An Introduction
First, I’d like to thank Tina Spencer and Romance Me With Books for allowing me the opportunity to review this book. Next, this review does include some spoilers, so please, proceed with caution. If you are someone who struggles with subjects surrounding the following subjects, you may want to skip this one: SA (sexual assault), depression/anxiety/mental health, stalking, imprisonment, emotional manipulation/blackmail, and revenge porn.
Let’s talk about Wonderlight
After a sexual assault, Avery was numb and closed off to the world. It was hard to imagine trusting anyone. Until she found a companion in her now-ex, John. After moving across the country to be with him and support him in his professional goals, she’s out on her rear with nothing but a broken heart to show for it. For a year, John has been having an affair, but somehow, he didn’t think to tell her a bit earlier so she could find a place to stay. With his credit card burning a hole in her pocket, she hops on a plane and jet-sets to Scotland, where a series of events lead her straight into the arms of Lachlan—a secretive Scot who seems keen to keep her at arm’s length. Even it means fighting against the magnetic current that draws them closer together.
There are trigger warnings for this book. As stated above, sexual assault is one of them. But there are also content warnings for: depression, anxiety. There should also be trigger warnings for imprisonment, emotional abuse/manipulation, stalking, trauma, and infidelity.
And now, a disclaimer of my own. If you’re new here, hi, hello, my name is Ivy. I review books as objectively as I can, focusing solely on storytelling, writing style, and other criteria. A lot of times, my personal rating varies vastly from the rating I end up giving the book. My criticisms are not personal attacks, they are personal observations and thoughts. Just because I feel a certain way about a book doesn’t mean that you will feel the same.
Carrying on!
As far as debuts go, this is beautifully done. Tina Spencer has a lovely writing style that easily draws the reader in and keeps them engaged. The book starts off bleak, ripping the reader’s heart open and daring it to beat as you dive deeper into Avery’s trauma.
The romance between Lachlan and Avery borders almost on magical realism (being described frequently as electric/magnetic, implying that there is another magical force drawing them nearer). It’s an insta-love, turned enemies, to lovers. There’s a little bit of everything.
Tina managed to create the perfect book boyfriend, and I dare to say that he’ll top the charts (it’s the accent, man).
That all being said, I do have some criticisms of Wonderlight. I’ll start with the nitpick-y and work my way up.
First, I don’t think this book needed to be as long as it was. In print, it’s said to be around 460 pages. For a romance book, she be quite thicc. As a fantasy fanatic, I have no problem with long reads, but there has to be something to sink my teeth into. It felt like a lot of the middle-matter were “slice-of-life” scenes, which isn’t interesting to a lot of readers. While they did serve their purpose, I feel like they might have been more engaging if Spencer leaned just a smidge harder into the mystery surrounding Lachlan.
Ultimately, because we spent so much time in the establishing/developing chapters, Lachlan’s big reveal came at the very, very end. To the point it felt rushed and dampened my ability to connect with it as the big “aha!” moment I believe it was intended to be.
Which, now, leads us here. Lachlan suffered a traumatic experience—forced imprisonment, emotional blackmail, threat of revenge porn, extortion, kidnapping, drugging, stalking, etc. I’m admittedly pretty disappointed that these aren’t added into the trigger warnings. Why are we warned about Avery’s story, but Lachlan’s is swept under the rug? Is it because the audience isn’t expected to connect emotionally with a man’s trauma?
As a sexual assault survivor, I absolutely cannot speak for how people deal with their trauma. It is unique to everyone, and sometimes, people handle it in reckless ways that make no sense to non-survivors. That all being said, I do think that this book needed something a bit heftier than “sexual assault in memory” as its warning. There were points that bordered on trauma flashbacks, and while written elegantly, there were points in recounting her own sexual assault that I was recounting my own. And yes, yes, us with triggers should manage our own responses, but it’s a little difficult to make an informed decision when the contents weren’t properly labeled on the tin.
I’ve written about trigger warnings and their necessity here.
I think that Spencer would benefit from running her manuscripts past a few sensitivity readers in the future, or by finding some beta-readers/other authors to give it a once over with potential (or rather, more comprehensive) trigger warnings in mind.
All in all.
Wonderlight is a solid debut and it’s something that Tina Spencer should be proud of. I have no doubt that Lachlan will catapult himself to the top of everyone’s book boyfriend charts. I do think that additional trigger warnings need to be added/clarified so that it can be properly labeled so its readers can make a more informed decision.
You can find Tina Spencer: Goodreads, Website, Twitter, Tiktok, Facebook, and Instagram.
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Ivy Whitaker 