Thiede, E: This Vicious Grace the romantic, unforgettable fantasy debut of the year

Wooow Alessa and Dante I loved this book so much it was so intriguing and I loved the development of Alessa and the banter between her and Dante The writing style was great as well the only thing that’s really screaming YA to me (not in the most positive way for me personally) was the end but I’m really looking forward to reading the second instalment. Really recommend reading this book.

Super fast-paced story die ich innerhalb kürzester Zeit verschlungen habe, obwohl ich keine schnelle Leserin bin. Der Schreibstil ist sehr clever aber nicht schwer zu lesen. Die Konversationen zwischen Alessa und Dante haben mich mehrmals zum Lachen gebracht und wirkte sehr echt. Ich fand das Buch wirklich toll und hoffe, dass es einen Sequel geben wird

4,5 Stars First of all, I would like to say thank you for the review copy, which was provided to me by the publisher. This fact does not in any way affect my personal opinion of this book. This post contains advertising and the rights for the book belong to the publisher. Of course, is this only my personal opinion of the book and just because I give this rating to the book doesn’t mean everyone will have that opinion. I found the main idea of the plot intriguing and was excited to read this debut novel. The world-building was hard to grab at the beginning, in my opinion. I didn’t understand the stuff around the Gods and the punishment they decided for the humans. This stuff got clearer in the middle of the book after I found my way into the plot. I liked the characters and also Dante and Alessa’s chemistry. I can’t wait to read more about them in the second book. I also hope that we will get a little more information about the side characters because I found that they lacked a bit of depth, but still, there is always a second book. I really like this book and can’t wait for the second book to come out (even tho the first book isn’t even out because I got an ARC :D) Conclusion A fantastic debut novel!

This Vicious Grace by Emily Thiede is the first book in the Last Finestra series. Our protagonist Alessa is the current Finestra of her world. With that comes great power, but also a lot of responsibility as the whole world is looking up to her for finding a fitting partner. This is important to strengthen the world against a demon invasion. Alessa has a hard time with this as she can’t even touch people without killing them. She was an interesting character, but due to her position it was a bit difficult to see the entirety of her character. For her safety she commissions a bodyguard and that is no other than Dante. Dante was my favorite thing about this entire book and it was so enthralling to learn more about him as he is very mysterious and has a lot of knowledge. The world building was mainly focused on the Finestra aspect and beside that you actually see very little of the world. That was a bit sad. Otherwise, this world is very much inspired by classic Italian works and I liked that as well as the banter between Alessa and Dante. Overall, I really liked the concept of this book, but I sadly couldn’t fully connect to the characters or world. 3 stars. (ARC kindly provided in exchange for a review.)