This High School Bully romance wasn’t for me, I like them when they’re done well , but when done badly they’re hard to read, this wasn’t awful it just fell short of what I enjoy, the story idea is interesting but it’s just missing something for me.

Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read and review this book!

While there doesn't seem to be something explicit wrong with the book, the style and tropes didn't end up appealing to me.

I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Shattered Princess was one of those books that way too easy for me to devour. From the very beginning, I was intrigued in Aurora. She may have been viewed as an underdog for most of her life, but she should never be underestimated. Life was hard and she adapted as well as she could. So, when the rug got swept right from under her. Well, she wasn't too keen on moving back in with daddy dearest.

Along the way, we meet Finn, Eli and Cole. One is her half-brother, one is a friend, and then other a love interest. The three boys make up the Hellhounds and they have some serious power within their community and school. They aren't too happy that she's back in town, but they will learn to get over it. Eventually.

Along the way, little secrets come out to play and romances start to blossom. The drama kept me engaged and I'm pretty excited to see what is going to happen next. Especially after the little cliffhanger towards the end. I also have a feeling we still have so many secrets to reveal and maybe they will make my head explode. Still, I'm pumped for them to find her and bring her back home.

Do I normally like bully romances...? sometimes... Why you ask? They can be really hit and miss, and this book... it was somewhere in the very middle of that. I liked the paranormal elements that came with this book, but I felt like it was pulled out just to make another book in future, and that was only highlighted but the cliffhanger at the end

The character development and world building was a little underdeveloped, so the story itself felt very flat, but at the same time, I was looking for a book that I didn't need to think too hard over and that's exactly what I got out of this book.

A good start for the series. I normally don't enjoy dual POV but it did not bother me in this book.
I recommend it !

This was an alright book, but some of it was hard to follow. The transitions between scenes were not always clear which made parts of the book more difficult to understand. I did enjoy the overall story though.

so as someone who is dyslexic this book drove me insane as the spelling and grammar error confused me more then normal. the story was great with the over used bully/enemies to lover story line. but it need re editing as there was whole line of text that didnt make sense and confused the story line. hopefully the second book will be editied and made easier to read.

2.5 🌟
Tropes : enemies to lovers, brother's best friend, bully romance, dual pov
**set in high school/ NA*' (18+)

I wanted to love it. I really did. These are all the tropes that I adore. But i don't know what got into me. I've tried boiling it down. And the only thing I can think of is the age of the characters and the fact that it's set in hs. Not that this is any fault of the authors. Her work is amazing and the storyline was so good. I'm just the type to find reading about characters younger than me werid now.

The story follows Rory when she returns to her father's house after many years. Now being forced to live with him and her half brother when her mum passes away.
She visited when she was younger, but caused a bit of trouble and never returned after. Her younger days were spent being tormented by her half brother and his best friend, Cole.
The chemistry is good with these two characters. They're secretive but so connected.

**This book does end in a cliffhanger. **

Thank you to net galley and the author for the e-arc

This is book is like sugar - bad for you in large quantities but so addictive that you can’t put it down.

Let me talk about about the parts I enjoyed:
- the Wattpad style romance: Rory and Cole just give it in bucketloads and I’m not ashamed to say that I’m very invested in their story because of it
- the evolving sibling relationship between Finn & Rory: I liked this subplot to the main story because very rarely do I read about sibling relationships in a romance where the romantic relationship is so…turbulent?
- sentence structure: initially, the way this was written was pretty jarring to me but as I continued to read, I felt very much central to the thoughts and feelings of the characters as they were in that moment (with that being said, it could have done with some cleaning up)
- dual POV: need I say more? I am a sucker for it

Now it’s time to get critical:
- if you are expecting literary excellence, this is not it. Like I said in my comment of it being a Wattpad style romance, it definitely reads like one too (could have done with an editor’s eyes on it to catch the mistakes in spelling, grammar, punctuation and flipping between different tenses) plus there were certain things that read a bit cringe at times
- the development of Rory and Cole’s relationship: talk about a STEEP exponential growth. I wish there was a lot more delving into how they really felt about each other in the burning hatred stage of their relationship
- subplots: there were a few heavy themes in the book (mental health, suicide, sexual assault, drug abuse) and I didn’t feel as though they were paid much attention when they had such a huge impact into the current mindset of Rory and Cole
- voice: how old is Cole??? In my head, he sounded very much in his mid twenties based on my experience reading erotica billionaire romance. Apart from the back and forth dialogue he had with Rory, every time he spoke to her and everyone else, he didn’t sound like an almost 18 year old whereas Rory did read a little younger than her age (i put that down to the Wattpad-esque style of writing)

All in all, I’m hooked like a 6 year old on sugar so I will definitely be picking up Broken Heir to see what happens with Rory and Cole

I absolutely loved this one! The plot, the characters, everything about it kept me entranced! It was like escaping to a whole different world when I read it!

Rory has not lived a great life. Her father doesn’t care about her, and her mother blames her for the way her life is. So, needless to say, when Rory is sent to live with her father after her mother passes away, she is less than thrilled. Her step mother is a viper in disguise, her half brother goes out of his way to make her feel unwelcome, and his friends are just as worse. She only has a handful of months left before she turns 18 and can leave everything behind. She just has to tough it out until then.

This is most definitely a bully romance. You can’t even really call it enemies to lovers romance because Cole goes so far out of his way to hurt Rory. In all honesty, it never really makes sense as to why he behaves that way. And don’t even come at me with the whole, “He likes, her. That’s why he pulls on her piggy-tails” bull crap. There’s no excuse for some of his behavior. Other than the fact that his father is also a heartless jerk. So I suppose he learned it from dear old daddy.

While their relationship was hard to swallow at first, I did like it when the tides turned and they started to work on the same team. It also helped having parts of the book in Cole’s POV. So, it allowed you to soften towards him over time, and I do mean over time. I was not immediately a Cole fan. It took me a while to warm up to the idea that he was going to be the love interest due to his previous actions. However, in the end, I was kind of rooting for him because he was just as damaged as everyone else.

I don’t want to go into too much because there were some pretty big developments in this story that really builds the characters and thus their world. However, if you’re into bully style romances, this one will not disappoint. It has a strong and determined heroine who doesn’t back down from her bullies. Which was something that I appreciated in this story. I likes that Rory didn’t cower or let them think that they affected her. She just kept her head high and looked them dead in the eye every time. So, yeah. It was a pretty solid bully romance for anyone interested.

This is the first book in the Hardin Hellhounds series, and it ends in a cliffhanger.

High School Bully romances can be fun to read or they can be excruciating to read. For me Shattered Princess fell somewhere between the two. My experiences reading YA paranormal romances has been that there seems to be a focus on how many books can be written quickly, instead of books that have it all. Worldbuilding and character development seem to just go to the wayside with these YA books and it makes me sad because an interesting story or plot just can't stand on it's own without worldbuilding and character development.

Make no mistake, the story idea here is interesting and fun. It's just missing the rest. I really wanted to love this book, I just couldn't get there.

Thank you to NetGalley and Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for sending me this book in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to the publisher, netgalley and the author for allowing me to read this eARC, I feel so blessed to be able to have critical conversations about great books and recommend books to my book club.

The cover is simple but appealing and I liked the writing style, this is a romance book and I loved it. Usually I don't go for royalty books but this was refreshing and great, would recommend to try out and will be recommending to my book club members.

Thank you netgally and the publishers for this one of a kind e-arc.
First off, props to the Amber Vant for the phenomenal writing in this. This book was definitely one of my favorites.
5 stars

DNF I think the story could be decent but it was executed poorly. The biggest problems for me were that it would switch from present tense to past tense for no reason and the writing style was choppy and weird to read fluently. The main character Rory seems like a tough, badass type female lead which I appreciate, I just wish her story were being told in a better way. Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Great book for fans of Paper Princess, I enjoyed this and thought it was pretty easy to follow along. I loved the dynamic of the relationships between the MC and her brother and their friends. I did feel like parts were rushed sometimes, but still a great book overall.

I think this book is good but it needs another round with an editor. There were grammar mistakes and issues with homophones. for eg bazaar is used instead of bizarre or grown instead of groan in chapter 50. It disrupted the flow of the story and took me out of it completely. I get that mistakes are easily made, we are all human but it was quite a few and it grew frustrating. I enjoyed the plot to a degree but felt the writing style was choppy and disjointed. There were time jumps that happened that were confusing. For eg, Finn very much hates Rory in most of the story and suddenly he is a protective brother. I didn't see the change coming and it was sudden. The dialogue also felt choppy and didn't feel natural. Side characters felt flat to me. I liked Cole from time to time but could be more sympathetic. I feel like the bones of the story are there and I do want to see where the story goes. I just think it would serve the author if she ran over it again.

Personally I don't tend to enjoy such adult themes in underage people as well so a story like this won't always be my favourite however I do think the spice is age appropriate and not over the top.
The author is excellent with sensory details and giving descriptions of what the characters are physically going through.

Rory-Feisty, troubled teen. Cole- Mr. I get what I want 100% of the time....but will he win over Rory?

I LOVED this book. I really wanted it to turn out to be a reverse harem book, because those are the vibes I got, but it didn't but that's okay. This is a typical enemies to lovers high school romance with some real high school bullying thrown into the "enemies" part. I will be honest, there were some parts to the book that made no sense at all, and I didn't quite realize it was book #1, so I am assuming book #2 will pull things together a bit more. There were a few distinct plot pieces(the fire and Lorna specifically) that I kept trying to figure out what they truly had to do with the story. I think there is even more to this plot and there are going to be twists and turns that we don't expect. Spice was a little low, but it's a high school romance and only book #1 so not going to knock any stars for that...what was there spice-wise, was good!

Looking forward to book #2 because this cliffhanger from #1 did me in.

Un mamarracho de los que no entandes nada pero aún así disfrutas.
Empecemos por la trama, que nada más aparece en los últimos capítulos. Pensas que tiene que ver con una cosa, pero no PUM el conflicto aparece al final lol.
Una relación tóxica mal llevada pero el slow burn -que de slow burn no tiene nada- ugh Y EL SPICE!!!
Los personajes no tienen casi nada de crecimiento, pero aun asi se disfruta demasiado.
Es un libro para "pasar el momento"
Ahora, no me dejes ese final abierto porque sino te denuncio.

The enjoyed reading the story of Cole and Rory. At times, the book was a bit confusing for me. I felt like there were details missing. As I kept reading the book, it felt familiar. Once I finished and saw the title for the following book, I realized which book it reminded me of. Paper Princess by Erin Watt. The stories are very similar, a few differences. I loved Paper Princess, so of course I enjoyed reading this book as well. Cole and Rory didn't make sense at first. In the end, I loved seeing how they progressed.