Rating: 1.5/5 
 ***Minor spoilers*** 
 Rachelle used to be apprenticed under her Aunt Leonie to become the woodwife in their village, the woman responsible for weaving charms to keep the village safe and able to survive. However, Rachelle never does become woodwife. While she was fifteen, she met a forestborn - someone who used to be human that now lives in the Great Forest and hunts humans for sport. She began to trust this man and in return, he marked her to become bloodbound. Rachelle had to kill another human within 3 days or die. After killing her own aunt and choosing to live, she now works for the king and protects the people in the city of Rocamadour from woodspawn, creatures who seek to kill the innocent. By the king's command, Rachelle must be a bodyguard to a possible heir to the throne, Armand Versaille, who claimed to have been marked to become bloodbound and lived. 
 A few months ago, I read Cruel Beauty by the same author and I wasn't very impressed. I found Cruel Beauty very confusing, slow, and overall I just didn't connect with the characters. The same thing happened to me here, but I liked this one even less. In my opinion, the world building was not good enough or well explained for the reader to be able to understand the lore behind everything, especially the Great Forest. We're missing so many pieces of information - where did the forest come from? Where did the devourer come from? What triggers the transition from bloodbound to forestborn? I could understand if information was left out so it could be revealed later in a series, but as a standalone novel I wanted to be able to understand it right then. 
 There was also the whole thing with Tyr and Zisa. It was pretty hard to understand, what with it slowly being told to us over the entirety of the book. I feel like a better idea would have been to make Tyr and Zisa's story the prologue so that their story can get their own mini-chapter, and we already know some stuff about them before they're introduced in the main story. 
 I really disliked the love triangle in this book. I normally hate love triangles anyway, but I found this one especially annoying. It didn't even feel like a proper love triangle - she basically had one man for love and one man for sex. As soon as one offends her she runs to the other. It was a constant flip flop back and forth between the two men. I also didn't like any of the characters in this book, or found any of them relatable, so the relationship between Rachelle and Armand/Erec didn't do anything for me. 
 Overall, I was immensely unsatisfied with this book. I found it way too slow, and the world was too complex to be able to explain in a standalone novel. I was going to rate this 1 star but raised it slightly because I liked a few scenes at the end of the book. I feel like you might like this book if you liked Cruel Beauty, but if any of the things I've mentioned in this review bother you, you shouldn't pick this one up.