Antonia Bernardin

The 80th book I read this year was Savage Fae by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti, the second book in the Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac series, set in the same world as Zodiac Academy but slightly before the timeline of the series.

An attempt at summarising

After the dramatic events at the end of book 1, Elise has trouble getting anyone to believe her about the fact she was drugged and that a boy was killed in a mysterious ritual by the Black Card. Gabriel is being as hot and cold as ever and won’t back up what she saw because of his ‘mysterious past’. Elise tries to figure out if the Black Card is related to her brothers death and continues investigating the four kings of the school. All of whom she is growing closer too by the day but the Dante and Ryder can’t see past their rivalry and are determined to stop the other from ‘getting’ Elise and choose to strike a bargain that means neither can have her… which they of course immediately regret. Her investigation kicks up another gear when she finds her brother’s burner phone, revealing he was blackmailing Gabriel and working odd jobs for both gangs. Her investigation leads her to discovering what her mum tried to do and what Gareth was trying to protect her from. She decides to play with Gabriel by picking up where her brother left off with the blackmailing, using the same phone but little does she know that Gabriel found out who is was blackmailing him before and so he employs his private investigator to look into likely suspects for who is doing it now. Elise still can’t fully rule any of the Kings of the school out and now she has the Black Card and her growing feelings to contend with.

What did I think?

This book is just a whole bunch of little clues and bits and pieces of the story of Gareth’s death, the whole time it feels like we’re on the edge of the ‘big reveal’ finally but she just finds more dead ends. A lot happens in the book that is essentially just moving the plot along but it’s more lots of little ‘aha’ moments, sprinkled with smut. I enjoy how this book is a little darker than Zodiac Academy, I think Elise’s grief journey is really well done, I find it hilarious how angsty to the guys are in this and that their journey as the grow closer to Elise is about them challenging some of their ‘I’m a dark evil person whose totally alone’ thoughts. I really like the Zodiac universe and this series is really keeping me hanging with central mystery of it all. Knowing these authors I fully expect them to draw it out right to the 5th book in the series and honestly, I’m here for it.