The Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac is a why choose fantasy romance series by the authors of the incredibly popular Zodiac Academy series, which is a series I have yet to finish. It’s eight books so that was just a little daunting, and I started to get the sense I knew where it was going and didn’t quite feel like getting my heart ripped out. Maybe I’ll go back to it someday, but in the meantime, I decided to tackle the Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac, which takes place in the same universe.
I have historically loved the other why choose books by this author team, although those are all contemporary, and have a very different kind of energy than this series. This series incorporates romance, fantasy, and a murder mystery all in one.
The Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac is a five-book, college series with four very different love interests. The female main character Elise is a vampire who gets a scholarship to the Aurora Academy to find out who murdered her brother. Her only hint is that it’s someone called King.
It just so happens that the school is ruled by four very powerful and very sexy Kings. There’s Gabriel the harpy, Leon the lion shifter, Ryder the basilisk, and his mortal enemy Dante the dragon. These authors love taking men who want to kill each other on sight and making them fall in love with the same girl.
My favorite part of this series is the creative world-building and magical system. Each person in this academy and the world around it has an Order they are born as, and each Order has a different way of replenishing their magic. I would obviously be a Sphinx. They replenish their magic by reading.
Throughout the series, there is lots of drama and lots of intrigue, so it keeps you turning pages and definitely holds your attention. There are warring gang leaders, a cult-like secret society, and all kinds of interpersonal messes to be handled.
My biggest issue with these books is the use of the term “FaeBook” to describe their fictional version of Facebook, which is really just a personal bugaboo. The series also dragged just a little bit at the end because there were so many books, but I think that partially was my fault for obsessively bingeing them all in the span of a week. Overall, I loved the characters, and this magical world, and this series as a whole.
Spice: 3
Writing: 3
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