Rosamund Hodge

An exhilarating tale of darkness, love, and redemption inspired by the classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood and the extravagant court of Versailles, from the author of Cruel Beauty. A doomed warrior and the king's most notorious bastard must join forces to defeat a dark evil in this gorgeously intricate fantasy—perfect for fans of An Ember in the Ashes and A Court of Thorns and Roses. When Rachelle was fifteen she was good—apprenticed to her aunt and in training to protect her village from dark magic. But she was also reckless—straying from the forest path in search of a way to free her world from the threat of eternal darkness. After an illicit meeting goes dreadfully wrong, Rachelle is forced to make a terrible choice that binds her to the very evil she had hoped to defeat. Three years later, Rachelle has given her life to serving the realm, fighting deadly creatures in a vain effort to atone. When the king orders her to guard his son Armand—the man she hates most—Rachelle forces Armand to help her hunt for the legendary sword that might save their world. Together, they navigate the opulent world of the courtly elite, where beauty and power reign and no one can be trusted. And as the two become unexpected allies, they discover far-reaching conspiracies, hidden magic . . . and a love that may be their undoing. Within a palace built on unbelievable wealth and dangerous secrets, can Rachelle discover the truth and stop the fall of endless night?

Crimson Bound

Nessa Luna

Colleen

3 Stars

I read Hodge's first book Cruel Beauty last year and enjoyed it. I liked the blend of fairytale retelling and Greek mythology. So I decided to check out her next book, Crimson Bound. 

The first thing I noticed about it was that the cover tried to emulate that of Cruel Beauty but with significantly less pleasing results. Crimson Bound's cover is passable but not nearly as pretty. They both have tacky sounding titles though. So my visual reaction to the book was underwhelming.

I noticed right away that the tone of Crimson Bound was quite different from that of Cruel Beauty. The problem I run into with most Fantasy (and Science Fiction) novels is that I find them overwhelmingly cheesy and campy. The ones I like tend to be allegorical and symbolic. The rest usually lack depth. They fail to see that what makes those well-known epics great is not the length, not the magic itself but rather the hidden meaning. Not that Cruel Beauty was exactly a deep well of symbolism, but I was drawn in by the tone and atmosphere. In contrast, my immediate reaction from page one of Crimson Bound was "Oh no. This is one of those cheesy books that leaves me cringing." Unfortunately Crimson Bound never wandered from the path of predictable, campy Fantasy. 

The story was ostensibly a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood but other than involving a girl who wears red that get led down the wrong path by someone bad, it had little in common with its inspiration. The fairytale vibe never came through for me. Despite the story having magic, it never felt magical. It lacked anything sweeping or meaningful.

I was never absorbed with the world or its characters. The story hits the reader in the face with its world and cannon from page one. So without knowing what is going on or who any of the characters are, you are plunged smack into the middle of some tired, old battle of good and evil. And of course, the heroine is the only one capable or willing to even to try to stop it. Without knowing the main character or anything about her, the reader is given nothing beyond the knowledge that she feels bound to stop the impossible. Since she decides to make saving the world her mission from the first few pages, Rachelle has no identity or personality beyond that quest. The plot was decent enough and kept me interested. But I never cared much about the characters. As I mentioned, she has no identity beyond saving the world. And the other characters never felt fully built up either. They were all just pieces moving through the plot rather than living the story. So I felt very disconnected from it and not very invested in the outcome.

The whole story felt like it was trying too hard particularly in its attempts to make Rachelle seem like a badass. She was very lackluster though. To make a woman seem strong takes more than a few leaden action scenes and an unexplained, self-appointed mission to save the world.

Since I did not care too much for the characters, I could not get worked up about the romance novel. And really? Can we not have a Young Adult book without a love triangle? Is that the only way authors these days know of to build tension?? As I mentioned before, the plot was enough to keep me interested but I was not impressed with the story overall. Her first story was definitely better. If this is the direction her writing is going then I probably will not read more of her works.


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 4 Stars
Writing Style: 3 Stars
Characters: 3 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 3 Stars
Level of Captivation: 3 Stars
Originality: 3 Stars

Rachel Kanyid

This book was definitely interesting, and I liked it for the most part. 
I can't decided if I liked the very obvious Biblical scripture usage in the book as plot points or if unnerved me.... 
It is definitely a very unique fairy-tale esque story line: dark, mysterious, and beautiful.

A tale of darkness, love and redemption inspired by the classic fairy tale, Little Red Riding Hood, traces the efforts of a reckless magical apprentice to save her world from a threat of eternal darkness.

Tae Thompson

** spoiler alert **
           Characters: 
Rachelle- I liked her because she tells you her motives, and she stuck to them very well thought out the whole book, even if that means that she has to do something we know is not the best idea.

Love Interests: Erec D'Anjout and Armand Vareilles 
Both Guys seem to like Rachelle as a person and not just because the author tells you that they are both in love with her \

Erec: Never trusted him, but he was never sneaky with his motives for day one. He wanted to have her from the beginning ( even if this starts exceptionally creepy). 

Armand: At first, he was annoying, and I was not on in his favor as a love interest or a primary character. If anything, I was against him and wanted nothing to do with him. As the story progressed, I began to understand his motive and get to a point in which I was okay with him being in the story.

ENDGAME IS NOT MY FAVORITE AND IF I HAD IT MY WAY SHE WOULD END UP WITH JUST HER BEST FRIEND AND NO LOVE INTEREST AT ALL. 

Atmosphere:
The seemed like a place you could have visited at one point in time, but that age has passed, and that is fine. I think that was the point. The magic seems to blend into the story as if it was so typical. Meaning the magic is just something that exists, and people don't question it or even really think about it. The best way to describe it is as if you were to go up to someone and ask them if they have ever seen a tiger. They may say not in person, but they know that they are real. 

Writing:
Not much to say, it was amazing once you start reading; it is almost as if that book is being read to you. The story almost seems like it was a bedtime story that you are getting told to you as you wind down from a long day, and this world replaces your own. 

Plot:
 The only Pitfall of this book would be if you are looking for a Red Riding Hood retelling, this is not it. After the first 50 or so pages, that book becomes something altogether different. now that being said the book was great and the story was well-paced, and there was some moment that could have stood to be removed like the Wild Hunt scene but all around a great plot 

Intrigue:
This story almost read itself to me with how smooth the story was, with every moment you were just along for the ride, and that was perfect. I could not tell you when was the last time the book like this enchanted me, and that only thing that could have made this better is if I found the audiobook before getting halfway finished with it. 

Most of the time, I hate cut-ins or flashbacks that take you away from the story, but somehow the Rosamund was able to make the back story mirror the current story flawlessly. It reminds me of when my Grandmother would tell us stories and would remember something else and change direction but still made sense about why the topic changed. 

Logic:
While I know there are no evil wild things in the Forest, and there is no magic forest out there, but with the way, people reacted to the Forest, and it's creatures it somehow made sense, and you could see it being a real place or least folk tale from the past.

Merve A. 

Laura

The premise for this book was amazing; the book, not so much

The story was slow paced and most of the plot twists were either obvious or not shocking at all. The final scene felt terribly anticlimactic and I was half asleep through it. Not to mention all the talk of religion that seemed to come out of nowhere during the last chapters.
That said: I really liked Armand.

After reading, and loving, Cruel Beauty a while ago this was thorougtly disapointing.

Jen Estrella

I'm done. Finally. 

I regret not writing a review for Cruel beauty, because then you guys won’t know why I expected Crimson Bound to be as good, if not better. 

I really wanted to like this, but it confused the hell out of me. I didn’t understand what bloodbound or foresthound or devourer meant at first, but I was hopeful, because I was somehow certain that everything would be revealed in the end. I presume those revelations did happen; unfortunately, nothing, and I mean nothing, made sense to me. 



Rachelle’s character is different from the usual ones I’ve read. She had the characteristics of both a protagonist and a villain, and I liked that. I liked how she tried to be so bad-ass with her fighting skills and her charms. However, she is just so incredibly uninteresting. She complained about the same problem from start to finish. She is so miserable and at the same time so guarded that reading her narrative became such a tedious task. 


  Every day for the last three years, she had thought she deserved to die.


Brb crying (not)

I felt the same way towards the other characters. Plus points for making a character with no hands, though I honestly could not like him any more than I liked Rachelle. Amelie was the only character that I liked (barely), and do not even get me started on Erec D'Anjou. 

The story would have been good if it wasn’t so darn confusing. There were twists here in there, but I couldn’t appreciate them, because I had a really hard time putting the pieces together. The pace during the first half kept me going, but after 200 pages or so, I just zoned out. I breezed through the pages thinking over and over “what the hell is going on?” 

It was so confusing to the extent that I wanted to ask questions, but I had no freaking clue where to start. Was it me? Was I not bright enough? Lol

I also didn’t appreciate the religious undertones. It just felt forced; I couldn’t merge all these details into one mysterious world. I couldn’t make them fit. (view spoiler)[And let me get this straight, Rachelle was only able to rid her mind of her chaotic mumbling after confessing her sins to the Bishop? I can’t even. (hide spoiler)]

Also, the instalove. I could not remember if there was a part of the story that showed some sign of Rachelle liking Armand. I definitely understood her attraction towards Erec but Armand? I swear, the romantic narratives sprouted out of nowhere. 


  Her hands overshot the pattern, and nearly jerked the yarn out of alignment. She caught herself, but her wrist brushed against [Armand's], and a tiny shiver went up her arm.
Their eyes met. Her face felt hot. Her hands, though gripping the yarn, felt empty.
She thought, This is not the way I feel about Erec
She thought, I think I love him.


No you don't, you fool. 

and what a surprise, I felt nothing – no chemistry, no sparks, no “I’m going to email the author if these two don’t end up together” – nothing. I honestly did not care at this point and would have preferred the three of them to be swallowed by a lindenworm or the devourer. Getting killed by a random woodspawn didn't sound so bad either. 



(view spoiler)[Did I mention that the king is downright stupid? I mean, why would you trust the worst enemy of humanity in the first place? What an idiot. (hide spoiler)]

So I wouldn’t call this review decent, but man, I’m just really disappointed. This doesn’t mean I won’t give Hodge another chance though. After all, her writing is an entirely different story.

María Belén

Simply perfect. The characters are very well written, the world building is amazing, and the story twists and flows to an incredible and exciting end. 
Rosamund Hodge knows how to write fantasy and she's wonderful at it. She has outdone herself once again, Crimson Bound is a magnificent book.

damla

this was actually a nice read, but i hated the part where the main character ended up kissing the guy that had tortured her before. oh wait nevermind that's reylo... anyway was i supposed to ship rachelle and amelie? because i do and while armand and rachelle are good together it would be better if sapphics had won because there were some strong implications there. so i took 1 star off for amelie x rachelle. also if youre anti reylo this lovely author will block you ❤ but that doesnt change the fact that i read all of her books and enjoyed them so...

everlinet

3.5* so definitely more towards the 4*
It was a nice read. Very easy, simple to read. It felt cliche to me at the beginning but I was wrong, it was not. I liked some characters a lot, felt quite unique to me after all. The whole story idea was very nice as well. Sometimes it felt a bit rushed or the writing style felt plain, but I believe it was because of the translation into my language. I must read the original someday to compare it. 
I recommend this, if you’re looking for a nice easy ready, fantasy world with badass heroine and a little bit cute villain.

Kaeli Wolf 

Chelsea Breher

I love this take on Little Red Riding Hood, its dark and twisted full of new surprises at every turn. The novel is well written, it explores many relationships without ever losing sight of the main story.

Heather Killeen

I love everything this woman writes! More please!

Gemma

I remember enjoying the first book in the series a lot but Crimson Bound had a totally different feel to it. So much so that I forgot that I started it in 2017 and couldn't figure out now why I didn't have this book marked as complete. It's cos I didn't finish reading it at like 80%. But I've finished it now and it's alright I suppose; I just enjoyed Cruel Beauty a lot more.

Crimson Bound

Reviews