Overall, a mixed bag. I enjoyed the world and magic system, and the adventure/mystery aspect. However, I wish there had been more of a set-up/explanation of the magic system early on in the book. I also have a big issue with people calling Monstrous Heart a romance novel. While I can see some elements, especially towards the end, I had a huge problem with the attitudes towards women and unwanted male advances...... The strong female friend of the lead encourages the lead character to just go along with it, and let the guy do what he wants. I can understand those attitudes in the setting of the book (it had a victorian-type vibe), but those attitudes extending to a character who otherwise seems very modern was problematic...

I really enjoyed this book. I must admit I was skeptical . There’s been a wave (pun Intended) of sea based fantasy fiction. But this debut novel is a fun read. The characters are interesting and intriguing, I got invested in the story. If you love gothic fantasy this is the perfect book for you

A dark fantasy set against the backdrop of a raging sea, a beautifully written story with a dark romance at the heart.

This was a fascinating Sci-Fi story. People with inherited traits, giving them different powers, a group which tries to control these people and their powers and a love story to give purpose to rebelling. Great fun and an opening for a sequel.

This is a beautifully told story that built a really interesting, new world with fantastical creatures and blood magic. I did feel a bit lost for about the first half of the book, as I worked out how things worked in this new society. Ordinarily, this wouldn't have bothered me, but so much depends on the way in which this society functions - the expectations of those with magic in their blood, and the restrictions that these expectations bring. I persevered and I'm glad that I did, because once the action gets going and things become clearer, it was actually a good read. It's a book that requires a fair bit of work, and I don't know as there's many readers who would commit that time. This book promises so much, but I think that it fails to deliver.
It appears to be left open for a follow up, but I don't think I will be reading it.

Monstrous Heart is a book that is hard to pin down. The language in which it is written feels almost out of time, part classic novel, part modern, with elements of steampunk, all in a time when monsters like the kraken still roam the seas. There is a gothic feel to it, and the desolate landscape where Arden’s lighthouse is located put me somehow in mind of the moors of Wuthering Heights. Because of this, it took me a little time to get into, but before long I was completely swept away by the story. It is a book that is strange and enthralling in equal measure, and one that refuses to be pigeon-holed.

In a world where magic is restricted to the nobility, and feared by the general population, Arden Beacon has to feel her way through a strange society so different from the one she grew up in, as she takes over control of a remote lighthouse whose nearest neighbour is the mysterious and, if rumours are to be believed, deadly Jonah Riven. In Riven I found a character that I was instantly drawn to and who again put me in mind of Wuthering Heights and the rugged Heathcliff, and I desperately wanted the rumours about him to be proved false.

The mystery of Bellis Riven deepens with every page, and the pace of the book suddenly picks up in the latter part as secrets and betrayals are revealed, and Arden finds herself fighting for her life.

Although at the start I was a little unsure of what to make of this book, I ended up absolutely loving in, and I am so happy that there is more to come from this world.

I had to have this book after reading the blurb which said "this was perfect for the fans of Outlander". However, I was massively let down by this book. Cutting to the chase, this was incomprehensible. I didn't have any idea what was going on and it didn't help that I couldn't connect with any of the characters. The writing was beautiful at times but like I said, what good is a beautiful writing if the story doesn't make sense??

There are some really interesting ideas in this book but unfortunately it missed the mark. The magic was intriguing but not explained properly and seemed inconsistent. I found it more distracting when the author tried to relate it to physics as some of the technical terms weren't used quite in the right way (from a science perspective) and so this further jarred me from the story. There were other vague internal inconsistencies such as the Lions being an ever present threat and yet in the second half of the book the main protagonist doesn't immediately recognise their symbol. This just didn't seem plausible.

The first few chapters started off overwritten and difficult to read but the writing did settle down eventually and the rest was much easier going. I am not sure why there was this strange mismatch of narration. It may be picky but I found the repetition of chapter titles in the first line distracting and the occasional times that they had a different structure with ellipsis felt like a slightly lazy way to create a cliffhanger.

The characters were a little flat and I found it hard to really engage with them. I did finish the book and I feel that it certainly has promise but something was lost in the execution.

This book is available to buy, and I am a little mad at myself for not finishing it sooner, but a good portion of that is because I spent the first 20% of the book feeling very much like I had been thrown in at the deep end of something I was meant to understand but did not, and it left me feeling like I just did not care about the characters, the story or anything else. But I picked it up again and I dived back into the waters around the coastal town of Vigil, figured out the blood magic, the society of it and as the story progressed got to know the characters.
Arden annoyed me as much as I felt for her and her constant fighting against the restraints placed on her by the magic in her blood.
I cannot tell you in words suitable to a review how much I despise Mr Justinian and Mr Harrow, and how much I came to love the fragility of the supposed monster of this story, Jonah Riven.
There are numerous other characters, many that you will grow to like, especially Chalice, Arden's Stormbride at the lighthouse she has been sent to man with the fire magic she holds within, and as the story builds (which it starts to do nicely around 50% of the way through) you find that as much as you still feel like you are missing important information, you don't mind because the momentum has picked up and you need to know what happens next.

It is hard to say much without feeling like you are giving too much away, especially as we learn what is going on so much later in the book, and having gotten here, I actually really want to know what happens next, I'm just not sure its enough to want to go out and buy the next book (which I can only assume we are getting from the ending) but it would absolutely be on my top 5 list of library requests!

In the end, I would say it deserves a solid 3.5 out of 5 and for NetGalley and Goodreads purposes I would be willing to round it up to 4 stars.

Full Blog review posting Friday 29th May.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

It took me quite a while to get into this book. I found the writing style quite cumbersome in places and the characters were a bit underdeveloped. However, the narrative (once it got going) is very unique and I didn't see some of the twists coming. An interesting start to what I assume will be a series.

An interesting world and concept, but let down by a lack of information in the beginning.
The synopsis of this book sounded fantastic, but for the first third of the book I was honestly mostly just confused. As the story progressed we got more morsels of information about the world and the magic system, but I only felt like I was really getting a grip on it as the book drew to a close.
Riven's character was interesting and the mystery surrounding him was well constructed, but the relationship between him and Arden felt rushed, as did the conclusion of the story. His wife? ex-wife? Bellis' character had a lot of build up but, again, when we reached the final confrontation it felt lackluster and underwhelming.
I was intrigued by this book, and still wouldn't call it unenjoyable, but unfortunately it didn't reach it's potential for me.

I was really excited for this book but I just couldn't click with it and it clearly wasn't for me.
I found the world building confusing and clunky, whilst also being almost non existent. I didn't understand what was going on, and felt alienated by even the end of the first chapter. The magic system didn't make any sense to me at all, and I don't feel it was explained well enough.
I couldn't get to grips with the main character either, though I was curious about her and her motivations, I just wasn't that attached to her.
The language was beautiful though and there were some lovely descriptions, as well as having an enjoyable writing style. I can see that this book would be reslly enjoyable for a lot of people, but it sadly wasn't for me.

I wanted to love this book, so much. I adored Deeplight (Frances Hardinge) and looking at the cover and blurb – pirates! sea monsters! – I had high hopes for a similarly immersive tale. Unfortunately, I found it virtually impossible to fall in love with Monstrous Heart… I don’t feel we got past the first date.

The main issue was with the lack of coherent worldbuilding. There are references to old technology, but also more recent inventions; real-life historical references crop up, in a world that also has kraken-skin clothing and a place named Fiction. There is a ‘Guild’ and a Eugenics Society, and an enforcement arm called ‘The Lions’, but I wasn’t clear on the powers, function or purpose of any of them, and they often seemed to overlap in ways I didn’t understand.

The magic system is equally difficult to grasp. It clearly all revolves around blood, blood testing and blood letting, but it is never explained what powers are possible or how they work. There are main powers – which can be weak – and secondary, or ‘Shadow’ talents, which can be stronger, and the Eugenics Society breeds, sterilises and even kills people based on their power classifications… in some unexplained system. Arden has weak talent for some form of incendiary magic (judging by the Latin) and therefore is a stain on her family status, but still has power and status by dint of her blood, yet people treat her contemptuously for that same magical blood. So are magic users powerful and revered, or exiled from polite society? I’m still not sure.

Arden is the main character, and her motivations at many points are unfathomable to me. She is grieving for her parting from the man she planned to run away with, and desperate to ascend in her career in order to return to him, so much so that she will allow herself to be blackmailed into morally dubious actions to achieve her goal. Until she meets Riven – a man who she is told is a violent, abusive monster – and decides to like him, apparently out of sheer contrariness. Then, when he turns out to be more bark than bite, she immediately falls panting into his arms. Meanwhile his sole motivation for anything is apparently his pure love for his dead, abused wife, but he quickly reciprocates Arden’s fickle ardour. It doesn’t give me much hope for the longevity of their relationship!

I did fully enjoy the side-character of Chalice. I found her well-developed and interesting, and honestly would rather have followed her story for a large portion of the book. Unlike the other women we meet, Chalice has sexual and career agency, and tons of personality. Most of the other female characters seem to be there to be raped or married, depending on their status. Yes, trigger warning here, there is quite a lot of rape, sexual assault, slut shaming and general misogyny throughout the world of the story. It seems to be just part of how things are there… like the Eugenics Society, which is exactly what it sounds like and remains pretty much uncommented on.

The real shame here is that the plot and world ideas really are good, and Chalice proves that the characters can be too. Likewise, the writing is skilful, if a little dense and flowery. It takes some time for the action to get going, and for the reader to pick up the basics of what is going on, but once the plot was properly established and underway I began to get into things.

Then, towards the end of the book, just as things began to become really interesting and action-packed in Arden’s adventure I realised I was running out of pages. Sure enough, the book ends on a cliffhanger, with none of the main plot points resolved, to tease the reader into following Arden into a (previously unmentioned) sequel. I think I’ll sit that one out on land.





“I am Arden Beacon. Lightmistress, Associate Guildswoman and Ignis Sanguine from Clay Portside, the trader’s city of Lyonne.” Arden recited, still unfamiliar with her official titles. She held out her gloved hand. “I have come from Clay Portside in Lyonne to take over the lighthouse operation from my late uncle, Jorgen Beacon.”
“A sanguinem?” The woman frowned at the offered hand.
“It’s all right,” Arden said. “Touch doesn’t hurt me.”
Still cautious, the woman shook Arden’s hand timidly, her eyes still on the pony-plantskin gloves, so fine compared to the ubiquitous bonefish leather of the coast. Was not the gloves she minded, but what lay under the gloves that gave the woman pause.

– Claire McKenna, Monstrous Heart


Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog

DNF'ed at 30%
Muddy pacing, and poor world-building.
The premise sounded intriguing but the actual execution felt like it was lacking.
The language is beautiful but without proper foundations, and knowledge of the world it fell flat for me.

I know that in an ideal world you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but I will freely admit that the cover is what first started my fascination with this book. I have been excited to read this book for a while but I had an inkling that it was the kind of book that I would have to really be in the right reading mood for so I was saving it until I was in a mood for a fantasy read and able to invest myself in it.

I have to say that when I looked up the book to remind myself of the blurb I found a review that mentioned the writing style was a little unusual but to stick with it because after a while you get used to it. I found that really helpful and meant that I could get into the story a little quicker so I thought it was worth repeating.

Actually, I quite enjoyed the style in which it was written, it was quite lyrical and had a gothic feel to it which I think lent itself to the setting of the book. It might not be to everyone’s tastes and admittedly I found I had to engage my brain a lot more to find meanings for certain terms but I liked that I was having to work for it, it meant I was really having to immerse myself in the book.

The world-building was another interesting part of this book, I’m used to most fantasy books starting off with a lot of information to really build up the world that the characters are in, with Monstrous Heart there was more of a build-up within the story. Nothing is easily given away and I found I was working things out through the context of the book, again that added to the reading experience for me. I have a pretty great imagination and it all mostly clicked into place but it might not be the same for everyone.

I will admit there were a few times that I was a little thrown, and that was usually when there was too much cross over between the fantasy world and reality. As an example when a familiar place name was used, to go from a situation and a world that you are creating that sits apart from our world and then adding in a recognisable place was quite jarring at times because I felt it didn’t fit with what I had imagined, it felt out of context.

However, I was very interested in the blood magic and the way the people and bloodlines are controlled by the Eugenics society and the mysterious Lion Order and of course the islands that are out of their reach and control. It definitely gave a suspenseful backdrop to an already intriguing story. It also helped me connect with Arden, there are a lot of things stacked against her taking her place at the lighthouse and I couldn’t help but want her to succeed.

Both Arden and her assistant Chalice are strong female characters in a world that doesn’t favour them, and I have to admit that I enjoyed their friendship because they were very different but worked so well together. Arden being somewhat stubbornly independent is what sets her into the path of Mr Riven, her mysterious brooding neighbour, who has a monstrous reputation. I think the enigma that was Jonah Riven was what kept me riveted throughout the story, trying to figure out his character and what truths there were in the rumours surrounding him. I was a little disappointed by one of the antagonistic characters in the book, I feel the end result didn’t quite do the build-up justice but it was kind of a fleeting glimpse of them and since I am hopeful that there is going to be a sequel to this book there will be more time to explore this character fully.

There is so much more to explore in this mesmerising world, I was completely drawn in and I am hoping that it won’t be long until I get to return to it.

This was one of my highly anticipated books of 2020.
I’m sad to say it didn’t quite meet my anticipation or my expectations.
I think it had a lot of potential. I love the idea of the story, I love the plot and I really like Arden’s character, but I just found it very confusing.
I found it difficult to get in to from the beginning. The first chapter was full of information and I didn’t really understand what was happening or who anyone was and that first impression just set me off for a bad read I think. I found the whole book much the same where there was a lot of rich, wonderful description, but I still had no idea what was really happening and I was very very confused.

Monstrous Heart is the story of Arden Beacon, who is a lighthouse keeper. This is pretty unique; I haven't read any books with a woman in charge of a lighthouse before. Even more uniquely, this lighthouse is powered by something in Arden's blood, because she is what, in the book's world, is known as a sanguine. Dangers lurk at the lighthouse, and, after the book starts with a dramatic bar fight, Arden is thrown into a world of sea monsters and a mysterious man who supposedly murdered his wife. And all this is set to a backdrop of the Eugenics society, whose operatives are known ominously as the Lions, with a web of dark politics and restricted relationships.

I'm going to start with the things in this book that I liked. I was immediately interested in the fantasy world that Arden lives in. The world building is good, making the world feel real and three dimensional. There is definitely a whole world beyond the pages of the book, and we are simply seeing one story from it. There is also a wonderful sense of place. The town and the lighthouse feel cold, damp, grimy and neglected. It is very atmospheric, and definitely lives up to the claim of gothic. The characters are also well described, each one interesting in their own way. I liked Arden straight away. She is a strong female character who knows her own mind, despite all the men who think otherwise. I particularly liked the following conversation between Arden and her father:
'You will be a puppet.'
'I am already a puppet... Look at my strings!'
'You are destroying your life.'
'No, father. I'm controlling the tide.'
Coastmaster Justinian, on the other hand, I immediately hated! This is a good thing; every book needs a good villain. He's slimy and squicks me out. In the notes I took while I was reading, I just wrote 'horrid man'.

The book is also occasionally darkly humerous, which helps to break the doom and gloom. One line that made me laugh was 'she might have considered throwing herself off the balcony, only that this balcony was at ground level and the act probably lost much of its meaning when one landed safely on the other side.'

But I am only rating this book 3 stars, and that's because there is also a lot I don't like about the book. Mostly, the actual writing. The use of the passive voice feels stilted. I guess that the writer has used the passive voice to try to make the book sound a bit old timey, and give it that fantasy feeling, but really it just makes the story not flow very well. I also felt that the descriptive writing was evocative at first, until it wasn't. Sometimes the choice of words added to the descriptions in a good way, but many times it just felt like the writer had vomited a thesaurus. For the first two thirds of the book it felt like not much was happening, and I wonder if it felt even slower than it was because of the amount of unnecessary descriptive words.

Another quibble, this one more minor, is simply why must fantasy worlds always be sexist? The scene where Arden was trying to persuade herself to like Justinian really annoyed me. She had been shown to be a character who knew her own mind, and yet she actually entertains the idea that she could be happy with that awful man.

I did like the story more once Chalice had been introduced. She's an interesting character, quite fiesty, with her own mysterious backstory. To be honest, I wanted the story to be about her and Arden. She just interested me more than Riven and Justinian.

I Would have liked this book more if it had been easier to read. I felt like I was having to work really hard to reach the story through the superfluous words. When the story picked up and things finally started happening I found it more enjoyable.

A few years back, my husband got into sailing. He’d left it until we had moved to the very centre of the country, three hours in any direction to the sea, but I encouraged him because I thought he could go sailing with his dad, and I could have weekends to myself. Instead I found myself on an awful lot of boats, often cold and wet, and, on one memorable occasion, acting as ‘ballast’ on a tiny dinghy in the middle of a reservoir.

Which is to say, that when I read this book I was able to picture the entire atmosphere very easily. Cold, soaked in salt-water, and perhaps a little too close to being in the sea for my liking.

The first thing I want to say about this book is that there are trigger warnings – the nature of the magic in this word is that it is powered by blood, and that means self-harm is not only heavily involved in the plot but also almost revered within the society. I thought the premise was fascinating and really well executed, but I am aware that this constant reference to self-harm could be difficult to handle.

The world in which this is set is interesting – Arden has left the warm climes of the north (similar, I get the impression, to the Mediterranean) to go south to the bleaker port there, taking a post of a lighthouse keeper. Her blood has the power to create light, cold flame which burns without fuel and protects the coast. She doesn’t want to be in Vigil, but despite coming from a long line of lighthouse keepers, her blood is weak. This is her only opportunity to qualify as a full lightmistress, but it means she has to handle the backward attitudes of the Vigil locals. These are hardened fishermen who resent the use of magic to fill jobs, they see it as taking their employment – one sanguis can do the job of any number of men.

Add to that the mysterious rumours of her neighbour, Mr Riven, whose past seems to get darker with every story she hears, Arden is counting down the days to her return to the capital and her qualification. Not least because the local official keeps pestering her in the hopes she’ll finally sleep with him, and the way the wind and the sea roar around Vigil is not entirely comfortable. Lurking behind it all is the sinister machinations of the Eugenics Society, the organisation which controls who can marry who, and ensures that the bloodlines of people with sanguis talents are protected and kept strong.

There was something wonderfully atmospheric about this book. I was strangely nervous starting it, I’d just blitzed through a couple of easy-readers to make myself feel better, and this seemed wonderful but I worried it might be a bit too high-brow for my brain to cope with right now. Instead I got a beautifully woven story with magic, intrigue, and romance. It’s wonderfully and evocatively described, and, as I mentioned above, I could really feel myself there in many parts of it – even though none of the parts were particularly comfortable places to be! The world is quite magical, with plesiosaurs and kraken roaming the sea as naturally as dolphins and jellyfish.

Given the nature of the story, the impression I get is that most of the magical changes are maritime based, however there are references to airships too, and sky pirates. I get the impression this is the first in a series, and maybe we will see more of the world and how the magic is expressed inland, but somehow I think that further books will remain very tied to the sea.

I loved Arden as a character, she’s very strong-willed and pragmatically minded, while being honest and principled. While she looks after her own interests, she’s not willing to be led by other people or compromise her own values. It made her a comfortable heroine to follow in a book that was otherwise quite dark and could be fairly intense. The antagonists cover a wide range, but they are the sort of antagonists that you love to hate. They’re so thoroughly loathsome that there’s something comforting in being able to despise them unequivocally. There’s plenty of moral greys in the story, but sometimes you do just need a character you want to see get their comeuppance as a bit of relieve from questioning right and wrong.

I have no idea if this is the first in a series, or if this is a standalone. Either way it was a book that almost tasted like the sea, and I felt doused in it. There were perhaps a few moments where the love story popped up and I felt “is this really the time?”, but the chemistry between them was great and it was handled well.

I look forward to seeing more from this series and this author!

Briefly:

- A maritime fantasy with sea monsters and magic steeped in blood. It’s nautical steampunk, with mystery and romance, and a full spectrum of morality.
- The magic is based around blood so it’s not a story for the squeamish, or anyone who has issues around self-harm.
- I thought Arden was a wonderful character. She’s always strong and solid, very much a metaphorical lighthouse with a clear sight of where she wants to go, but she still gets development and growth, and it’s handled beautifully as she uncovers more about the world around her.

Rating: 5/5 – it was such an evocative book, it’s difficult to describe how much I felt like I was back on that bloody freezing boat in Portsmouth, getting soaked and ready to sacrifice someone to Neptune for dry land.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

~

When Arden Beacon is sent to the lighthouse, she is simply a woman with a job to do. She neither seeks, nor expects, distraction. After years tainted by disappointment, Arden is finally taking up her family’s profession. She must prove herself worthy of her name, for she has nothing else.

But the coast she has been tasked with lighting is far from the world she knows – the salt-swept, backwater town of Vigil is battered by a sea teeming with colossal, ancient beasts. It is a place of secrets, rumours and tight-lipped expectations of a woman’s place.

More than anyone, the folk of Vigil whisper about Arden’s new neighbour, Jonah Riven, hunter of leviathans. He murdered his wife, they whisper – a perfect, golden girl, full of charm and potential. So very different to Arden Beacon.

They say he is as much a monster as his prey, but Arden cannot get this dark stranger out of her head.

~

As per usual, a few content warnings to start: Attempted rape, sexual assault, discussion of rape, manipulative/abusive characters, some ableist language.

~

Mild Spoilers Ahead

This book was...something. From the premise, it sounded intriguing and exciting. It was likened to The Binding and described as a gothic love story, all of which I loved the sound of. However, I felt this story fell flat. 

I'll start off with the positives: there are gay side characters and disabled rep through a character with Cerebral Palsy. Chalice was a fantastic character who was funny, genuinely caring, and brought some light into this story. 

As much as I enjoy stories that jump into the action, there is no world building or context during the opening few chapters, which is jarring and makes it difficult to engage with this book. There are no real explanations of the magic and abilities within the world either, making it seem like a lot of it was made up on the spot to suit the plot. There seems to be completely random types of power/magic which are mentioned, but never explained or explored. They are largely described in Latin, so if you don't understand the language, you probably won't get an explanation for what that power does. It is frustrating and seems like a pointless way to make them sound elite and powerful. The magic is seemingly rare, but characters with two separate abilities are apparently prevalent enough for three of them to be in one small town? Riiight...

I had a hard time immersing myself in the world due to several confusions in the plot. The use of mythical creatures alongside extinct (in our world) creatures made it feel like the world-building was thrown together without any form of explanation for how these creatures exist. Time and time again, things from this reality are mentioned which ripped me out of the story - either set it in our world, or don't. Using place names like Manhattan as well as Fiction (Fiction...as a place name. Can we just appreciate how lazy that is?), and referencing 'the Owl and the Pussycat' didn't work for me at all. The technological advances were very confusing and made it difficult to really imagine Fiction as a place; Mr Justinian owns a car, but there is talk of electricity like it's new and modern, whilst Mr. Riven has a type of sonar device on his boat?! There is mention of religion, god and an 'old religion', but again, this is never truly expanded upon or explained enough to make much sense. I think the author would have benefitted hugely from planning out the world before trying to write this story, as it would have made it more cohesive and easier to understand as a whole.

Another issue I found was the constant repetition of Mr Riven being a violent character. Purely from the blurb, you know there is more to him than meets the eye, so the continuous reminder took me out of the story and annoyed me quite a lot. It also feels like when he is revealed to be innocent, the shock is completely taken away through the over-emphasis. It feels totally unsurprising. He is then described as gentle which had the exact same effect. Show me through description and action, don't tell me 1,000 times! 

This world is very misogynistic, so I was hoping for a powerful character arc for Arden, but no real change happened. A majority of the men are incredibly dismissive and hold her qualification over her, despite her standing in society being incredibly high. It seems like a world which is unnecessarily negative for women, where they are demeaned regularly. The only positions you hear of women having are working in a brothel, a stall owner and a wife. Even Arden is not immune to this, and the idea of her marital status is discussed so frequently that it is practically a secondary character. This misogyny is also paired fantastically with a hefty dose of classism. Arden is supposedly higher class because of her powers, but is still treated like dirt by several characters who receive zero punishment by the end of the book. The people of Fiction are spoken about awfully a large amount of the time by Mr Justinian (are you getting the sense that he's not a nice guy? Good.), but they are shown to be a kind, if not superstitious, group on the whole. The Eugenics Society (yep, you read that correctly.), which seems to run the world they live in, is constantly spoken about, and their 'Lions' seem to be ever-present and always watching. During the book, they are spoken about with fear, but very rarely actually demonstrate their power. When they do, it seems incredibly lacklustre and like every typical Big Bad. The Society itself has major issues, starting with the entire idea of a Eugenics Society. It is exactly what is says on the tin and I find this an incredibly disturbing prospect, even within fiction. This needed to be shown as an incredibly awful prospect that was refuted by characters, not just spoken about in a nonchalant manner of 'it is how it is'.

From early on in the book, you see there is a distinct rape culture present in this society. When Arden arrives on Fiction, she is told by members of the town about the vicious Mr Riven and his wife who was raped and killed by him. The townspeople seem to relish at the idea of another woman being close to him once they realise that Arden will be living in the lighthouse near his land. It is incredibly disturbing to read and I felt very uncomfortable. Mr Justinian is another suspect character who acts as if he owns Arden. He is manipulative and possessive, using his sway as Coastmaster to get his way.  Arden's attempted rape and sexual assault still does not allow for her to get any distance from him, but instead she has to stay in contact. There is no closure for her and no punishment for Mr Justinian during this story and it felt disgusting and wrong to have to read a story with this unsatisfying conclusion during the current climate of the #MeToo movement. If I didn't have to read this book for the review, I would have DNFed due to this. It is disheartening that the author didn't use this as an opportunity to utilise the Lions as a way to punish him for harming someone as powerful as Arden, or let her get her own revenge on him in some way. 

I'm aware that this is an ARC, but the amount of errors that should have been spotted made it very difficult to engage with the story properly. Arden is referred to as Andrew so much in the first few chapters, that I originally thought it was a new character being introduced!

I'm bored of the 'Mysterious, brooding man with a dark past can only be helped by a young, innocent girl who has no idea what's going on' trope. It's overused and makes it seem like the only purpose for a woman in a story is to be a stepping stone for a man's redemption arc, even when he isn't the protagonist. Arden is treated like a pawn in this book, both by other characters and by the author. 

The chemistry between Arden and Mr Riven is unconvincing, so the entire plot twist in the second half of the book had little impact, and the danger did not build up enough to warrant me caring about the outcome. The romance felt forced to try and give an extra edge to the twist, but it didn't work at all. The sex scenes felt like they were thrown in for some attempt at rescuing the relationship and proving that it's real, but instead makes Arden's actions questionable as we are frequently told of Mr Riven's love for his wife. However, Mr Riven also declares that he has feelings for Arden and wants to run away with her. It seems like a big mess of half-baked feelings that no one is convinced by. I wish that authors didn't feel the need to force a relationship into a fantasy story. They work without the romance! Frankly, the chemistry between Arden and Chalice should have been explored more if a relationship had to be present because I had fun reading their scenes together! I felt that the entire later third of the book was rushed and didn't have any sort of convincing ending.  I didn't feel like any plot points were wrapped up, so the ending was lacklustre and weak. I assume it is being left open for a sequel, but I just don't care enough about any of the characters to want to read it.

It is concerning and disturbing that, even in a fantastical setting, the author cannot even entertain the idea that a woman is more than an object or a piece in a game for men to use and abuse as they like, regardless of class or ability. This story could have been an empowering and interesting piece of fiction, but instead dredges up the worst of our current society, mixed with mythical creatures to add some interest. The ending of this book is a weak attempt to give power back to Arden, but still doesn't have the impact it should have. 

Overall, I gave this book 1 star. The initial idea is fantastic and should have worked, if the world was thoroughly built. As it wasn't, the story was patchy and not enjoyable, not to mention the rampant rape culture.

Tending to lighthouses runs in Arden Beacon's family because of the family gift. With her own power a weak one, Arden isn't planning on staying at the lighthouse in the small seaside town of Vigil for long.
Life in Vigil is very different to what Arden is used to - the sea is home to gigantic sea monsters and the town is full of secrets and whispers of Arden's new neighbour, who supposedly murdered his own wife.
Can Arden survive in Vigil?
Is Arden's neighbour as monstrous as everyone claims he is?

Monstrous Heart first came to my attention at YALC, a young adult convention, but it is most certainly not a young adult book as the main character is in her late twenties and there are some graphic scenes.
The world of Monstrous Heart was an interesting one - the powers were intriguing and I liked the idea of there being sea creatures such as kraken. The bloodlines/powers being controlled by an organisation was a bit scary, and I thought it was awful that they could decide whether or not you were allowed to marry someone.
Arden was a mixed protagonist for me, as there were times when I liked and felt sorry for her, and times when I didn't care what happened to her. I actually preferred Chalice, Arden's 'stormbride' (lighthouse assistant), to Arden herself.
The romance was not one of my favourites as I didn't feel the connection between them. It just felt like they were both lonely to me.
The plot was quite slow going at times and not much actually happened. I found the first half more interesting, and my attention did wander more than once throughout the second half of the book. There were a couple of twists that I didn't see coming, but they didn't have the impact they should have because I wasn't invested in what was happening.
For me, the writing style was the main reason I struggled with the book - I found it hard to get into and hard to connect with the characters and storyline because of that.
I feel like Monstrous Heart didn't reach its potential for me, and I'm disappointed that I didn't enjoy it more.

Overall, this was an okay read.