SenLinYu's Manacled Book Review

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 Manacled 

By Senlinyu


Published Year: 2018-2019

Page Count: 957 pages 

Medium Used: Phone 

Genre : Romantsy, Romance, High Fantasy, Harry Potter Universe, Alternate Theory, Hermione Granger, Dark Magic and Sorcery, 2025-read. 

Rating : 5/5 



I have a habit of reading multiple books at a time. This book! This book has knocked me off my mind. I was glued to my phone reading and sticking to this one till the end. Even though this is a long book and had some of the actions mentioned on repeat, - like the multiple times the main characters meet and rescue or heal each other, the many times they spend together as a host and surrogate - it didn't feel boring. I never once said 'enough'. I wanted to keep reading. 


This book is so so good. It recounts an alternate version to Harry Potter series. In order to fully understand and follow the book, one must also possess a knowledge - even if only very brief and vague - of the original series. In this book, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy are the main characters. Harry Potter swears to not use dark magic in his fight against the Dark Lord Voldemort and commits his entire mission to doom. Only a handful of the Resistance members survive. A couple of the Order of Phoenix members remain and the war is over. Voldemort is not in his prime health as well and in order to cloud the issue of his declining health, he proposes a reproduction program reminding us of  'The Handmaid's Tale'. Hermione Granger is a war spoil and she is assigned to the highest war general in Voldemort's team, who surprisingly is Draco Malfoy. She hates him, wants to kill him, wants to kill herself, wants everything to end. A lot of her memories from the war are locked away magically in her mind and they are of prime importance to Voldemort/Malfoy. They imagine that those memories could lead them to the Order members in hiding. So .. the memories which are released when she becomes pregnant a few months after her arrival at the Malfoy Manor are shocking to say the least. I didn't see them coming. Draco had a shocking history and the story from there is very very dark. Their love and obsessive possessiveness for each other drives the story forward and every risky step they take is so that they could keep the other safe and it is utterly riveting. Their love thrives despite everything and in the end, they choose the company of each other far beyond what benefits they could get as authorities in power. Superb!! 


So what do her locked memories reveal? How were Draco and Hermione related to each other from prior to the war? This book chapters were first published as fan fiction work on a personal blog called 'Ao3'  but the story is very good. It goes beyond the smutty romantic books we usually associate with such works of fiction. Although there is some romance, it is not all encompassing or cringing. It is logical and follows a sensible, linear line of understanding. It makes me wanna revisit the original series and check up how the two differ to the minutest detail!! Do check it out! 

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