Thursday, January 16, 2020

The Will and the Wilds Review

Hello, all!

Big thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the copy of The Will and the Wilds by Charlie N. Holmberg!

Pub Date: 1-21-20
YA- Fantasy
Enna has lived her whole life in fear of the mystings that roam the woods near her small village. When one of these monsters breaks into her home and attacks her, Enna decides to take matters into her own hands. She summons Maekallus, a trickster Narval, to track down the Gobbler who attacked her, but she soon learns his help is not for free. His price? Just one kiss from Enna. The catch? She'll lose her soul.

After the pair strike a deal, Maekallus gets trapped in the mortal world which slowly starts to eat him alive. Only a willing kiss from Enna can help slow the process and save him. The downside to this temporary solution is the more kisses she gives, the more he starts to feel emotions he has never felt before. If Enna isn't able to find a way to break the binding spell on Maekallus, he'll be consumed completely taking her soul with him. If that wasn't enough, the pair must fend off an army of mystings hell bent on invading Enna's world in search of an ancient magical stone. The very same stone that Enna wears upon her wrist.

I thought the premise of this was really solid, but I didn't fully love the execution. I felt the romance between Enna and Maekallus fully took over the plot, and the mysting army that the pair were supposed to be fighting sort of fell by the wayside. In fact, when the big conflict did arise, it was over so quickly that it felt like there was no point to it at all. I also didn't feel any chemistry between them, so the romance just didn't seem believable to me. I wish we learned more about the Deep, the land of the mystings, and just more about them in general because all the different varieties seemed so interesting. Despite that, I did think the world was fun to read about and it was definitely very whimsical and a bit dark, I was just hoping for slightly more.

Rating: 2.5/5