Rifting Hearts and Roars by Katie Gabbert Downey review

 

Rifting Hearts and Roars: A Cozy Monster Romance by Katie Gabbert Downey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars
🌶️🌶️🌶️ 3 Spice

Thank you to the author and BookSirens for providing me with an ARC of this book. All opinions are my own and given honestly.

I am a sucker for a cosy, spicy monster romance, so the moment I saw this on BookSirens, I was like, yep, sign me up, please....

The book starts off nice and slowly, introducing us to our FMC, Lir. She comes across as someone who is not tied down and is emotionally uninvested in complicating her life with romance and, well, people if she can help it. At first, she comes across a little bit like a porcupine in a way. The writing style is easy and uncomplicated, which made reading the book fast and easy, all the things I love when looking for this sort of book.

This book has a clear story from the get-go. It's what throws our FMC into the main story of the book, and soon you are introduced to a whole new alien world, beings and dangers. I felt like our female main character, Lir, struggled with choice-making, and at one time I did think a choice she made was epically stupid, but I think, given I was in her place and in her frame of mind, I don't think I would really make the best choices when scared either. I felt like she became more likeable as the story went on, and I really loved the exchanges between Lir and Somnus. The playfulness and differences between the pair really made this book fun.

For over half the book, you are mostly getting to grips with this alien planet, and you are really getting to see more of Lir and Somnus, her getting to grips with how her life has turned upside down and what of her future, and him working out what to do with her and his own confusing feelings. It really held up to the cosy side of the book.
There was a time skip that threw me off, as for a moment I had not known there was one, and when it said it, it felt a little jarring. There was one more moment of transition in the book that also felt a little like that too, but other than that, I had no problems with the writing.

The book really picked up after the halfway mark, and I'm not talking silly stuff that feels like fluff. I'm talking about action, gore and seeing a side of what this alien race is like in the main city, and it really picked the book up and the tempo. You meet new characters, and it made the book feel bigger, and our girl Lir got to really see what sort of environment she was in and how different it was from her home.

I loved the action and seeing a different side of Somnus and getting a bigger idea of the political workings of his people. The author was not shy about the gore, and I felt like there was a great balance of story, gore, spice and action that left me feeling totally pleased, zooming through the book in only a few hours. I normally know how much I like a book by how fast I read it, and I ate this book up. I think any reader who loves monster romance will find this one a totally enjoyable read.
If I was to nitpick, I would say I would have loved more at the end. I felt like there was a feeling of openness to the end, like there was this want for Lir to be happy in her choice and... closure, but I felt like while I loved the ending, there was this... what now? Rather than a "The End" sort of feel.

Anyway, to sum up, I found this to be a unique, spicy monster romance with a sprinkle of gore and a solid storyline. I finished reading thinking about what I think would happen now, and that for me is always a sign of a good book.

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