Glisser

Glisser is the fifth instalment in the Ironside Academy series by Jane Washington.

Glisser follows Isobel and her reverse harem of Alphas as they navigate drama at Ironside Academy. If you read the previous book, Glisser is a direct continuation and drops you straight back into the story.

I'm a huge fan of the Ironside Academy series, so I'm disappointed that I didn't really enjoy this book. I don't have a problem with Washington's writing and characters, I actually enjoy those aspects the most, however, I feel like the the plot has been exhausted. I feel like there are too many love interests — this is because we can only really focus on one Alpha at a time, and the story suffers as a result. There's not enough time or space to develop each individual romantic relationship with the Alphas and Isobel and it causes things to get too confusing and chaotic.

I think it's also my fault that I didn't re-read the previous book before starting this one as I had completely forgotten where we had left off and it took me a while to get back into the flow of the story. The lack of interest I had in the plot and characters in this book probably didn't help me to engage. I liked Isobel in the first two books, but I feel like she's lost the spark that made her an interesting FMC, She seems incredibly hung up on the Alphas and only comes to the realisation that she loves a few of them, which is concerning considering this is the penultimate book of the series.

Besides the lacklustre character development or lack thereof, the plot doesn't really advance or offer anything new to readers and comes across as filler to me. The smut scenes definitely contribute to this feeling as the book starts to become very 'romance-heavy' and lose its fantasy elements.

I loved the first two books in this series, so I will be reading the sixth and final book, and hopefully, it offers a fulfilling ending.