A Game of Hearts and Heists (Girl Games, 1); Ruby Roe

Seems like enemies-to-lovers is all the rage for most romances these days, and while it has never been a favorite of mine, I do want to read more of this trope to see if the problem I have is a me thing, or if the enemies-to-lovers’ books I have read simply haven’t done it for me. I’m sad to say that this book doesn’t get me closer to those answers. But, oddly, my issues with this steamy, sapphic enemies-to-lovers’ fantasy romance wasn’t the trope itself, but the world building. Set in a semi-urban fantasy, you have a kingdom torn in two (literally) where magic is determined by if a certain sentient house likes you enough to gift you magic. There’s a magic house for everything, and if you are gifted said magic, you’ll be given a tattoo so everyone knows you have Assassin guild magic, or mechanic magic, or rune magic, or herbal magic, or well, pretty much anything I guess because the world building never gets that defined. Everything felt a bit vague, and hurried, sacrificed mainly so we could be told more just how much our rivals turned enemies want to fight, and f*ck each other.

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If you want a steamy sapphic romantasy with a defined world and magic system, this book is not it. But if you just want a lot of passionate, carnal sex scenes with a sprinkling of danger and a light heist, then this will scratch your itch. I’ll be honest; I came to this book specifically for the spice, so I shouldn’t be as bothered by the lack of strong world building as I am, and yet… I guess I was expecting more after all the glowing reviews and the comparison to "Six of Crows", so maybe this was just another victim of the hype train in that regard. Quinn and Scarlet are fine as main characters, even if their angry personalities could feel a bit too similar at times. Yet their biggest issue is that they simply lack chemistry when together. Their relationship seems to center on that passionate desire to have sex and... not much else? Which is ok, but I always prefer when the romance goes deeper than just a lustful desire to have the other person, so to speak. Perhaps because they were already hate f*cking, a lot of the tension that I expected with enemies-to-lovers wasn’t there, at least to me. But who knows. regardless, something just felt like it was missing throughout the duration of the story.

All in all, this was a super easy and fast book to knock out in a weekend. The sex scenes are hot, and I like that each book is its own self-contained story within the series, where each new book focuses on a new couple. However, that does mean I have no real desire to continue, either, and that is because the world these characters occupy is just not interesting enough for me to stick around, though I did like Stirling a lot. I just think the romantic plot of Stirling’s book sounds too similar to Scarlet’s for it to be appealing, at least for now. The ease of the story and the spice is what makes this a 3 star read for me, because, unfortunately, the rest is rather mediocre.