Entwined by H.M. Long
Publication Date: March 10, 2026
Summary from NetGalley:
Ottilie Rushforth hides from the mighty Sorcerer’s Guild as secretary to a has-been detective. She is Entwined – threads of magic run beneath her skin, and the Guild would trap her in service.
But Ottilie has a plan to escape the Guild forever with her estranged fiancé, the enigmatic poet, soldier and smuggler Lewis Illing. All she must do is track down a mysterious artefact, claim the bounty, and leave the city forever. But Ottilie’s sisters – Pretoria, a quick-witted sorceress and thief recently emerged from exile, and Madge, a guild mage to the core, appear to make equally unwelcome offers. A new life at the cost of everything she has ever wanted, or prestige and safety in a gilded cage.
With her life on the line, Ottilie must track down the artifact in a city torn apart by prejudice and violence, and choose between the two sides of herself – the fugitive and the Entwined.
ARC provided by Titan Books via Netgalley for an honest review.
Confession:
I have some mixed feelings about this one. While I liked the story and even at times enjoyed reading it, I also struggled with it. I never felt fully connected or invested in the characters and their stories, the magical system also needs more explanation, and the full extent of the issues facing Ottlilie and her sisters just never materialized.
The story is told fully from Ottlilie’s point of view which was fine. I liked her quite a bit, even though I never felt fully connected or invested in her story. She is smart and loyal to her friends and family, even when she doesn’t fully trust them. She does seem to be quite the disaster magnet though. She spends most of the book being captured by the various warring factions and then miraculously escaping or being rescued, sometimes by the people who last kidnapped her. This happened so many times I lost count, and it got old pretty fast.
There were a lot of secondary characters and I did at times have trouble keeping them all straight and which faction they belonged to. I did like Ottlilie’s sisters though. I very much felt the sisterly dynamic between them whenever they got together. The romance on the other hand, felt completely nonexistent. Lewis, her fiance doesn’t show up until well into the story, and then he treats her almost like a stranger. There is also an erstwhile kiss with another character, but nothing else ever comes of that storyline until the very end. Hopefully the romance will be more prominent in the next book.
The magical system was interesting, but I never really felt like I understood it. The different types of Entwined and their abilities were interesting, but I never really understood why these abilities would be feared or used for that matter. There were some epigraphs at the start or maybe the end of some of the chapters that explained some of the magical system, but they also didn’t seem to connect to the story as a whole. I just needed something more to make this interesting system, well better understood.
The writing and the setting for the story was very well done. I loved the descriptions of the places and people we meet. The tension and the turmoil that the city was experiencing was well described and really added to the story as a whole. The political intrigue and the warring factions needed a bit more details to really understand what was going on. Or perhaps there was too much going on to really understand the full picture.
As much as I liked the book, I didn’t love it as much as I hoped I would. I am somewhat undecided if I will read the next book or not. I think I will reread this one closer to when the next one comes out to see if my mind about it changes. I do recommend that you give this one a chance. I can easily see others loving this book more than I did.
Confessions of a Serial Reader 
Great review. I had exactly the same issues with this one as you did. On balance, I think the good points outweighed the bad and I do want to see how the story continues.
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