I stopped rating books a while ago. I always felt anxious about them personally because they're so reductive, and then I spent too much time arguing the subjective metric. If you like this sort of thing, then this is the sort of thing you'll like. I like this sort of thing, and it was better than the average of this sort of thing. So, somewhere between three and four stars, I'd say, according to my own personal metrics.

Pretty much. It's not like my rating matters, and this way I don't have to argue with anyone about how X book "deserves" a different rating.

I'm almost done with the third in this series, and I'm kind of freaking out how good it is. (I accidentally skipped the second to no detriment.) The politics have deepened considerably and the pulp action is balanced really nicely with the interpersonal stuff. Plus she made a hand holding scene super fraught, and that's hard to pull off.

Oh, Demon Forged is my favorite. There's this sex scene that so crazy, I was like, girl, you go. Plus it's got that recovery from trauma thing I like. And a barbarian.

Isn't book two about Scandinavian werewolves? Because I'm all over that. I just skipped it because the names are so dumb and interchangeable, or it came in first at the library.

Yeah, Brook seems to tackle the trauma angle often, which I can appreciate. She's also just getting better as a novelist as the books go on, which is cool to see. (I'm halfway through Kraken King, annoyedly waiting for the installments to come up at the library, which takes forever. The last installment had a jellyfish hot air balloon with poison tentacles. I know!)

Ha, I will totally let you know how it goes. I completely understand hating the self-torturers, but his gf showed up briefly in the third book, and she's a Swedish werewolf and so am I! So we'll see.

I know, I should really just wait. Odds are it'll be available as a whole book well before I finally read all the installments, but I can't stand it! It's out there right now, unread!!!

Ha, you are correct. I actually want a paper copy though, so it's not really about the money for me.

I also resent the serial. I can't imagine why I would want to read a pulpy steampunk book over the course of months, and it does add up to more scratch than your usual ebook.

Not as such. There tends to be a rising and falling arc, but they are NOT ending on cliffhangers so much. Like one section they're kidnapped, and I was all prepared to be pissy when it's left at that, but it isn't. She takes them to after the baddie monologues as to why, which seemed a natural break. So at least there's that.