Book Review

All That Glitters Is Not Gold

By: Linda Ling

Rating: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Book and Reading Stats

Genre: Fantasy Romance

Tropes: Forced proximity, fae, magical creatures, forbidden love

Pub Date: July 12, 2023

Publisher: Self-Published

Length: 430

My Format: E-book

(ARC from BookSirens)

The very first chapter of this book hooked me, but unfortunately the next few chapters lost me.  Ultimately, it did come together and I ended up truly enjoying it overall. 

The story is launched when at Janella’s coronation, an unexpected and concerning prophecy is given.  Janella must travel to gain political alliances to secure her throne.  This quickly turns into an epic adventure with the perfect balance of romance, magical creatures, and political intrigue.   

This is written with dual POVs, one is our FMC, a fae princess named Janella and one is a human slave named Archer.  I thought I would really love Janella from the first chapter, however the next ten or so chapters had me questioning if I really liked her, which made it difficult to feel invested in her.  It does come around and her true personality begins to come through.  At that point I found I really liked her, but I did wish I had been more invested in her the whole time.  Archer, on the other hand, I was invested in from the beginning, however I would have loved more backstory and explanation of bonds with Granite and Sleight.  I liked the trio a lot and just wanted to know more in-depth information about them and their history right from the beginning rather than an overview.  Overall, I did really like how the relationships and stories developed throughout the book. The descriptions and interpretations of the various creatures were really great; I want an entire book just about the serpents.