Whispers Among Thorns - Book Review

Whispers Among Thorns by Cassandra Aston Rating and Review:

Plot 5/5 stars

Spice 1/5 (Slow burn, baby. But I can feel it coming. The tension is THICC).

Overall 4.5/5

Whispers Among Thorns is a 52nd read of the year! I shock even myself sometimes. I received this book as an ARC and it officially releases 6/24/25. Below is my full review of the book. You can also listen to me talk about all the books I read on the Tale and Tome Podcast!

Should you read it?

Well, yeah, but only if you love a slow burn romantasy with a magically-bound FMC and a fire daddy. Yeah, I said it. A fire daddy.

In this compelling first installment of the Deadly Fae Duology, Sav must decide if she's going to put herself at risk to help save the rest of the fae that have found themselves on Earth. As she searches for a way to help her people escape the Anti-Fae Faction, Sav is forced to return to her homeland and confront those who have broken her heart and abandoned her. Jack, the son of the Anti-Fae Faction leader, finds himself in a perilous situation between his father and the beautiful female who may turn his world upside down.

Cassandra Aston has woven a lovely story with this book. With a Faerie setting reminiscent of books like ACOTAR, the element of crossing into Earth as we know it is a fun touch. The brewing slow-burn tension between Sav and Jack is leading us towards (I hope!) a delicious fated mates situation. There's enough foreshadowing that I think I might know what's going to happen / what happened in the past, but I can't wait for the next book to see if I'm right!

Jack and Sav are both really complex characters with deep histories that e can unbox, but so are the secondary characters. Outside of the main plots of the mystery of the Faerie lands and the rescue of the fae, the political intrigue adds additional layers to the story. While this is slated to be a duology, the author has developed this world beautifully and deeply enough that it could easily grow into a series.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I love the characters. If I had the second book in hand I'd read it IMMEDIATELY because I NEED to know what happens to Sav and Jack.

All that said, I'll say what I say every time I read a first person multi-POV book. I'd really enjoy this book more if it was written in the third person. In a book with world-building a political systems this complex, a third-person narration would really assist with the ease of reading.

Obviously since I received this book as an Advanced Reader Copy, I expected some small formatting or grammatical errors to the present. That said, I really think this book could benefit from going through several more rounds of editing to help with ease of reading and better flow of the story. My rating of 4.5/5 stars overall is based on how I think it would be if it had the resources of a really big editing and publishing firm behind it.