Book review: The Savage and the Swan by Ella Fields

Published July 14th 2021 by Independently Published

Annotation:

The king of wolves was more beast than man, more tyrant than king, and so much more than he seemed.
Raised to avenge his murdered parents, he’d been trained and conditioned until nothing but violence and hatred lined the walls of his dead heart.

For nearly four years, I’d done all I could to help my kingdom as we faced the wolf king’s unconquerable evil—hardly anything at all.
As the only heir to the Gracewood line, I’d been relegated to menial tasks that would keep me and my secrets safe.

A chance to do more than fret behind our castle walls arrived when I breached them after overhearing my parents’ plans for my future. Fleeing, I unknowingly raced into a fate we’d all desperately hoped to avoid.

By the time I saw him coming, it was far too late. For my family. For my kingdom.
For my heart.
Before I could staunch the bleeding, the king had me under his giant paw, and one wrong move after another caused those razor-sharp claws to sink deeper and deeper beneath my bruised skin.

I might have been trapped, naïve, and furious, but I still had a kingdom to save—and a plan. Yet when we collided, the bloodshed, the fear, his atrocities… all of it dissolved like stardust upon the night sea.

The stars had mapped out our destiny, but it didn’t matter what they or my heart wanted. I refused to see the enigmatic male, the heartless lost boy with a soul beneath the flesh of a monster.
The savage king who’d destroyed everything I loved would fall—even if my heart fell with him.

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Inspired by Hades and Persephone, Rumpelstiltskin, and The Swan Princess, The Savage and the Swan is not connected to any other Ella Fields novel. It’s a full-length standalone romantic fantasy containing mature content.

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My rating: ⭐⭐

DNF at about 59%

*Warning! Spoilers Alert!*

So, let’s pluck some feathers:

✅ Insta-love. She just met some creepy guy in a cave where there’s no one around but there’s definitely something intriguing about him. Self-preservation mode goes to the dogs, sorry, wolves!

✅ Murder of a close relative by the love interest. He killed her father and ate his heart right in front of her. And she kissed that mouth afterward (not right away, but shortly). Oh wait, he spat; didn’t swallow a piece of the heart because it felt somehow wrong. Riiight.

✅ Mating – You are my mate, it’s fate, let’s mate. I love it when the only reason for ‘true love’ is mating, it is so romantic.
I am so tired of growling and sniffing – I don’t know about you but it is so humiliating to know that someone could just sniff you had sex. I could never fathom why the characters wouldn’t want to keep their private life private. Alfa-males are such an ancient age, really. Better to acquire some brains than extra testosterone.

✅ Shapeshifting or how to train your dog. I get that the hero is a Fae who turns into a giant wolf with wings. I get that. I just can’t get all those weird scenes between the heroine and the hero when he’s in his wolf form. Nothing erotic, thank God, but I am just not a huge fan of shapeshifting Zoofilia in books *shrugs*

✅ Bad guy turned good redemption line. Actually, there wasn’t any redemption line at all. We are just told and showed how cruel the hero is. We are told why. We are also told that his Kingdom is savage and everyone is cruel but guess what? Inside we have another Rhys (hello, Sarah J. Maas) with another generic Fae Kingdom, which magnificence is veiled and hidden from the rest of the world. In truth they are not barbarians, they do not kill those who agree to take their side. They have art and culture, and, overall, they are more civilized than the warring Kingdom. So it wouldn’t come as a shock that the hero is actually a sweetheart and not the monster, though he does kill people, but his democracy is more democratic.

✅Love saves the world. Again. I am so tired of this trope that only love can change a person and save the world. There’s no substantial explanation apart from love lust why the hero decided to change.

✅I am a virgin but I am a PRO because I watch porn and practice on inflatable sex dolls. In this book both the hero and the heroine are virgins. It’s okay, though the hero’s reason for not having sex is that it is a distraction and he’d rather masturbate and watch other people coupling. Well, tastes differ, but the level of sexual mastery from both the heroine and the hero on the first night could rival any experienced porn star. I am jealous. The porn star as well.

Bottom line: If I ever want to read another fantasy about Fae folk, I want it to be more like the Cruel Prince and less like A Court of Mist and Fury copypaste. Erect 24/7 wolf-men who can’t say their penis from a carrot seem like a waste of organ- oh, sorry, time.

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