The Viridian Priestess by Katrina Calandra

 The Viridian Priestess 

by Katrina Calandra 

My Rating: 🟊🟊🟊🟊

Spice Rating: 🌶🌶

Blurb:

She is a telepathic priestess, determined to rise the ranks of her temple. So why do her thoughts keep straying back to the masked commander? Priestess Ferren has devoted her life to her celestial deity, yet she has not been able to ascend the priestess order. But on the eve of a great planetary event, the chance to prove herself arises. She must accept the opportunity or succumb to a life of shame in the eyes of her temple. The potentially deadly mission comes with several complications when she crosses paths with a commander from a rival planet. Ferren must conceal her loyalty to the temple from her new travel companion and his questionable crew. But the longer she is in proximity to the mysterious commander, the more intrigued she becomes with his forbidden nature. As the threat of a common enemy closes in, Ferren finds solace in the commander. While working together in a hope of saving their people, they forge a profound connection that tethers them in unexpected ways. Ferren must decide if she can go back to the stoic existence she once led, when he has shown her a taste of the life she deserves.


Author's The Viridian Priestess is a slow burn, but spicy romance. It ends on a slight cliffhanger with a HFN. Please check CW's.

My Review:

I picked this book up at night expecting background noise. Something soft and easy to drift off to. What I got instead was a one sitting, no sleep, absolutely consumed reading experience that I was not remotely prepared for, and I would not change a single thing about it.

Let me set the scene. It is late. The lights are low. I open this book with zero expectations. And then Katrina Calandra reaches through the pages, grabs me by the collar, and refuses to let go until the very last word. That is not background noise. That is an ambush. A beautiful, magnificent ambush.

Our FMC Ferran is a priestess on a mission that means everything to her, proving herself worthy of divinity. It is the kind of goal that lives in your bones, the kind you would walk through fire for. And walk through fire she does, because nothing on this journey goes right. Everything goes left, sideways, and occasionally straight into chaos. Watching Ferran think on her feet, adapt, survive, and push forward with sheer relentless determination is the kind of thing that makes you sit up straighter just reading it.

And then there is the MMC. I do not know if Katrina Calandra did this intentionally, I genuinely do not know, but this man was radiating full Mandalorian energy from the moment he appeared on the page. That quiet, immovable, deeply principled kind of strength that does not announce itself and does not need to. The kind that just is. And I was done for. Completely and totally done for, eating right out of the author's palm without a single regret.

But here is what elevates this beyond a great adventure with magnetic characters, the world. Oh, the world. There is something almost sacred about the way Katrina Calandra builds this universe, layering it with unique creatures, lurking danger, and details so vivid and specific that your imagination does not have to work to picture it. It just appears. That is the magic of exceptional world building, it does not feel constructed. It feels discovered. Like it existed before the book and will keep existing long after you finish it. I am a complete and total sucker for that feeling and this book delivered it in abundance.

What makes it all hit harder is that the author does not go easy on her characters. The world is beautiful and it is also brutal, and Ferran earns every single step of her journey. Along the way she collects people she never planned to care about, and then cares about them deeply, in the way that sneaks up on you slowly and then all at once. The found family thread woven through this story is quiet but it is powerful, and by the time you realize how much you love these people it is already too late to protect yourself.

I went in knowing nothing. I came out completely in love with a book I never saw coming. And that, that right there, is the best possible reading experience there is.

If you are on the fence, get off it. Give this book a chance. You might just stay up all night and not regret a single lost hour of sleep.