The Savage Land Series by Stacey Marie Brown

 Savage Lands Series

by Stacey Marie Brown

This is going to be a little different than my other post because this 
post is going to have the reviews for the first three books in the series.

Savage Lands book #1
Blurb:

Almost twenty years after the barrier between Earth and the Otherworld fell in the Fae Wars, Budapest is balancing on the precipice. A battle for dominance is brewing between the elite fae and the privileged humans in Eastern Europe. The prejudice between the sides is bubbling with hate and violence.

Nineteen-year-old human, Brexley, has grown up in privilege, but not without heartbreak. After being orphaned, she is taken in by General Markos, living in a walled city rife with power grabs and ruthless political games. Then one night the course of her life changes, and Brexley is thrown into the most feared prison in the east. Halalhaz, the House of Death—where you go in but don’t come out.

She must learn to live with the worst of fae and human criminals. The rule of hierarchy puts humans on the bottom, where the only way to survive each day is to make alliances with the fae.

Here she meets the sexy, vicious legend, Warwick Farkas. A myth among man and fae. He is as brutal, cruel, arrogant, and as lethal as the lore says he is, ruling the prison with unchallenged authority. Brexley can’t deny an intense draw to him, one that might cost her life.

If The Games don’t take her out first—A fight to the death where only one survives.

My Review:

I sat with this book longer than I meant to, and somehow still managed to read three books in a day and a half. Savage Lands by Stacey Marie Brown absolutely consumed me.

I was hooked from the premise alone: a prison filled with fae, humans, demons, and other mythical creatures? Yes. Immediately. Where do I sign up? From the very first pages, this story had its claws in me, and I devoured it.

The book opens with Brexley and Caden robbing trains for fun, because they can. They’re essentially human royalty in a world where humans are at war with the fae. Raised together, Brexley has always known privilege, but she’s restless, adventurous, and desperate for more than the life she’s been handed.

That hunger for danger is what gets her caught and thrown into a fae prison where survival beyond the first day is basically unheard of. No one escapes. No one lasts. Brexley is beaten, broken, and brutalized more times than I can count, and honestly? She should have died just as many.

This book is pure anxiety and adrenaline, and it fully confirms that I am deeply, irrevocably in love with depraved men. I inhaled this story. I’m a sucker for intricate plots, morally gray characters, and creatures and personalities you can’t find anywhere else, and Savage Lands delivers all of that and more.

The tension will eat your soul alive. Does he want her… or does he want to kill her? Sometimes, there isn’t much difference. One hand could snap her neck, and I hate to admit it, but I loved every second of that dangerous, unhinged energy.

The side characters are thoughtfully crafted and unforgettable, adding depth to an already brutal world. This is a mythical dystopia where cruelty is the norm and humans are just as monstrous as ever.

I picked up this series while searching for something different, and Savage Lands hit the mark perfectly. Dark, intense, and impossible to put down.

My Blurb:

Brexley has endured starvation and survived torture and even Warwick Farkas, the brutal legend who still haunts her like a ghost, spilling into her thoughts and life. His betrayal made her a prisoner of Killian, the gorgeous Fae Lord of Budapest.

There her life takes another unforeseen twist, something that will change the fragile alliance between the humans and the fae, and Brexley finds herself in the middle.

As weeks go by, Brexley also discovers Killian isn’t the malicious leader she was told about. As they spend more time together, their relationship begins to shift. However, when an old acquaintance turns up, she is given the chance to escape the sexy fae leader, and her entire world explodes.

Brexley is thrown into a nefarious web of politics, desire, betrayal, lies, and truths that will shatter her foundation and who she is, what she believes, and who can be trusted. No longer is there a clear line between good and bad.

Hunted by both sides, Brexley is on the run and must untangle all the lies, deceit, and deceptions, before she becomes another victim in the wild lands.

My Review:

Next in the series is Wild Lands, and honestly? The title does not lie. This book was WILD.

It was so good, and somehow even better than the first. There’s deeper character development, stronger emotional connections, and a much heavier focus on the delicious tension between Warwick and Brexley. Their relationship evolves into this intoxicating love-hate enigma that had me absolutely feral for more. The tension… oh, the tension. I truly don’t know what I would do if a man kept whispering filthy things in my ear only to turn around and say I wasn’t his type.

Actually—yes, I do.
I would combust. 💥

We also meet more characters in this installment, and every single one of them is a standout. I’ve realized I have a soft spot for books with sarcastic sidekicks who double as comic relief, and these delivered perfectly, dirty-mouthed, hilarious, and endlessly lovable. On top of that, the representation in this book made the reading experience even richer and more exciting.

The action and anxiety never let up. Not for a second. My heart genuinely could not catch a break. You’d think somewhere across a six-book (or more?) series there would be downtime, but nope. Not here. It’s nonstop action: murder, chaos, running for survival, betrayal, found family, and did I mention the sexual tension? Because you could absolutely cut it with a knife. I swear the pages themselves were steaming.

So far, I am completely hooked on this series and loving every second of the ride. Wild Lands is intense, addictive, and ridiculously fun, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking for a dark, thrilling, emotionally charged good time.

My Blurb:

Kidnapped by the notorious rebel group, Provstat, Brexley finds her connection goes deeper than she ever imagined. Reunited with old acquaintances and an uncle she never knew, Brexley is thrown into the vicious world of politics, where human and fae leaders will do anything to come out on top. Here dangerous associations and meticulous plots are far more dangerous and cutthroat than any game she survived in Halálház. If her life wasn’t complicated enough, her relationship with the infamous legend is growing stronger. The more she tries to untangle the link between Warwick and her, the thicker it wraps around them both, entwining them in a world between life and death, where brutal passion and fury collide. When whispers of a coveted magical substance, called the nectar, start buzzing louder, Brexley’s strange bond to the fae book leads her on an unexpected journey. One that brings her closer to the answers she seeks. But once she opens the door, all the secrets and lies of her past come flooding out. Truths she’s not ready to face. And betrayals that cut bone deep.

My Review:

Next up was Dead Lands, and this one was… more of the same. I’m not sure if it was because I tore through these books in a single day or if this installment just didn’t hit as hard, but I’ll be honest, I got bored.

This is the book where the tension finally breaks, and while that part wasn’t bad, it felt like too much was happening all at once. Brexley never gets a moment to breathe. Disaster follows her everywhere, nonstop, and while I can sense that there’s a bigger explanation coming, we only get a small taste of it here.

Brexley is clearly something more, and so is Warwick, but no one knows what either of them truly are. The death count keeps climbing, and disturbingly, it all seems tied to Brexley. Whatever she’s becoming, it isn’t healthy. As I read on, I found myself wanting to scream at the characters to just listen to each other. No one listens. Ever. It’s like, “We know they want us dead… so let’s casually go stand out in the open and see what happens.” I cannot deal with that level of stupidity.

That said, this doesn’t mean I’m giving up on the series, not even close. I’m still invested. I want to see Brexley grow, make smarter choices, and finally step into whatever she’s meant to be. I’m hoping the next books deliver that growth, because the potential here is still very much alive.