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Review: Reign & Ruin (Mages of the Wheel #1) by J.D. Evans

January 30, 2025 by Isabelle Leave a Comment

Rating: 9/10

Synopsis

“All magic is beautiful…and terrible. Do you not see the beauty in yours, or the terror in mine? You can stop a heart, and I can stop your breath.”

She is heir to a Sultanate that once ruled the world. He is an unwanted prince with the power to destroy.

She is order and intellect, a woman fit to rule in a man’s place. He is chaos and violence and will stop at nothing to protect his people.

His magic answers hers with shadow for light. They need each other, but the cost of balance may be too high a price. Magic is dying and the only way to save it is to enlist mages who wield the forbidden power of death, mages cast out centuries ago in a brutal and bloody war.

Now, a new war is coming. Science and machines to replace magic and old religion.

They must find a way to save their people from annihilation and balance the sacred Wheel—but first, they will have to balance their own forbidden passion. His peace for her tempest, his restlessness for her calm…

Night and day, dusk and dawn, the end, and the beginning.

Review

This year I’m really trying to prioritize books that have been on my TBR and recommended by trusted reviewers for a while. And this one hit both of those markers. I was excited when we chose it as a monthly buddy read and was surprised by how much it dominated my thoughts even when I was away from the book.

I hadn’t read the description in a while so I didn’t know anything about the plot itself. I was just under the impression that it was a romance with fantasy aspects and that the romance was so good that it converted a non-romance reader to the genre. While the developing relationship was definitely one of the main themes, just as a romance by itself, I think the book would’ve been too long for me. It was developed well and I found the emotions believable between the main characters, but I was really glad to have the additional excitement of the politics and fantasy world-building. It was a mix that worked really well together.

While there were a couple of details in the plot that I felt stretched my sense of disbelief a bit much, overall it was told in an exciting and engaging way. I’m used to reading many books at the same time and was fully expecting to do that this time after the first few chapters, not because I wasn’t having a good time but because I’m easily distracted usually. I was wrong though. I think I read this in less than 48 hours? Three days at the most! I couldn’t wait to get back to it every time I stepped away and was constantly guessing about how things would work out. It was really fun. We’ve already decided to do the second book as our buddy read for February and I’m currently reading the prequel as well (which is not a novella by the way!).

Filed Under: Fantasy, Reviews, Romantic Fantasy Tagged With: Book Review, Books, Fantasy, Fantasy Books, political fantasy, Romance, Romance Fantasy, Self Published

About Isabelle

Isabelle, better known as Shaggy from The Shaggy Shepherd on social media, is a reviewer, proofreader, beta reader, and SFINCS founder. She enjoys fantasy, scifi, romance, and nonfiction the most but is up for trying just about anything. She also tries her hand at writing sometimes. Some of her favorite authors are Ryan Cahill, Stephanie Archer, and Megan E. O’Keefe. Originally from Germany, she’s spent half her life in the US but will be moving back home in a few years. Outside of books, she loves animals, sewing, tea, and nature.

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