A coldhearted prince. A hotheaded prisoner. And a dark rainforest…The PrisonerIn the Kingdom of Summer, they say she’s wild. Locked in a cage by the sea, Flare dreams of escape. She dreams of a lost world, known only in legends.The island is calling to her. And she won’t let anyone keep her from it. Especially not him.The PrinceThey say he’s cruel.Jeryn has crossed the ocean for the Trade, to … Prince
They say he’s cruel.
Jeryn has crossed the ocean for the Trade, to bargain for those fierce, imprisoned creatures that make his skin crawl. By law, they’re subjects meant for experimentation. And easy to despise.
One girl in particular.
The Shipwreck
But on the cusp of transport, the tide rages. That hidden island awaits.
Stranded, the prince and prisoner must fight to survive. In a mysterious rainforest, they must band together…if they don’t slay one another first.
Or become something more to each other. Something just as dangerous.
Dare is the second book in the Foolish Kingdoms fantasy series. If you like slow burns, enemies-to-lovers, and dark magic, Natalia Jaster’s steamy romance is a page-turner. Pick up your copy and get swept away!
Mature young adult/new adult: sexual content and language. For readers 17 and older.
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Loved this book! You get Blue Lagoon vibes, plenty of slow burn swoon, and awesomeness! Little Knight was like the cutest side character ever! Plus I was literally screaming when my favorite characters from Trick made a cameo! Seriously, start this series!
I was given a copy of this audiobook and I’m leaving an honest review. (Though, to be fair, I had already purchased the book and I did fluctuate back and forth between listening and reading depending on my logistical situation.)
More people should know about Natalia Jaster. She writes in vivid, descriptive, Lyrical, prose that fills me with happiness. Seriously, I can’t talk enough about her style. Gorgeous.
When I read Trick I was blown completely away by the beauty of it all and was eager to dive into another book by Jaster. Enter: Dare.
I enjoyed this book. Once again written with lovely, unique descriptions. Everyday occurrences were described with delicious new flavors. I will say though that this book seemed slower to me than the first book in the series. It seemed to take longer to get to the point. But that may be because the characters had farther to go.
This was enemies to lovers in the extreme (my favorite kind). But where Poet (Trick) was a character that I didn’t really find fault with, Jeryn was the opposite. It took me longer to warm up to him because he truly had a larger journey. He was wildly misguided in the beginning and that caused him to do and say things that were rather questionable and sometimes hard to swallow.
Flare lived up to her name. She was wild, and open minded, and adventurous, and eager to learn all the secrets of her isle. And her unique circumstances made for a character the likes of which I hadn’t read before.
I was a little surprised by some circumstances near the end (which I won’t mention, due to spoilers) but the actual ending was nice and happy. Though I did want more more more.
Bonus appearances from Poet and Briar!
As for the audio. . . Well done, though I did find myself a bit distracted occasionally by the female narrator.
All in all a four star read. My goodness, I was wordy with this one. Haha.
“I lost my voice, and it didn’t return, and I didn’t care. The evil world expected me to curl up in the corner like a seashell—silent and small and breakable—forgetting that a seashell held the roar of an entire ocean inside it. I didn’t need a voice, only my teeth and my dreams to save me.”
I am sad. For all the wrong reasons. This could have been so great, with an addictive Trick as backbone, a magical island, a hate to love theme and the cruel treatment of “fools” taking center stage. It had the recipe for a beautiful and very thrilling read. If only it had been done right.
I have never seen the movie, but from what I can tell this was similar to Blue Lagoon. It certainly had the same elements with a boy and a girl being trapped on an island with no way off it, and a growing attraction and curiosity of each other’s bodies. Me being a romance junkie that should have been the perfect fix. It was not. While the book was very beautiful in the way of writing, metaphors and great messages being delivered, it dragged with not much really happening. Since it took place on an uninhabited island the plot couldn’t depend on anything other than Flare and Jeryn for the plots progress. Being only the island, it’s animals and nature and the main characters the biggest focus was, or rather should have been, the developing relationship between Flare and Jeryn. That didn’t really happen for a very long time though.
I could tell that the author was really sold on the idea of Isle of Lost Rain, because that was almost prioritized before the romance. Description after description was thrown out about the strange island and both Flare and Jeryn was enamored with it in their own very different ways. Instead of them exploring each other’s personalities and being forced by proximity to get to know and thaw their hate for each other, they explored the dangers and wonders of the isle. While I enjoyed the originality of an magical deserted island I got bored with it when the story seemingly was mostly about developing a relationship with the island rather than between the only characters there was.
When things finally started to happen between Jeryn and Flare it was unsatisfying and underwhelming when considering their solar opposite personalities and dislikes of each other it should have been explosive in the least. The pacing took that away, because as a reader I wasn’t really allowed or given the room to experience the developing feelings between them. That development was only recapped when the story jumped in time from months to years, and it had an annoying habit of doing so throughout the book.
Because of said jump in time they went from dislike to love from seemingly nowhere. There were some written out moments where I got to be there and see them work things out and learn to understand each other’s differences and those moments were great, but few and far in between. It did not help me get behind the love they suddenly had for each other. While it had been years for them, it had only been minutes for me and that is the danger in recapping and jumping in time. If not done right you will be where I am, not following the story with satisfaction and not falling in love with the relationship because it went from point A to point B without you seeing it. Their growing affection should have also shown the change in personality, but as with the love, Jeryn went from hating fools to feeling guilty and wanting to change the world for them with the snap of my fingers. It felt a bit unrealistic that he had such a big change of heart when I didn’t get to see how he had that change of heart.
The book of course had redeemable qualities as well. I loved Flare’s explosive and lively personality as well as Little Knight (need I even explain why?). I loved to see Poet and Briar again, to experience their lovable bickering and Poet’s quirkiness. On the downside that also showed the lack of that quirkiness and oomph in Flare’s and Jeryn relationship, being undeveloped by the story’s many jumps. That also being why I couldn’t really see Poet, Briar and Jeryn becoming and being friends all of a sudden. The sad part is that all this could have been avoided if the dragged out beginning would have been used for this, to progress and develop all of these things naturally.
Loving Trick so much I am disappointed with how Dare turned out. Perhaps my expectations were ridiculously high though. After all, I didn’t hate Dare. It had its beautiful moments as well as beautiful, if slightly hard to follow, writing. In the ending I did enjoy Flare and Jeryn together. I just didn’t love them the way I loved Briar and Poet together. Hopefully Dare was just a fluke and Lie will be just as charming as Trick was.