Want & Ruin: A Slavic Folklore Dark Romantasy

5 Star Review

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Editorial Book Review:

By Jessica Suarez

Serena Bradley opens her debut with a question that does the work of an entire manifesto: what are you doing out here alone? Don't you know there are monsters in these woods? Krikhyn does know. She has been imprisoned at a convent for twenty-three years, blamed for two decades of unending snow, controlled by a warlock and a crown that decided her fate before she could speak for herself. When something monstrous breathes against her skin in the hedge maze, she doesn't run. She goes looking for it again. That choice is the whole book.

Want & Ruin belongs to the tradition of dark romantasy that understands monsters not as villains to be defeated but as mirrors, and Bradley uses that tradition with genuine intelligence. The Slavic folklore she draws from gives the world a texture that feels genuinely ancient rather than borrowed for atmosphere, and the Razorcliff Mountains she sends Krikhyn into are rendered with the specific, menacing beauty of someone who grew up in wild places and knows what they feel like from the inside.

What gives the book its real depth beneath the high-heat romance is the question Bradley says she is actually writing about: why women turn to the monstrous for love, and what it means that monsters are often gentler than men. That is not a simple question, and she does not give it a simple answer. Krikhyn's hunger for touch after a lifetime of deprivation, her discovery of agency through a series of choices she was never before allowed to make, and her complicated navigation of a morally grey monster hunter who keeps her questioning everything are handled with enough psychological seriousness to make the fantasy elements feel genuinely earned.

This is a work for adult readers only, with content warnings Bradley lists transparently and without apology, and it takes its darkness seriously rather than using it as decoration.

For fans of monster romance who want their darkness to mean something, this debut announces a writer with a very distinctive vision and plenty more stories prowling around in her imagination.

About the Author

Serena Bradley

Bradley writes dark fantasy that takes the monster genre seriously. Her debut novel, Want & Ruin, explores why women turn to the monstrous for love, and what it means that monsters are gentler than men. She is currently working on more creative projects, with plenty more stories still prowling around in her imagination.

Bradley grew up in California and spent a lot of time in the mountains, which may explain her soft spot for wild things. She now lives in middle America with her family, where she still finds time to chase the next story.

SerenaBradley. com