Rating: 4 stars

There’s more to my brother’s murder than I realised… Shadows in the halls, mysteries lurking around every corner. Whoever killed him is covering their tracks well. And now I’m walking a dangerous line between getting close to the four kings for information and wanting to crawl deeper under their skin for my own desires. I can’t trust anyone. I can’t let my guard down. And I must keep the urges of my body separate from my heart. But I’m starting to break all of my own rules. I just hope I’m not falling for my brother’s killer.

Savage Fae, the second book in the Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac series, was an enjoyable read. It hooked me from beginning to end as I wanted to find out what happened next after its predecessor Dark Fae ended. While I wasn’t too fond of that ending due to the number of questions I had, I feel like we got a little bit more insight into it here once Elise discovered one potential Fae at her school that might be involved with that group. Otherwise, I feel like there’s still more that I feel like is still needing to be uncovered.

What this book did best for me was continue establishing Elise’s relationships with the four guys she believes might be involved in her brother’s death: Leon, Ryder, Dante, and Gabriel. I especially enjoyed seeing her interactions with Leon and Dante in this book and learning more about Ryder’s dark past. I also enjoyed seeing Dante’s point of view in this book especially with the times when he went home to see his family members. Seeing his family dynamic was cool to me as you can see how much he values his family despite being a leader of a gang. I also enjoyed seeing Elise’s interaction with Leon’s family in this book too as we now know that a Lion Shifter’s charisma doesn’t affect her at all, which I find pretty cool.

I continue to find Gareth’s point of view in these books interesting. Especially in this one as Elise is getting close to the guys Gareth himself is developing relationships with. We especially see his relationships with Ryder, Dante and Leon in this book and its interesting seeing how he interacted with them in comparison to Elise. And what he was willing to do to get the debt their mother owed paid off by doing what Ryder and Dante asked of him. Its interesting seeing his interactions with these characters in comparison to Elise as their experiences with them are completely different. And I find myself wondering how things would’ve happened if Elise had met these guys while Gareth was attending Aurora Academy.

In comparison to Dark Fae, I feel like there’s not all that much investigating in Savage Fae when it comes to finding out who killed Gareth. While I don’t mind it just because I’m interested in these characters and seeing how these relationships continue to develop, I feel like her investigating is moving at a very slow pace. I feel like she focuses more in this book on what happened to her at the end of the last book than in even seeing if there’s a connection between it and her brother’s death. While I understand that she’s trying to navigate every clue she does receive, I feel like its moving really slowly and that she’s making very little progress if any at all. In this book, I feel like she’s more focused on her relationships with these guys than doing any investigating. However, I do feel like a little progress is made too at least when it comes to Gabriel since he finds out who she is in this book and seems to be trying to help her find out what happened to her brother. So that’s some progress, though not all that much considering how many pages are in this book.

I did, however, find the ending of this book in comparison to its predecessor interesting as I wasn’t at all expecting it. We know there’s a divide in Dante’s gang between him and his uncle Felix, but I wasn’t expecting to see that play out in some way in this book. But it does and in a most interesting way too, which has me wondering how things will go between Dante and Felix next.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Savage Fae and seeing Elise’s relationships with these guys continue to develop. It was also interesting to see how they differed from her brother’s relationships with them as I continue to learn more about what he was up to during his time at Aurora Academy. Hoping we get to see more plot wise being uncovered regarding Gareth’s death in the books to come though as I continue on with reading Vicious Fae.