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RedditToday I want to bring you my Garden of Serpents book review. Garden of Serpents is the final book in The Demon Queen Trials series by C.N. Crawford. I had been waiting for this third book for a while after finishing the first two.
“Somewhere, there’s another world where you and I met before my soul died in the dungeon.”
C.N. Crawford Garden of Serpents
The Demon Queen Trials series is a paranormal romance series where demons exist in our world living in separate cities from mortals. If you are sensitive to Occult topics I suggest deciding to read with care.
To see my previous two reviews in this series click the links below:
Trigger Warnings
Since we don’t always get trigger warnings on books I like to give trigger warnings in my reviews. This can help people avoid certain triggers that could hurt their mental well being.
Possible Triggers in this book are:
- Blood
- Bones
- Cults
- Demons
- Fire
- Murder
- Needles
- Occult
- Poisoning
- Pregnancy
- Sexually Explicit Scenes
- Snakes
- Torture
- Violence
For a list of the triggers I look for you can check out this link here. This may or may not be a complete list of triggers for this book, I do my best to make sure I mark anything that could be a potential trigger but I may accidentally miss triggers.
Garden of Serpents Synopsis
After being kicked out of the City of Thorns by Orion, Rowan needs to challenge him in order to take the crown and save the mortals. After challenging him though, things in the trials and with her powers don’t seem to go as planned. Rowan has to figure out more than just how to stop Orion but also if she can trust anyone in the City of Thorns.
C.N. Crawford does a fantastic job about bringing this interesting world to life. As always their world building is perfect and visualizing the characters is just as easy. The second book seemed a bit chaotic and all over the place this book seemed to bring it all back together.
Garden of Serpents Reading Experience
I didn’t really feel a range of emotions with Garden of Serpents and I don’t know if it’s because it’s been awhile or if I’m just not attached to these characters. The book is a far cry from the first book and took a route I honestly didn’t see coming.
So while I may not have had a lot of laugh out loud moments or the need for tissues the book was still entertaining and for the most part remained a mystery. There were a few things that I saw coming but there were enough plot twists that it keeps you second guessing your predictions.
The book is about 330 pages so it took me about 5-6 hours to read. So it’s a good Saturday or Sunday read but there are enough decent stopping points that you can spread it easily over a couple of days if needed.
The formatting was good and while there were a few longer paragraphs it wasn’t so much that you lose focus and start skimming. Overall it was a decent reading experience and it is entertaining enough that you want to continue to read the book.
Garden of Serpents Book Review
Let’s talk about Rowan first. I absolutely loved her in the first book, but she completely changed in the second book and was almost unrecognizable. In this final book we get some of her original personality back. While I can understand character growth in this case it felt like we didn’t get growth, she was just all of a sudden someone different. While she is a badass in this book she still felt very off.
For Orion though it really felt like we were finally seeing growth in him. We finally got more about his past, things became clearer, and it became easier to understand why he’s done some of the things he’s done.
I don’t want to give anything away but there are a few twists that involve the supporting characters that I enjoyed. So let’s just say that most of the supporting characters were good.
I’ve said it previously there is a good amount of world building in the entire series and it’s very good. I wish some of the character development, dialogue, and storytelling had more. C.N. Crawford is very good, I’ve read their Hades Castle series and it was very good. This series feels off from what we normally get.
Star Rating
Before I rate this book I want to give you a bit of background about what my rankings mean. I typically read books that I check out through the Libby app with my local library or through Kindle Unlimited.
I rarely buy ebooks unless they are cheaply priced or on sale. I also very rarely buy physical copies of books. I’m a bit of a minimalist so I have to absolutely adore a book to buy a physical copy that will be proudly displayed in my home.
So my ranking system is as follows:
- 5 Stars equals I am buying a physical copy of this book. I will read this book at least 10 more times, it is the best ever.
- 4 stars equals a great book. I might buy an ebook version when it’s on sale so that I can re-read it at least one more time.
- 3 stars equals a good book. I likely won’t read again but I appreciate the story.
- 2 stars equals “Meh.” I will not read this book again, it had a lot of problems and I did not care for it.
- 1 star equals a bad book. I barely finished this book and I will never recommend anyone waste valuable book reading time on this book.
- 0 stars is a did not finish book. I will never finish that book and it is banished.
Garden of Serpents gets 3 stars and 2 peppers from me. I don’t think I will read this series again but I wasn’t going to give up on it after the second book. The first book was fantastic. I just don’t didn’t care for the rest of the story. So writing is good, the series is finished, the authors are still some of my favorites, it was just this series wasn’t for me.
Final Thoughts on Garden of Serpents
I feel like there was a lot of potential on where this story could go but I feel like maybe some shortcuts were taken to just complete the story. I will read C.N. Crawford books again because generally their storytelling is good.
Not every series is going to be a hit for me, it doesn’t mean that it’s bad. It just didn’t do it for me. I wouldn’t say it’s not worth trying out and reading though. If you like paranormal romance you might really appreciate and like this series.
Have you read Garden of Serpents? What were your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below. Follow me on TikTok and Pinterest for more like this. Pin this to your favorite book boards.
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