This review has been a long time coming! Over the last few months I have been listening to the Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac series by Caronline Peckham and Susanne Valenti.
This was my 66th, 80th and 82nd read of last year, and the 17th and 23rd of this year!
Dark Fae
A sort of summary
Elise is left completely broken by her brother’s death and sets out to figure out how he died, because even though the police have told her that he died of an overdose, she doesn’t believe it. After a guy high on the same drug her brother supposedly died of gives her the tip off that one of the ‘kings’ at aurora academy would kill him for telling her anything more, before shoving an ice spike in his own chest, Elise hacks her way into joining the academy too.
She quickly catches the attention of her four suspects, two of which are leader of the rival gangs that rule the city, the other is a powerful, mysterious harpy and the last is a lion shifter whose part of a prolific crime family. As Elise fights for her position in the school, she investigates her brothers death, walking the dangerous tight rope of playing the four most powerful fae at her school against each other, keeping them close without them realising the truth… only problem is, she seems to find herself just as drawn to them as they did her. There’s also a potential cult who may be responsible for his death instead and Elise is caught right in the middle of all of it.
My thoughts
I enjoyed this book, it’s a little darker (if you can believe that) than the Zodiac Academy series and the characters do feel distinctively different. It really does draw the mystery out, to the point where you still don’t know what happened by the end of book 1 but not in a way that feels rubbish or full of plot-filler delays.
I’m definitely going to keep listening/ reading this series, but I won’t keep doing a review for every single book, so the next one you’ll see on this series will be a wrap up of the whole thing most likely!
Savage Fae
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.
Vicious Fae
Plot summary attempt
Elise continues her investigation, following her suspicions about the school’s therapist and how she’s tied to the Black Card, as she lowers her guard around the Kings and starts to truly believe that none of them are suspects. She discovers why Gareth was blackmailing Gabriel and what he needed the money for. The four kings and Elise take a trip to Zodiac Academy on a supposed student exchange but really it’s just an elaborate plan to get Dante in front of Lionel Acrux to induct him into the Dragon’s guild. While there they follow one of Gabriel’s visions to Lance Orion, who they think can help them with whatever dark magic spell the Black Card is using to steal fey’s power. The King’s all start to find out about who Elise really is and what she’s doing at Zodiac Academy and they come together to help her investigation and to take down the Black Card, even if Elise isn’t so sure that the cult is responsible for Gareth’d death. As her investigative threads are solved one by one, she starts to believe she will never figure out how Gareth died and all this is made worse by Leon not taking the news of who she is very well.
My thoughts
This book was very much a run on from the previous and they didn’t feel particularly distinguishable, like, I’m not even 100% sure I separated out those plot points correctly (although I listened to them back to back so that may be why). I did enjoy this book but I’m honestly starting to get frustrated with the tiny pieces of the true story that we’re getting and I’m getting quite impatient now! I really liked how her relationship with the King’s progresses in this book and that they are gradually accepting how Elise wants things to go (except Gabriel). The ending was super shocking and if there wasn’t other books I had used my credit for I would have gone straight onto the next!
Look, at this point, I’m in it until the end now, I really want to find out what happened to Gareth and how it will all wrap up!
Broken Fae
Plot summary attempt
This book opens with the start of summer break and the aftermath of the Elsium mate bond happening between Elise and Leon. All her other kings won’t speak to her, believing this means that they’ve officially lost Elise forever but even though the Stars have made her choose, it doesn’t mean she no longer cares for the rest of them. She feels like she can’t tell Leon because she doesn’t want him to feel unworthy but since Leon has always been on board with sharing her with the other kings, he senses the gap in their world too and sets out to fix it.
Meanwhile Felix Oskura is escalating his attacks on both Dante and the Lunar Brotherhood, making Dante desperate enough to reach out to Rider and try to strike a deal that they work together to bring down Felix who is now being helped by the Black-card.
Rider and Gabriel strike up a kind of friendship as Rider tries to get him to use his fully awoken site to track down Mariella at last, but both of them find a strange comfort in the company as they bond over the loss of Elise. Gabriel joins the Black-card in the hope he can help solve everyone’s problems and continue to figure out what happened to Gareth, as a way of staying close to her without being physically close.
After Leon conducts a crazy scheme to kidnap all the Kings and force them to get along, plus to finally convince them that both Elise and him are okay with them becoming their own kind of pride. A reluctant truce seems to form with Gabriel’s off campus apartment as neutral ground, which gives Rider and Dante the chance to clear up some misconceptions that happened when their father’s died.
This all reaches a peak when Felix uses the Black Card’s powers to break into the place they all thought was safe and Rider must choose whether to help Dante or let his astral-adversary die and have Felix as his opposition in the gang war.
My review
A lot more happened in this book, there were some places in 2 and 3 where I felt we weren’t gaining much ground on what happened to Gareth or the various other plot points kicking around. This one had a much better pace, interspersed with some fun spicy scenes.
This series is a much better mix of serious to funny moments than Zodiac Academy is and I do think these authors write a good dramatic battle and cliff hanger ending! I went straight onto the final book, which is 22 hours long as an audio so it might be a minute before you get the review for the end of the series but I’m definitely invested in the ending now!
Warrior
A plot summary attempt
This book begins with Elise still being held somewhere by King, she’s being starved of blood and is cut off from Gabriel’s sight, despite that her boys are coming for her. This book follows the five of them as they attempt to figure out how to use dark magic to counteract King’s use of it, and when they finally un-mask them, they betrayal rocks Elise. We also learn who the vampire taken from the tunnels beneath the school is and not only is he related to Elise, he’s also related to someone very important in Solaria. This person sees fit to release a press statement amount Elise and her mates, causing lots of problems in Ryder’s gang and threatening the tenuous peace between the gangs. The book escalates after they un-mask king, the in-fighting reaches a peak where Ryder’s life is under threat and Gabriels struggling to See a way out of it. In the aftermath King takes over the city and begins gearing up for the biggest ritual ever, only Elise and her boys can stop it. Elise finally gets closure about what happened to Gareth and can begin her future with her guys.
My thoughts
I am conflicted in my thoughts about this one, because on one hand this book did not need to be as long as it was, however, if you love those cute in-between scenes and lots of extra details of the characters just hanging out (plus lots of random smut scenes) then you won’t mind the length. As I listened to this book as an audio, it’s nearly thirty hours long, so it consumed nearly a month’s worth of my commutes to and from work! For me, that did make it feel a smidge too long but wow was it satisfying to finish this series. I did not see King’s identity coming and I was half convinced at one point we’d learn something different about Gareth than what we did but I think this book concluded the series well.
If you are fans of these authors you are used to long book’s that try to emotionally ring you out, so I think the flaws in this book won’t bother you. If you’ve read Zodiac Academy, you’ll already be indoctrinated into the world of these authors and their style, they self-publish so these books are not cut down, you get every bit of detail, even ones that don’t necessarily add to the plot. I enjoy it, but I will say its not something that’s for everyone.
Antonia Bernardin 
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