Dark Fae by Caroline Peckham

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What do a heartless Dragon Shifter, a cold-blooded Basilisk, an arrogant Lion Shifter and a brooding, tattooed Harpie have in common…?

Me.

Elise Callisto. Vampire. Badass. And a girl on a mission to destroy one of them for murdering my brother. I just don’t know which one did it yet. 

When I kicked the ass of a Werewolf who was high on a new and dangerous drug called Killblaze, his final words painted a dark reality for me. The King of Aurora Academy killed my brother. The trouble is, there’s four kings at that school and each of them have motive and cutthroat natures.

Aurora Academy isn’t a place for the faint of heart. To put it lightly, my town is the asshole of Solaria where the dodgiest Fae in the kingdom reside. The school itself is divided by the two gangs who run this town. The Lunar Brotherhood and the Oscura Clan. And guess what? Two of the kings run the gangs at the school, their hatred for each other so fierce I hear a day doesn’t go by without blood being spilled in the halls.

I might be a petite, lilac-haired girl who looks like a fragile doll, but they haven’t been introduced to my fangs yet. And they don’t know why I’m really here. Or that I’ll do whatever it takes to bring down the Fae who took my flesh and blood from me.

I don’t believe in fate, but I do know this… the King who killed my brother is a dead man walking.And I’m prepared to sacrifice my heart, body and soul to ensure I get my revenge.

Dark Fae

Awesome dark paranormal reverse harem!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💙💚❤️💜
Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌏🌎🌍
Character development: 🤓😉☺️😍🥰
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration

The heroine: Elise Callisto – her brother Gareth was dead, and she was determined to find out who was responsible. Elise is a vampire with the element of air and she knew her brother never did drugs but died from doing killblaze so she went after people who might know what happened to him while he was attending Aurora Academy. She was told it was the king of the academy, so she hacks into the database and gets her brothers scholarship assigned to herself so she can attend the academy and find out which of the four kings killed Gareth.

The Heroes: Leon Night, Dante Oscura, Gabriel Nox, Ryder Draconis – Leon is a nemean lion shifter, he is tall with long blond hair and looks like a surfer. He comes from a line of thieves and is an expert pickpocket. His element is fire. Dante is a storm dragon shifter and the head of the Oscura clan gang at the school. His element is air. Gabriel was a harpy and has two elements (water and earth) and has the strongest magic in the school, he also has the sight. He walked around half shifted so his wings were out and was tattooed all over. Ryder is a basilisk and is head of the Lunar brotherhood at Aurora (a rival gang to Oscura). He loves pain and lust and looking into his eyes can hypnotize a person into seeing things.

The Story: Elise goes to the Academy mid semester, so she has to play catch up. Luckily, she is a great hacker and was able to get one of the girls in the dorm room she wanted kicked out of the school. The dorm rooms held four people in each room and were co-ed. She ended up rooming with Dante Oscura, Gabriel Nox and a girl named Lanie. She met Leon as soon as she got to the school, so was on her way to getting into the good graces of all four of her targets.

The four kings of the academy were not friends, even though Gabriel and Dante roomed together, they hated each other, and Dante and Ryder were heads of rival gangs. Leon was a ladies’ man, kind of on his own, but always surrounded by a pride of women who loved to do things for him. Though Elise was different, she was a vampire, so his natural lion charm didn’t work on her.

I liked that there were chapters told from Gareth’s point of view, so we could see his life before he died. He was a good brother whose foremost thoughts were to protect his little sister. He, like Elise was trying to walk a tightrope between the gangs at the school and was doing his best to pay off a debt that his mother owed to some bad guys, who said they would use Elise as a stripper at their club if Gareth couldn’t pay the debt.

Elysian mates (or fated mates) were different in this story than in many others. When the stars aligned just right after coming into contact with your fated mate, you will end up in a divine moment with them. You will be drawn from your bed when the stars are aligned and you will have a choice to be with your mate, and then both mates will get a white ring around the irises of their eyes, if you choose not to be mated, both will get a black ring around the iris and will be forever star crossed.

The audiobook was told in multiple points of view via dual narration. It was narrated by Troy Duran and Kiera Stevens. Troy is my favorite male narrator; he has a deep sexy voice and I love just about everything he does. Though I have to admit, I like reverse harem romance audiobooks best when they have a different narrator for each male character. Kiera Stevens also has a great voice and was perfect for Elise, her voice sounded age appropriate, and I liked her quite a bit. There were some parts of this book that were hilariously funny.

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