To Snap a Silver Stem

Crystal Bloom, Book 2

By: Sarah A. Parker

Narrated by: Chelsea Stephens, Troy Duran

I want him to hurt. To bleed. I want him to snap, just like he snapped me.

Once upon a time, my world was small and sheltered. Everything changed the moment I stepped over my Safety Line, barrelling towards a coupling with a man I hardly know.

He wants me. All of me.

Dunked in a charged political pit, I must secure the ships needed to quell the spill of murderous beasts still flooding the continent. But one wrong move could spur the war I’ve worked so hard to avoid.

I’ll wear the dress and the cupla and the shoes. I’ll do it all with a smile on my face. Because everyone's watching.

He’s watching—hunting a fissure in my frosty shield, trying to scrape back the layers and see my ugly insides. He’s unyielding. Unguarded. Changed. Why is he looking now when I’ve got everything to hide?

Secrets sprout, truths bloom, and more than one of us will snap.

Crowned in the crippling weight of my mistakes, I must atone. Even if it costs me my life.

Fear was my overlord. Now, it’s my prisoner.

To Snap a Silver Stem is the explosive sequel of To Bleed a Crystal Bloom, a dark Rapunzel reimagining full of immersive imagery and breathtaking angst.

©2022 Sarah A. Parker (P)2022 Podium Audio

Slow to start

The first book is a little obnoxious and slow to start but I love this whole series. It comes together nicely

I’m devastated

This series has me in a puddle. MARCH 30th!!! I won’t have anything to soothe my wounded heart until March 😩

Omg!! My poor heart

Aaahhhh. March 30th needs to hurry up and get here! This book just broke me! So beautifully written!
The narrators are amazing! Ready for the next book now!

Amazing!

This book keeps you on your toes but I loved every minute of it! I seriously can’t wait to keep reading this series!

Huge let down

I’m so frustrated with book 2 of this series. There were some really interesting elements in book 1, but book 2 doesn’t deliver. It started going off the rails once the main character arrives in the south capital city. Her promised is an under developed character, predictable and boring. Olathe only made it out of her safe zone by running away from R but then she suddenly becomes this adventurous must discover the city girl and then starts taking chances left and right, most notably on this day she has guarded and chaperoned carriage tour, sneaks away from the guards then ends up at a sex club, looses her virginity to a random dude, sneaks into a park outside the city, falls asleep in the sun, then almost gets kidnapped, gets her necklace stolen, then burns everyone alive again, gets stuck in another dream/nightmare, wakes up naked (except her bag isn’t burned so it’s ok, runs away from a vruk through a sewer/mud, then cuts off a branch growing out of her shoulder while the vruk is still not that far away, she’s glowing and naked and bruised and bloody and freaking barefoot, then changes back into her fancy gown, then reveals her secret identity to the captain and his family who mistake her for a relative and she learns about the persecution of her people while having tea and getting bandages up, then miraculously sneaks back into the palace, convinces her dumb as rocks fiancé that she dropped her cupola and then he goes to the palace forge, which he can use because a spoiled royal like him totally would know how to use a forge, solders it on while burning her, then has a snuggly panic attack with R, then gets all angry with him while he has randomly become nice after being incredibly absent/cruel to her, instead of working together to form a plan—all I’m one day because that’s possible.

The nightmares have disappeared, the agoraphobia has disappeared, her issues with loud noises she started doing exposure therapy for but then disappeared, her ability to turn down R has disappeared, you could drive a spaceship through these plot holes and I’m starting to dislike all the characters.

Out of all that, somehow what bugs me most is that she doesn’t bring up some really obvious conversation topics like hey R, cool you like me back now, but aren’t you still engaged to someone else? She becomes all mean.

All this while she’s trying to train to get out of a pool with a piranha and octopus in it and her trainer is one of the cultists that murder her people and sell their body parts like crack cocaine.

I can do suspension of disbelief but this is just annoying now,