To Snap a Silver Stem

Crystal Bloom, Book 2

De: Sarah A. Parker

Narrado por: Chelsea Stephens, Troy Duran

Duración: 15 h y 58 m

Resumen del Editor

I want him to hurt. To bleed. I want him to snap, just like he snapped me.

Once upon a time, my world was small and sheltered. Everything changed the moment I stepped over my Safety Line, barrelling towards a coupling with a man I hardly know.

He wants me. All of me.

Dunked in a charged political pit, I must secure the ships needed to quell the spill of murderous beasts still flooding the continent. But one wrong move could spur the war I’ve worked so hard to avoid.

I’ll wear the dress and the cupla and the shoes. I’ll do it all with a smile on my face. Because everyone's watching.

He’s watching—hunting a fissure in my frosty shield, trying to scrape back the layers and see my ugly insides. He’s unyielding. Unguarded. Changed. Why is he looking now when I’ve got everything to hide?

Secrets sprout, truths bloom, and more than one of us will snap.

Crowned in the crippling weight of my mistakes, I must atone. Even if it costs me my life.

Fear was my overlord. Now, it’s my prisoner.

To Snap a Silver Stem is the explosive sequel of To Bleed a Crystal Bloom, a dark Rapunzel reimagining full of immersive imagery and breathtaking angst.

©2022 Sarah A. Parker (P)2022 Podium Audio

LIFE IS SHORT! BUY THE BOOK!

So good! I loved getting to know the characters on a deeper level! I can't wait for the next in the series to come out!

Love/Hate relationship with this series

Really, I just love tf out of this series! The anticipation and angst is killer but it’s what builds good books and scenes for me. Hate it because I have so many damned questions and now have to wait till February to get the next book. Torture. Pure torture.

Also the narrators are top notch!

An FMC with no redeeming qualities

Orlaith was such a disappointment in this book, there was absolutely no personal growth. It’s so frustrating that she’s offered a chance for answers, and instead she behaves like a sullen child. At this point I don’t even care about her story anymore.

Huge let down

I’m so frustrated with book 2 of this series. There were some really interesting elements in book 1, but book 2 doesn’t deliver. It started going off the rails once the main character arrives in the south capital city. Her promised is an under developed character, predictable and boring. Olathe only made it out of her safe zone by running away from R but then she suddenly becomes this adventurous must discover the city girl and then starts taking chances left and right, most notably on this day she has guarded and chaperoned carriage tour, sneaks away from the guards then ends up at a sex club, looses her virginity to a random dude, sneaks into a park outside the city, falls asleep in the sun, then almost gets kidnapped, gets her necklace stolen, then burns everyone alive again, gets stuck in another dream/nightmare, wakes up naked (except her bag isn’t burned so it’s ok, runs away from a vruk through a sewer/mud, then cuts off a branch growing out of her shoulder while the vruk is still not that far away, she’s glowing and naked and bruised and bloody and freaking barefoot, then changes back into her fancy gown, then reveals her secret identity to the captain and his family who mistake her for a relative and she learns about the persecution of her people while having tea and getting bandages up, then miraculously sneaks back into the palace, convinces her dumb as rocks fiancé that she dropped her cupola and then he goes to the palace forge, which he can use because a spoiled royal like him totally would know how to use a forge, solders it on while burning her, then has a snuggly panic attack with R, then gets all angry with him while he has randomly become nice after being incredibly absent/cruel to her, instead of working together to form a plan—all I’m one day because that’s possible.

The nightmares have disappeared, the agoraphobia has disappeared, her issues with loud noises she started doing exposure therapy for but then disappeared, her ability to turn down R has disappeared, you could drive a spaceship through these plot holes and I’m starting to dislike all the characters.

Out of all that, somehow what bugs me most is that she doesn’t bring up some really obvious conversation topics like hey R, cool you like me back now, but aren’t you still engaged to someone else? She becomes all mean.

All this while she’s trying to train to get out of a pool with a piranha and octopus in it and her trainer is one of the cultists that murder her people and sell their body parts like crack cocaine.

I can do suspension of disbelief but this is just annoying now,

I smell him on this key, this shirt, this leaf…

I haven’t disliked a character this much in a long time but the whiney, stupid and ungrowing MFC is painful. The world building is really good and interesting and I really want to know how the story ends but I had to fast forward through so much of this book I probably missed something.

I am not sure if it is the narrator being overly dramatic or the book really being this annoying but having the MFC drone on and on every 10 minutes about smelling him was painful. I huff on this pillowcase he touched once, oh now I smell him from afar on this key, now it’s a small leaf a half mile away underwater and I know I smell him. If you can’t tell, I really hate this character. And it’s in the first two books and so far the start of the third.

She just doesn’t grow at all and waffles between I can do what I want and not think about the consequences and then just so much stereotypical female character guilt. I don’t get how anyone wants to be around her for any amount of time at all.

All that said I have bought the third book already before I realized how stupid this character was so I’m going to try to power through to find out what happens. I just plan on fast forwarding through all of the angst and whining and smelling. So will probably shave a couple hours off the time (I am not exaggerating my estimate).

If you can make your way through the constant pining and whining and unbelievable amount of tween level angst then the story itself is interesting and the world building is good. The book could have just been a couple hours shorter without all of the melodrama.

I’m devastated

This series has me in a puddle. MARCH 30th!!! I won’t have anything to soothe my wounded heart until March 😩

Omg!! My poor heart

Aaahhhh. March 30th needs to hurry up and get here! This book just broke me! So beautifully written!
The narrators are amazing! Ready for the next book now!

Amazing!

This book keeps you on your toes but I loved every minute of it! I seriously can’t wait to keep reading this series!

Not a fan of this one

So Orleath or “Ceira” is a crybaby and has growing up to do. She hasn’t tried to hone any of her powers in as a faerie and just throws up and has nose bleeds all the time. Not a fan of the end.

Honestly, I’d come back and kill her in the next book if I was Nor.

I don’t even know what else to say about it. She probably didn’t deserve the high lord that took care of her all her life anyway.

Enjoying the series somewhat.

A character’s suffering is a tricky thing to articulate. Their feelings can be summed up in a succinct manner. Other times, there’s not enough information to help you empathize with the character. The writing for the main character is this series however is on the opposite side of the spectrum. Sometimes, for me at least, it feels like the character waxes poetic about her pain. She marinates in it. Rolls around in it. If you ran into her at a Starbucks, she would go on a wordy 20 minute soliloquy about her landlord complaining about her dog with lots of darkly brooding and poetic language. And the characters just don’t communicate, which is such a pet peeve in stories. And in life. I know it propels the plot. It would just be nice if books would have characters with the ability to tell each other important information. Like stuff you’d tell your friend as soon as you saw them. Like, “OMG! I killed a guy in an alley! Sure, he came at me with a chainsaw. But I’m not handling it well.”

To sum up;
- Overdramatic and lengthy self loathing by main character.

- Characters manage to not tell each other things that would really clear things up.

Even with the above 2 peeves, I do enjoy the series. Us fantasy nerds need our fixes!!!