Book Review - Savage Lands by Stacey Marie Brown

 

TITLE: SAVAGE LANDS (Book, #1)

AUTHOR: STACEY MARIE BROWN

GENRE: ADULT DYSTOPIAN/FANTASY 

RATING: ★★★★★

REVIEW: 

“People do not respond or act when things are satisfactory or good. They respond to fear and danger.”

I usually pick up books at random, I’m a mood reader, and this series had come to my attention through someone else mentioning it. I have no clue how I had never heard of this author or series before this because they seem to be pretty popular, but I’m glad I did not until now because I tend to steer clear of the really hyped up stuff. But let me tell you, this series deserves allll the hype.

Savage Lands is a dystopian/Fantasy world in where the veil between the Fae world and ours has fallen. Now I know what your thinking, you’ve probably read quite a few books that start out with this, right? Well, Savage Lands is unlike any other fantasy Fae type story that I have read before. For one it is set in Budapest twenty years after the wall has fallen and has been separated into the Pest (Human side) and across the river the Buda (Fae Side). But the human side is even more separated in that they have their city called Leopold which is where the “Elite” side lives and it is walled off from the rest of the more poor side, which they call the Savage Lands.

This book captured my interest from the first page and kept it the whole way through. Savage Lands is unique in a sea of Fae stories that tend to all run along the same lines. This book is exactly like the title suggests, it is savage. It’s dark, gritty, thrilling, fast paced, and will have you easily flying through the pages. It is first person, single POV.

I absolutely loved the authors writing and the characters. While this book is pretty dark, and definitely not for those that tend not to like those types of stories, there is some pretty hilarious humor. It is dark and sarcastic, but that’s exactly the way I like my humor.

Like I said, this story is dark. The author absolutely does not shy away from the dark and depraved part of this world. I have not been so absolutely captivated by a fantasy/dystopian story like this in awhile.

If you also love Grumpy Alpha A-Hole Anti-Hero’s, you’re going to absolutely love Warwick. This author knows how to write absolutely insane sexual chemistry and tension. Everything just keeps getting more and more intense as the story goes on and by the end you are already ready to dive right into the next one, I know I did.

If you love dark fantasy stories, Anti-hero’s, tension like no other, and writing that draws you in and keeps you flipping the pages like a fiend needing more, you absolutely need to start this series.

SYNOPSIS: 

Almost twenty years after the barrier between Earth and the Otherworld fell in the Fae Wars, Budapest is balancing on the precipice. A battle for dominance is brewing between the elite fae and the privileged humans in Eastern Europe. The prejudice between the sides is bubbling with hate and violence. 

Nineteen-year-old human, Brexley, has grown up in privilege, but not without heartbreak. After being orphaned, she is taken in by General Markos, living in a walled city rife with power grabs and ruthless political games. 

Then one night the course of her life changes, and Brexley is thrown into the most feared prison in the east. 

Terrorhaz—where you go in but don’t come out. She must learn to live with the worst of fae and human criminals. 

The rule of hierarchy puts humans on the bottom, where the only way to survive each day is to make alliances with the fae.Here she meets the sexy, vicious legend, Warwick Farkas. A myth among man and fae. He is as brutal, cruel, arrogant, and as lethal as the lore says he is, ruling the prison with unchallenged authority. Brexley can’t deny an intense draw to him, one that might cost her life.If The Games don’t take her out first—A fight to the death where only one survives.