Author: Jasmine Mas
Series: Cruel Shifterverse Series Book #4
Category: Paranormal Romance
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Spice: 🌶️🌶️
Book four in the Cruel Shifterverse series, the focus shifts to Aran's story when she is ripped away from Sadie and voluntold her presence is required at the Elite Academy. Without a choice, Aran wavers on the idea of giving up on life even as she endures abuse and painful training under the guise of turning her into a soldier in the school's exclusive assassin division. No one knows she is the new Fae Queen in hiding, or even that she is a woman at all.
"As a girl, I was born to breed. As a man, I was cold and hard. My features reflected how I felt on the inside - angry, depressed, dead. Most importantly, empty." - Aran
My heart breaks for Aran, this book is filled with not only her physical pain but almost more importantly her emotional disassociation brought on by a traumatic life that never lets up. She is surrounded by horrible men who want to break someone who is already broken and adrift without Sadie, one of the only people who has ever made her feel happy. Aran is determined not to die but has little to no will left to live.
The Kings are cruel, no surprise there, but they took it to even a higher level than Sadie's mates did in previous books. Some of their actions are unredeemable and I struggle to understand how their redemption might play out if it is even possible at all. Aside from John, an unlikely friend, all of the men in this book are practically evil and glorify violence to the extreme.
"The most powerful people in the universe, and I walked beside them. A female masquerading as a male and a fae, with a monster in my head and a bounty on my heart. There was no scenario where this ended well for me." - Aran
You’d think that the amount of Aran's internal dialogue in the book would be boring, but seriously I could live in her head for years and not get bored. Aran is dramatic, sarcastic, and pertinently annoyed by the situation she finds herself in and her dark humor calls to me. She is the poster child of a lady who has had enough of ridiculously fragile male egos and couldn't care less about who knows how she feels about it.
"Leaders were forged in misery. Mother was wrong. I was ruthless. Cruel. Cunning. The coldest of them all. A queen was born." - Aran
Yes, the book is wildly outrageous, but that didn't stop me from enjoying it immensely if you couldn't tell from this review. Like all of the Cruel Shifterverse books, this one ends on a cliffhanger, and it's a big one that flips the story on its head and changes everything readers have believed about the story so far. I'd advise you just go ahead and purchase the rest of the books available in the series when you start 'Psycho Academy', don't delay!
Tropes and Themes: Paranormal Romance, Monsters, Enemies to Lovers, Why Choose, Reverse Harem, Fated Mates, Abuse, Academy, Torture, Vampires, Demons, Shifters, Slow Burn.
Blurb
I'm disguised as a boy...at a supernatural war academy.
But it isn't school, it's combat training.
And I didn't count on the three Kings who want to make my life a living hell. Seven foot tall, covered in tattoos, and angry at the world, they're like no men I've ever met before. Then, there are my male instructors...enemies from my past.
They all think I'm weak.
Pathetic. Powerless.
Just wait till they find out I'm secretly the rightful ruler to the seat of death–the missing Fae Queen.
I'm the daughter of a monster.
There's violence in my veins.
They keep trying to break me....but dictators are born from pain.
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