A Dawn of Onyx by Kate Golden

Captured by a king of darkness. Forced to find the light within.

Arwen Valondale, a healer in the Amber kingdom is taken prisoner by the most dangerous kingdom on the continent, Onyx while trying to flee with her family. The Onyx kingdom has been waging war on her kingdom for many years, though the citizens don’t understand why.

Arwen knows better than to face the ancient, wicked woods that surround the castle on her own, which means working with a fellow prisoner might be her only path to freedom. Unfortunately, he’s as infuriating as he is cunning—and seems to take twisted pleasure in playing on Arwen’s deepest fears.

Rating: 3.5/5 ⭐️
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Series: The Sacred Stones [1/3]
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers (allegedly), dragons, dark king, captor captive
Recommend?: Yes

Rereading this book on audio, I definitely enjoyed it more bumping my rating from a 3 to 3.5 stars. Arwen was able to make demands and move freely too easily as a supposed prisoner of war. I still don’t entirely buy into the romance, but it’s certainly a fun read. I love the different (and sometimes scary) woodland creatures in the dark forest that surrounds the Onyx kingdom. My favorite scene in this book is with the chimera in the woods – iykyk.

I feel that this book lacks world building, especially with the unique gemstone names, so I hope to get that in the second book.

The ending of this book just throws you for a loop. I just … don’t buy it. It feels “typical” and yet, didn’t fit in with this story well in my opinion. As I type this review, I realize it sounds very negative, so I want to re-iterate that I actually did have fun reading this book. Just with a closer look at what didn’t fully work for me, I am finding these faults.

This book was extremely hyped on Tiktok, and was nominated for the Goodreads Award new Romantasy category. Have you read this one?

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/195775182-a-dawn-of-onyx