Gild
Author: Raven Kennedy
Trope: Slow Burn
Point of view: Single, First person
Relationship: MF
Type of series: Series
In a nutshell: The fae abandoned this world to us. And the ones with power rule.
Gold.
Gold floors, gold walls, gold furniture, gold clothes. In Highbell, in the castle built into the frozen mountains, everything is made of gold.
Even me.
King Midas rescued me. Dug me out of the slums and placed me on a pedestal. I’m called his precious. His favoured. I’m the woman he Gold-Touched to show everyone that I belong to him. To show how powerful he is. He gave me protection, and I gave him my heart. And even though I don’t leave the confines of the palace, I’m safe.
Until war comes to the kingdom and a deal is struck.
Suddenly, my trust is broken. My love is challenged. And I realise that everything I thought I knew about Midas might be wrong.
Because these bars I’m kept in, no matter how gilded, are still just a cage. But the monsters on the other side might make me wish I’d never left.
Content warning: Sexual violence, rape, violence
What I thought: I put off reading this book for a long time, I saw the content warning and said - yep that’s not for me - I can’t do sexual violence in books. I read to escape and live in worlds that make me happy, so I avoid most books that come with this warning. But after seeing this book recommended over and over again, I decided to bite the bullet and give it a go, and I’m so glad I did! This story is a reimagined tale of Midas and is one of the best well written stories in the high fantasy genre I’ve read. The world building is epic and the character development is done so well. We meet Auren who has lived through childhood trauma noone wants to comprehend, to then go onto adult life in a cage, who begins to learn her worth and what she deserves.
I’m going to be upfront, I completely skipped the rape scene, it is explicit and you are able to sense when it will happen so if you do want to skip it, it is possible without losing much of the story.
So take the content warning on board with your decision to read, I still absolutely loved this book. It is a brilliant, un-putdownable story of realising one’s worth and standing up for that worth and I can’t recommend it enough!
