assignment with this deeply bisexual fantasy novel involving the toils of revolution and the alluring call of the space between worlds. A world walking smuggler equipped with eyeliner as sharp as her energy blade and a cracking dye-job and a forest entity with antlers who is more than a little pathetic team up to take down their enemies, trying and failing to avoid romance in the process. As a fan of idiots to lovers and reluctant allies this book was already primed to be a hit for my reading tastes. But what makes Voidwalker so incredible isn't just MacLean’s two pathetic main characters and her select use of tropes, but in her soundly layered narrative. Integrating satisfying character arcs, romance, cross dimensional worlds, and an impeccably paced external plot, Voidwalker is fantasy honed to perfection. It’s also really really hot. Like SO hot. This book is for the readers who stare into the dark wishing the dark stared back…and was a hot forest demon equipped with antlers and claws with the disposition of a wet cat. Voidwalker is a dark, messy, romantic story—one that undoubtedly met my cravings but has me begging for more.

Am I now obsessed with monster romantasy?!
I was giggling from the get-go. I was in my feels - the funny, the deep, the painful. This was soft and sharp and vicious all at once.

Fi is a rainbow haired, spunky 32-year-old in the lucrative business of cross-Plane smuggling, able to travel across huge differences by cutting into doors most humans cannot see.
When her job goes wrong, she is offered as a sacrifice to the daeyari - carnivorous immortals who rule the humans and offer protection in exchange for sustenance. When Lord Antal and Fi discover betrayal, they strike up a bargain to help each other.

A cool magic system, protection, antlers, a tail, biting…
Would it be so bad, to be devoured?

<b>The middle of an argument with a carnivore: not the ideal time for discovering kinks.</b>

Fi is very good at pretending, a defence mechanism, masquerading as bravado. Aka my favourite kind of traumatised, sarcastic and biting heroine.

<b>‘Strength is easy to fake, Fionamara. Vulnerability is hard. Yet here you sit.’
</b>
Antal is scary until you find out he’s actually soft and tender and he needs to be hugged. Or to have a spunky human bite back. Figuratively… literally?

An amazing older brother. Hurt and comfort scenes. Easy queer normative rep. A Void Horse with a punny name. Hilarious chapter titles…
You will have a Void damned good time.

<b>‘Yet how odd, you assume all your folktales of devoured mortals end in death? There are other ways to enjoy flesh, Fionamara. Types of devouring that don’t work well as cautionary tales for misbehaving girls.’

‘I want to know you aren’t going to eat her,’ Boden said. Fi saw the response coming a mile away. Too slow to stop it.
‘Well,’ Antal drawled, ‘not unless she asks me to.’ Fi wondered what he’d look like reincarnated. After she murdered him, of course.
</b>
I will stop gushing now.

P.s. this is pretty different from The Phoenix Keeper, so go in knowing that!

Physical arc (still screaming) by Gollancz.