Her Sharp Embrace

Overall Rating: 5/5

Welcome to New Solei, where beauty is currency... currency is power... where danger lurks around every corner and nothing is as it seems.

Noa Toussaint is someone who is all too familiar with the cruel beauty of New Solei. She left the cossetted, sheltered... safe life of a Saint for the dangerous life of a Nightshade... a gang of magical outcasts.... and completely made up of women. And as Noa adjusts more to the life of a Saint, she realizes that she is falling more and more for the ferocious and formidable leader, Lennon... and that she would love to capture the heart of such a dangerous woman for herself.

Her talents at alchemy are extremely useful to the Saints, but her past connections to her Saint family place the Nightshades at far more risk than she could've imagined. With danger looming ever close, and Lennon unaware of that danger... Noa must do everything she can to expose the threat... and to keep both of them safe. This is not your average love story.

Kate Koenig truly paints a dazzling name for herself in Her Sharp Embrace... for this is a strikingly dark story steeped in shadow, and one that sinks its teeth into you from page one and will refuse to let go until the very last page.

There is something that is so alive about Kate Koenig's way of writing, and also how she manages to not only make everything seem so alive, but at the same time with such a sharpness... driving her point home...

Her Sharp Embrace is a beautiful tale of not only sapphic love, but also of a constant struggle for power, of dancing between life and death, of desire, and yet also reminds of what the cost of wanting too much can be.

To add to the teeming mess of political disagreements and conflicts that frequent New Solei, Kate Koenig has also brought a beautiful system of magic to life, blending that with the ever-beautiful art of alchemy and of course, plenty of hidden secrets.

There is veritable tension that can be felt as you flip each page, and while many might try to tone down or change feelings that we may experience in real life to provide us somewhat more of an escape... Kate does not do that. The feelings that her characters feel are raw, powerful, and haunting... adding once more to that beautiful sense of liveliness that Her Sharp Embrace is.

I thoroughly enjoyed this absolutely amazing novel, and I look forward to seeing what Kate has in store for us next.