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Verdict: A duology closer that actually closes — hotter than its opener, darker than its fairy-tale frame, and let down only by a final act that compresses more than it can carry.
Best for: Readers who finished Of Dreams and Poison on its cliffhanger and want the payoff, and who came for a married couple whose relationship keeps developing rather than resetting.
Heat level: ★★★★★ (5/5 — romance.io rates it “explicit and plentiful”)
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.1/5 — a 4.34 Goodreads average, a 0% did-not-finish rate, and only fourteen written reviews behind it)
Tropes: Fated mates, married couple, dark romantasy, fairy-tale retelling, dual POV, masc/femme pairing, enchanted captivity, revolution plot, dragon shifter, duology conclusion.
Of Thorns and Wings by Darva Green is the second half of The Dragon and The Devouring Tree, a self-published dark sapphic romantasy published in July 2025 and set in Lollishire — the King’s City and the Hartwood forest — where the witch Rosemary and the fae wraith Carabosse, already married by the time this volume opens, have to finish overthrowing a monarchy and survive what one of them is becoming.
It holds a 4.34 average across 217 Goodreads ratings and a 4.7 across 169 on Amazon, where there is not a single one- or two-star review. StoryGraph records a 0% did-not-finish rate — nobody who started it put it down, which against its own predecessor’s numbers is a real signal. The counterweight is that only fourteen readers have written anything at all, so the enthusiasm is wide but thin.
What Is Of Thorns and Wings About?
This is dark romantasy operating on a fairy-tale chassis, and both halves of that are load-bearing. The frame is Sleeping Beauty crossed with Robin Hood — an enchanted sleep, a stolen kingdom, a forest full of people the crown would rather not think about — and at least one reader spots a Hades and Persephone structure layered underneath it. Amazon files it under Folklore and Fairy Tale Fantasy rather than Romance, which is an unusually honest bit of shelving. StoryGraph’s crowd rates its moods 70% dark.
The structural thing worth knowing is that this is not a book about two people meeting. Rosemary and Carabosse are married when it opens, both point-of-view chapters call the other one “my wife”, and the romantic tension comes from what they are surviving rather than whether they will get together. One reader describes the pairing as masc and femme in dual POV, which is a combination sapphic romantasy talks about wanting more often than it delivers. The cost of that structure is that you cannot start here — and to Green’s credit, she says so in her own author’s note.
What Makes This Dark Sapphic Romantasy Work
- It sticks the landing: the most consistent praise, from five separate readers, is that it works as a conclusion. “The storyline felt complete” is the recurring shape of it — and duology closers fail at this often enough that it deserves naming.
- It is genuinely spicier than Part 1: five readers say so independently, and Part 1 was already at romance.io’s top band. Interestingly the database cannot see this escalation — both volumes are rated 5/5 “explicit and plentiful”, so the readers are the only source for it.
- The scope opens out: two substantive reviewers describe the fairy-tale inspirations melting into a larger mythology, with ancient powers and new forces rather than the retelling running on rails.
- The marriage keeps moving: readers specifically praise a relationship that never stands still — every hardship strengthening what is already built, rather than a manufactured rift.
- Nobody put it down: a 0% did-not-finish rate on StoryGraph, against 21% for the highest-DNF book in this batch. Whatever else is true, this one holds readers.
Book Synopsis
Rosemary wakes. That is where this begins — out of an enchanted sleep she did not choose, in a city that has every reason to keep her in it, married to a woman who has spent the interval doing whatever was necessary. The Hartwood is still pulling at her. The crown of Lollishire is still on the wrong head.
Carabosse made one mistake, more than twenty years ago, and has been paying for it ever since in ways that have started to change what she is. The fae wraith who came into Part 1 as an antagonist-shaped thing is now a wife with something dark moving under the surface of her, and the question of how much of that she can hold is the book’s real engine.
Between them and anything resembling peace sit the King’s City, a monarchy that will not be talked out of itself, and a forest with older loyalties than either of them. The two women who spent Part 1 learning to trust each other spend this one finding out what that trust is worth when the cost is named — and whether a happily-ever-after is something you win or something you agree to keep paying for.
My Review
The first thing to say is that this book knows what it is for. A duology closer has one job, and five independent readers report that it does it: the arc lands, the threads that matter close, and the ending reads as an ending rather than as a door left open for a book four. Green announced a two-part story and delivered a two-part story, which sounds like a low bar until you count how many indie romantasy duologies quietly become trilogies.
The romance is the strongest thing here, and the structural reason is that the couple is already married. There is no third-act breakup — Green is on Reddit recommendation lists specifically for not writing them — and no manufactured misunderstanding to burn a hundred pages on. What you get instead is a relationship under pressure from outside, with the tension coming from what Carabosse is becoming rather than from whether they will speak to each other. Readers name this directly: the relationship never stands still, and every reunion is stronger because something was actually spent to get there. Add a masc/femme dual POV that sapphic romantasy asks for far more often than it supplies, and the heat escalating past an already explicit Part 1, and it is easy to see why the ratings are where they are.
The complaint, and it is the only one with any recurrence behind it, is the final act. Three separate readers say the ending compresses too much into too few pages, and — this is the interesting part — all three still rated the book four stars or higher. The specifics agree: the resolution in the forest arrives fast and reads as unearned, one sequence in the King’s castle leaves readers confused rather than shocked, and a subplot involving three witches who matter to Rosemary is set up and then dropped. One reader adds a sharper craft note that nobody else raises: an intimate scene placed against high stakes in a way that undercuts both. That is a single voice, but it is a specific and checkable one.
Two things to flag about how this book is described rather than how it reads. The first is a numbering trap that will genuinely cost someone money: this is Happily Ever After Dark book three and Devouring Tree Part two at the same time, and Happily Ever After Dark book one is an unrelated retelling. If you buy “book three” without Part 1 you will be lost; if you dutifully start at series book one you will read the wrong story. The book you need first is Of Dreams and Poison, and it ends on a cliffhanger, so buy them together.
The second is the content warnings, or the absence of them. StoryGraph’s crowd has supplied exactly one — sexual content, graphic — for a book that runs 70% dark on its own mood ratings, opens on enchanted captivity, and turns on a woman losing herself to something. The author’s site carries content warnings for her other books and does not list this duology at all. Nothing here is unmarked in the text; it is unmarked in the metadata, and a reader relying on the usual sources will be under-warned.
My honest note: The best-executed duology conclusion I have read in indie sapphic romantasy this year, with a last act that needed another thirty pages. If you finished Part 1, this is not a decision — go and get it. If you have not, start there and treat the two as one book.
| Element | In Of Thorns and Wings |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | Rosemary & Carabosse — a witch and a fae wraith, already married, fated mates in dual POV |
| Core tropes | Fated mates, married couple, dark romantasy, fairy-tale retelling, enchanted captivity, revolution |
| Setting | Lollishire — the King’s City and the Hartwood forest, in a Sleeping Beauty and Robin Hood frame |
| Heat level | 5/5 — explicit and plentiful, and readers say hotter than Part 1 |
| Series | The Dragon and The Devouring Tree Part 2, also Happily Ever After Dark #3 — the conclusion; Of Dreams and Poison is required first |
| Content notes | Explicit sexual content (18+ per the book’s own front matter), enchanted captivity and forced sleep, dark transformation, violence around a monarchy overthrow |
How Dark and Spicy Is Of Thorns and Wings?
A full 5/5. romance.io rates the steam level “explicit and plentiful” — its top band, the same one it gives the most explicit titles in the genre — and five readers independently report that this volume is spicier than Part 1. Worth noting the limit of the database here: Part 1 carries the identical 5/5 rating, so the escalation readers describe is invisible to romance.io and the readers are the only evidence for it. The book’s own front matter states it is intended for an 18+ audience.
On the dark side, StoryGraph’s crowd rates the moods 70% dark and the imprint is called Happily Ever After Dark, so nothing here is a bait and switch. The element worth naming in advance is the transformation thread — one partner losing herself to something — set against an enchanted captivity that opens the book. One reader flags an intimate scene placed against high stakes in a way she found jarring; nobody else raises it. If you want this heat band elsewhere, Dragon Queens and Consort of Fire both sit at 5/5.
Who Should Read This Book?
You’ll likely love it if: you read Part 1 and want the payoff, you prefer a married couple under external pressure to a manufactured breakup, you want top-band heat inside a dark fairy-tale frame, and you like a masc/femme dual POV.
You may want to skip it if: you have not read Of Dreams and Poison, you want a standalone, a rushed final act spoils a book for you, or you rely on published content warnings and would rather not go in with only one.
In short: the duology closer this couple deserved, thirty pages short of the ending it deserved.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (August 2026)
There is no organic conversation about this book anywhere outside the retail platforms, and the shape of that absence is unusual. A Reddit search for the title returns five results: an automated new-releases roundup, two requests for a completely different book called The Court of Thorns and Wings, a decade-old gaming post, and one thread I could not confirm is about this at all. But search the author’s name and you get twenty-two hits, several of them genuine reader recommendation threads — Green turns up in r/wlwbooks and r/RomanceBooks discussions about submissive love interests, about books with no third-act breakup, and about lesbian pirates, and she appears in the subreddit’s own monthly stats. So Darva Green is recommended on Reddit; Of Thorns and Wings is not discussed. There are no trade reviews, and nothing from The Lesbrary, The Lesbian Review, LezReviewBooks or Lambda Literary — which is worth naming precisely because this is the one indie book in this batch with a real trade audio publisher behind it, and even Tantor’s involvement produced no print coverage. The TikTok content I could index is the author’s own, alongside a Substack and a confirmed 2026 convention slot.
Why readers love it (according to the discourse): That it works as a conclusion, first and most consistently — five readers name completeness, one calling it a fantastic captivating conclusion, another saying the author left no crumbs. Then the heat, and here “spicier” is the recurring word: five readers report an escalation over Part 1. Then the widening scope — two substantive reviewers describe the fairy-tale inspirations dissolving into a larger mythology, with one spotting a Hades and Persephone layer under the Sleeping Beauty frame and guessing, plausibly, that it was written to Hadestown. Two more praise the relationship specifically for never standing still. And two simply could not put it down, which StoryGraph corroborates with a 0% did-not-finish rate and not one reader rating the pace as slow.
What readers argue about and complain about: Only one thing recurs, and it recurs quietly. Three independent reviewers say the last act is rushed — the forest resolution arriving too fast to feel earned, a sequence in the King’s castle leaving readers confused, and a three-witches subplot that matters to Rosemary being raised and then dropped. All three of those readers still gave the book four stars or better, which tells you how much they liked everything else. Beneath that sits one specific craft objection from a single reviewer about an intimate scene landing in the middle of high stakes. And that is the entire negative case: Amazon has zero reviews below three stars, the lowest Goodreads rating on the book is a 2.5 with no text attached, and all the criticism that exists lives inside four-star reviews. A reader scanning star ratings alone would conclude this book has no detractors at all.
The series question everyone should ask first: this is the end, and it ends properly — resolved, with a happily-ever-after, and no cliffhanger reported by anyone. What it is not is a starting point, and the numbering makes that easy to get wrong. Part 1, Of Dreams and Poison, is required reading and does end on a cliffhanger; it also rates slightly higher, at 4.42 across 369 Goodreads ratings against this book’s 4.34 across 217, and has 70% more readers behind it. Buy the pair. No further book in the duology has been announced, titled or dated. If you want more of Green afterwards, her best-validated titles are She Came for Blood at 4.18 across 1,282 ratings and Of Tides and Snow at 4.21 across 1,255 — the latter being the unrelated Happily Ever After Dark book one. Avoid Pumpkin Smash if you are here for sapphic romance; it is m/f.
The audiobook arrived eight months after the ebook: narrated by Sophie Hunter Scott, running 9 hours 27 minutes, published by Tantor Media on 10 March 2026. Only two listeners have commented on the performance and both are positive, so treat that as encouraging rather than settled — though one of them rated the spice 3/5, which sits oddly against romance.io’s 5/5 and is worth knowing if you are choosing on heat.
Prefer audio? Listen to Of Thorns and Wings on Libro.fm — the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to read Of Dreams and Poison first?
Yes. The author says so herself in a note on the book, and Part 1 ends on a cliffhanger that this volume picks up. Buy them as a pair — and beware the numbering, because this is also Happily Ever After Dark book three, while that series’ book one is an unrelated retelling.
Does Of Thorns and Wings end on a cliffhanger?
No. It is the conclusion of the duology, it resolves, and it delivers a happily-ever-after. No reader reports being left hanging, and no further book has been announced.
How spicy is Of Thorns and Wings?
A 5/5. romance.io rates it “explicit and plentiful”, its top band, and five readers independently say it is spicier than Part 1. The book’s own front matter marks it 18+.
Is Of Thorns and Wings on Kindle Unlimited?
Yes. It was in Kindle Unlimited when we checked on 17 August 2026, with a paperback edition also available (check today’s price on Amazon). Availability changes without notice.
Is there an audiobook?
Yes — narrated by Sophie Hunter Scott, running 9 hours 27 minutes, published by Tantor Media on 10 March 2026, eight months after the ebook. Part 1 is also available in audio, so you can start the duology in that format.
What content warnings does it have?
Fewer than it should. StoryGraph’s crowd lists only graphic sexual content, for a book rated 70% dark by those same readers. From the text itself: enchanted captivity and forced sleep, a dark transformation, and violence around overthrowing a monarchy.
If You Loved Of Thorns and Wings, Read These Next
The obvious next step is backwards: Of Dreams and Poison is Part 1 and you should have read it first. After that, A Witch for Solstice is Green at novella length with a dragon queen as the love interest, if you want the same voice in an hour. For the same top heat band with a very different tone, Dragon Queens plays fantasy romance as comedy rather than as dread.
For more in this register, browse our guide to dragon sapphic romantasy or the full Book Reviews collection.
The Bottom Line
Of Thorns and Wings is a closer that closes. The marriage at its centre keeps developing instead of resetting, the heat escalates past an already explicit first volume, and the fairy-tale frame opens out into something with more mythology behind it than the retelling label suggests — and nobody who started it on StoryGraph put it down. Against that: the final act compresses more than it can carry, a subplot that mattered gets dropped, and the metadata around the book is doing a poor job of describing it, from the double series numbering to a single crowd-sourced content warning on a book its own readers call 70% dark. Read the duology as one 670-page book and it is one of the better things indie sapphic romantasy produced last year. Check Of Thorns and Wings on Amazon →
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, Of Thorns and Wings ranks as a top-band dark sapphic romantasy conclusion — hot, well-married and properly finished, held back by a compressed last act, and best approached as the second half of one book rather than as a place to start.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall ★★★★☆ 4.1/5
- ✓ 4.34 average across 217 Goodreads ratings
- ✓ 0% did-not-finish rate on StoryGraph
- ✓ Zero one- or two-star reviews on Amazon
- ✓ Only fourteen written reviews behind it
Romance ★★★★☆ 4.4/5
- ✓ Already married — no third-act breakup
- ✓ Relationship develops rather than resets
- ✓ Masc/femme dual POV done properly
- ✓ Tension comes from outside, not between them
Characters ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ Carabosse’s transformation carries the book
- ✓ 66% rate the character development strong
- ✓ 88% call the cast loveable
- ✓ Three-witches subplot raised and dropped
Writing ★★★★☆ 3.9/5
- ✓ 80% rate the pace medium, none call it slow
- ✓ Fairy-tale frame opens into real mythology
- ✓ Hades and Persephone layer under the retelling
- ✓ Final act compresses too much
Emotional Impact ★★★★☆ 4.2/5
- ✓ Emotional at 90%, dark at 70%
- ✓ Nobody abandoned it
- ✓ Reunions land because something was spent
- ✓ One scene placed against the wrong stakes
Heat Level ★★★★★ 5/5
- ✓ romance.io rates it explicit and plentiful
- ✓ Five readers say hotter than Part 1
- ✓ 18+ by the book’s own front matter
- ✓ One listener rated the spice far lower
Ending ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ Resolves the duology properly
- ✓ Earned HEA, no cliffhanger
- ✓ Five readers praise it as a conclusion
- ✓ Three call the last act rushed
Re-read Value ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ Tantor audiobook is a strong second pass
- ✓ Duology invites a straight-through reread
- ✓ Free on Kindle Unlimited
- ✓ Nothing further announced to return for
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More sapphic fae romance: our Sapphic Fae Romance guide sorts 63 adult fae books by courts, bargains, dark or cozy mood, heat and ending. New to the terms? Read What Is Fae Romance?
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