An immortal love,
a tyrannical god thirsting for power,
and the divine tree that binds them all.
California 1955: After spending eight centuries witnessing the world’s cruelty, Anna has finally found peace in the simple life she’s made for herself. She has her garden and hives to nurture and Khiran, the shapeshifting god who gifted her immortality, to love and to hold. It is, she knows, too good to last.
When her existence is discovered, Anna and Khiran are forced to go into hiding or face the wrath of the reigning god they call The First. Staying together means sacrifices must be made…but they aren’t the only immortals who wish to see The First fall, or the only ones with everything to lose.
One thing is for certain: fear is for them all.

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Check out my review on the first book: Book Review – Peaches & Honey: These Immortal Truths By R. Raeta

My Review Of Pits & Poison By R. Raeta

I wanted to love this so badly after rating Peaches & Honey almost 5 stars, but I was disappointed. This book lost the atmosphere the first book spent a lot of time building. The conflict needed to be fleshed out more for me to understand, and the villain needed to be explained or established sufficiently for me to worry about it. There wasn’t any suspense; it felt like they were waiting for something to happen for the first 85%, and the ending was anticlimactic and rushed. I loved the first cover so much that I bought a physical copy, but this cover is not appealing.

What I Liked:

Jiro: I enjoyed what Jiro brought into the book including his character and development. However, I would’ve liked to see that much personality in Khiran and Anna.

More Lighthearted: This book felt less dark than the first, and we see Anna enjoying immortality more.

What I Didn’t Like:

Lack of Personality: I had this problem in the first book, where I felt like Anna could’ve been more fleshed out. She helps people when she can, but with over 800 years of life, I’d expect her to have a long-term motivation that keeps her going. This could’ve helped her and the story feel more realistic. I looked over it mainly in the first book, thinking maybe it was due to her being numb from experiencing so much despair, but in this book, it felt boring.

Conflict: I didn’t understand the conflict enough to care about it. It felt like they were waiting for something to happen, like sitting ducks and doing nothing to prepare themselves (or Jiro) for what could happen. If the filler of this book had been used to build a foundation to explain/show why The First is so powerful and why he’s even after Khiran, it would have built more suspense. It would’ve felt more realistic if they ran or prepared to fight than just sitting there for something to happen.

Would I Recommend Pits And Poison

I understand everyone enjoys different things in books – you may enjoy it even though I didn’t. I left a link at the top if you want to read it. I’d say give it a shot if you enjoyed the first one. I found it hard to get through and pick it back up.

The Author

R. Raeta writes love stories with a splash of magic. She is a Readers’ Favorite Gold Medalist for Literary Fiction and two-time IAN Book of the Year Finalist for her debut novel, Everlong. When she isn’t agonizing over word choices, she enjoys telling the dog how handsome he is and sitting in on the nightly therapy sessions the cat so generously provides for her. She is a Trigiminal Neuralgia survivor, and believes in living your best life day by day.

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