Crown of Earth and Sky (Secrets of the Faerie Crown Book 1)

If Silver Flames was your favourite of the ACOTAR books then this is definitely for you. Full of political drama, action, and of course lots of spice Crown of Earth and Sky is a fantastic romantasy read. The plot immediately pulls you in with a dramatic death and intriguing world building but it does slow down a lot in the middle and I struggled with continuing on. But I am glad I did because the 3rd act is so worth it. The ending draws you back in with so many plot twists and a fabulous cliff hanger. The world building is really interesting and well thought out. The characters are complex, flawed, and loveable. The FMC Veyka is stubborn and headstrong but also brave and fiercely loyal its hard not to love her and emphasise with all she's been through. Arren, the MMC, is quite a typical fantasy male, tall, dark, and brooding, although we got glimpses of his backstory it didn't go into much detail and I really hope we delve into his character more in books 2 and 3. Every side character was very well written and each felt like their own person who contributed to the story I look forward to diving more into their stories, Gwen especially as she is such an interesting character. The slow burn romance was well done, with the 2 main characters having obvious attraction while not liking each other but falling into the love the more they got to know each other. The fact we have a plus size main character love interest is also fantastic! There isn't enough plus size fmcs in fantasy or romance. Though for me I felt the author maybe objectified Veyka a little too much, there was very very few chapters that didn't mention her ass, curves, or breasts, which I found a little over the top but I am not a fan of smut or sexual writing so this is very much a personal issue. On the topic of smut there was just too much of it for me and ultimately it did negatively affect my enjoyment of the book. The amount of times it mentions Arrens c*ck getting hard honestly made me uncomfortable. But if you are a spice lover this will be right up your street. Overall I really enjoyed this book and I would have rated it higher but the slow point in the middle and the amount of smut really let it down for me. Nonetheless I am still excited to get stuck into book 2!