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Review: The Ballad of Never After by Stephanie Garber

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,
The Ballad of Never After by Stephanie Garber

The Ballad of Never After (Once Upon a Broken Heart #2)
Stephanie Garber
Flatiron Books
Published September 13, 2022

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About The Ballad of Never After

Not every love is meant to be.

After Jacks, the Prince of Hearts, betrays her, Evangeline Fox swears she’ll never trust him again. Now that she’s discovered her own magic, Evangeline believes she can use it to restore the chance at happily ever after that Jacks stole away.

But when a new terrifying curse is revealed, Evangeline finds herself entering into a tenuous partnership with the Prince of Hearts again. Only this time, the rules have changed. Jacks isn’t the only force Evangeline needs to be wary of. In fact, he might be the only one she can trust, despite her desire to despise him.

Instead of a love spell wreaking havoc on Evangeline’s life, a murderous spell has been cast. To break it, Evangeline and Jacks will have to do battle with old friends, new foes, and a magic that plays with heads and hearts. Evangeline has always trusted her heart, but this time she’s not sure she can…

My Review

Evangeline embarks on another wild adventure, determined to break the curse over her husband, Prince Apollo. I couldn’t decide if I liked Apollo or not. I think we just don’t get enough time with him on scene and without the interference of a spell of some kind for me to figure out what kind of person he is.

Jacks, however, gets a lot of time on scene, and he’s definitely got the brooding, tortured soul thing going. I like that he and Evangeline play off one another and work well together.

This book builds a lot of sexual tension between those two. I liked that the story doesn’t stay too long in the land of miscommunication or depend too entirely on Jacks and Evangeline not saying what they mean. There are other forces at play that impact what she feels for Jacks and what she thinks he feels as well. There’s also a fair amount of back and forth between Evangeline and Apollo. She feels guilty for the bad things that have happened to him and wants to break the curses binding them together. But the longer time goes on, the more confused she is about her feelings for him.

The Ballad of Never After offers more details and lore from the lush fantasy landscape introduced in the first book in the series. We start to see how the different pieces of fairytale stories that Evangeline grew up with fit together and the connections between the people around her, all of whom need her for something. As soon as I finished this book, I started reading the series finale.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing and some strong sexual tension between two characters. At one point, a girl has injuries to her back, and someone bandages her while she is topless.

Spiritual Content
Lots of curses and a bit of fairytale magic. A few characters are vampires.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Vampires feed on or threaten to feed on humans in a few scenes. Someone continually hunts another person, intending to kill them. Two people are cursed with a mirror curse, meaning that when one is injured, the same injury appears on the other person. In one scene, someone scratches a message on their skin with a knife tip. Someone answers the message in a similar fashion. Someone stabs a girl in the chest, killing her.

Drug Content
Evangeline drinks champagne at an evening party.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. All opinions are my own.

Review: A Curse for True Love by Stephanie Garber

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , ,

A Curse for True Love (Once Upon a Broken Heart #3)
Stephanie Garber
Flatiron Books
Published October 24, 2023

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About A Curse for True Love

Two villains, one girl, and a deadly battle for happily ever after.

Evangeline Fox ventured to the Magnificent North in search of her happy ending, and it seems as if she has it. She’s married to a handsome prince and lives in a legendary castle. But Evangeline has no idea of the devastating price she’s paid for this fairytale. She doesn’t know what she has lost, and her husband is determined to make sure she never finds out . . . but first he must kill Jacks, the Prince of Hearts.

Blood will be shed, hearts will be stolen, and true love will be put to the test in A Curse for True Love, the breathlessly anticipated conclusion to the Once Upon A Broken Heart trilogy.

My Review

After reading the first two books in the series, I wanted to know how Evangeline and Jacks would navigate the obstacles standing between them and whether they could craft their own happily ever after.

I wasn’t expecting some of the directions the series takes. There was a character who seemed like a pretty decent person, perhaps a bit spoiled, but who was beginning to make better choices. Then he took a hard right into serious evil, and I had to recalibrate how I thought about him. Which is okay—it just came as a bit of a surprise.

I can’t decide if I’m starting to outgrow the Bad Boy stories where someone has a pretty long list of wrongs and callous actions to their name, but somehow, I’m still rooting for the heroine to find a way to be with this person. I like Jacks, but I sometimes cringed at the way he treated other people. Reading certain scenes definitely required some willing suspension of disbelief as Evangeline, whose lost memories left her incredibly vulnerable and who knew someone was trying to kill her, didn’t question the reckless stranger who kept appearing out of nowhere.

I did appreciate the romantic tension between them and the continued themes about curses and true love in the fairytale-esque world Garber created. I love the way that the magic works, especially with regard to curses taking a life of their own and stories continually changing with each telling or reading.

All in all, I am glad to have stuck with the series all the way to the end. It was fun reading something so swoony and romantic. I think romantasy fans will like the sweeping fairytale magic of the story world and Evangeline’s starry-eyed commitment to find her happily ever after.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Main characters are white.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. In one scene, a boy and girl begin to undress one another. They fall asleep before getting fully undressed.

Spiritual Content
A group of immortal Fates have limited special abilities. The story also contains vampires. Some humans have the ability to perform spells or curses, which require magic to be broken.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Evangeline hears about a wolf attack that leaves a boy horribly scarred. A boy dies, apparently from some kind of poison. Someone poisons a girl. A large number of vampires bite people. Someone ties up another person and threatens to torture or kill them. A person starts a fire, endangering others’ lives. Someone punches a man repeatedly, breaking his nose and bruising his face.

Drug Content
Evangeline drinks wine at a social event.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: Seasons of Flesh and Flame by A. G. Howard

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , ,

Seasons of Flesh and Flame (Shades of Rust and Ruin #2)
A. G. Howard
Bloomsbury USA Children’s
Published

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About Seasons of Flesh and Flame

New York Times bestselling author A.G. Howard concludes her dark, compelling YA fantasy series about twins separated by a family curse.

Nix Loring stepped into Mystiquel to face the Goblin King and break her family’s curse. When she found her twin, Lark, held captive for three years and forced to power the magical realm with her imagination, Nix offered herself up in her sister’s place.

Now, Nix wants nothing more than to be home with the people she loves. Instead, she’s tasked to create beauty from a world fallen to desolation. She finds herself drawn to the faerie creatures under her care—and even reluctantly drawn to the Goblin King himself. But how can she rebuild the very realm that tore her family apart?

Back home, her uncle and boyfriend desperately plan a rescue. But Lark, having learned Nix was meant to be the Goblin King’s captive in the first place, resents how her twin stole everything belonging to her during her absence. Worse yet, Lark harbors an unspeakable secret that could destroy what little she has left.

As time draws closer to the rescue, Lark grapples with the darkness growing inside: should she help save her sister, or finally get her revenge?

Set in a gritty, atmospheric world filled with magical creatures, New York Times bestselling author A.G. Howard concludes her thrilling fantasy duology full of romance, twists, and betrayals.

My Review

I love that this series is a duology. When I started reading book one, I thought the series would be a trilogy. Trilogies are great, but a duology is so much more manageable for me to read.

In my review of the first book in the duology, Shades of Rust and Ruin, I noted that I’d expected more romance based on the cover copy, but the tale was more focused on the relationship between the sisters. That focus holds true in this second book, too.

What’s different about Seasons of Flesh and Flame, though, is that it follows both sisters’ perspectives. I loved that. I also liked that Lark, who we only met at the end of the first book, isn’t the benevolent sister we expected based on Nix’s memories of her. She’s got her own agenda and fresh trauma to work through.

The romance subplots (there’s one for each sister) remain very sidelined. There are a few references to how the girls feel for the boys they love, and the end brings resolution to the relationships, but even there, it’s not really the focus.

A lot of the story takes place in the Mystiquel landscape. It’s lush, strange, and capricious. I enjoyed how the events there kept me on my toes.

If you’re looking for a fall read that’s more atmospherically spooky than actually creepy, you might want to give this series a try. There is one element that might be considered body horror that I’ll detail below.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Clarey (love interest) has dark brown skin and a bone-anchored hearing aid (BAHA). He also has anxiety and panic attacks. Lark uses a prosthetic hand when her hand disappears.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
Some characters have the ability to perform magic.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. A fire burns down a bakery. Some cartoonish creatures attack Nix and her allies. A girl relies on prosthetics when her hand disappears.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: Garden of the Cursed by Katy Rose Pool

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Garden of the Cursed (Garden of the Cursed #1)
Katy Rose Pool
Henry Holt & Co.
Published June 20, 2023

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About Garden of the Cursed

In this thrilling YA fantasy/mystery duology from award-winning author Katy Pool, cursebreaker Marlow Briggs reluctantly pretends to be in love with one of the most powerful nobles in Caraza City to gain entry into an illustrious—and deadly—society that holds clues to her mother’s disappearance. Perfect for fans of Veronica Mars, These Violent Delights, and Chain of Iron.

Since fleeing the gilded halls of Evergarden for the muck-filled canals of the Marshes, Marlow Briggs has made a name for herself as the best godsdamn cursebreaker in Caraza City. But no matter how many cases she solves, she is still haunted by the mystery of her mother’s disappearance.

When Adrius Falcrest, Marlow’s old friend and scion of one of Caraza’s most affluent spell-making families, asks her to help break a life-threatening curse, Marlow wants nothing to do with the boy who spurned her a year ago. But a new lead in her mother’s case makes Marlow realize that the only way to get the answers she desperately seeks is to help Adrius and return to Evergarden society—even if it means suffering through a fake love affair with him to avoid drawing suspicion from the conniving Five Families.

As the investigation draws Marlow into a web of deadly secrets and powerful enemies, a shocking truth emerges: Adrius’s curse and her mother’s disappearance may just be clues to an even larger mystery, one that could unravel the very foundations of Caraza and magic itself.

My Review

This book hooked me from its early pages. I love the gritty world of the Marshes and the magic system, which uses spells contained within cards. The city reminded me a little bit of where Kaz lives in Six of Crows. The magic system and main character being a fish-out-of-water reminded me of Ace of Shades by Amanda Foody, which I also enjoyed.

Once I got to know Marlow and Adrius, I could not put this book down. Their past relationship was a little different than I thought from the back cover description, but that was because I made some assumptions that I didn’t realize I made. They’re both great characters. Some of the side characters, like Swift, Silvan, and Gemma grew on me as the story went on. Silvan is Adrius’s best friend and seems sullen and angry, but he’s fiercely loyal, and he has a pet snake that is always with him, which is somehow endearing.

Swift is another great character. He’s Marlow’s best friend. They have a super close bond, too, from past adventures together. I also love Marlow’s cat, Toad. She’s great.

The blend of fantasy and mystery elements really worked for me in this book. The magic system is unusual, and it gets used in interesting ways. The chemistry between Marlow and Adrius keeps their relationship sparky in more ways than one.

This is the first book in a duology. It has a satisfying conclusion that opens up a whole new set of problems for book two. As soon as I finished reading Garden of the Cursed, I bought and started reading the second book. I have to know how this story ends.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Main character is white. One minor character has had same-gender romantic relationships. Another might be queer. Other characters’ race is ambiguous.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
A few F-bombs. Other profanity used pretty infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. References to a romance between two girls.

Spiritual Content
References to gods. Cards contain spells or curses and can be activated by saying a magic word.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. References to torture. Threats of torture. Harmful magic such as hexes and curses. A character tries to kill another character with a knife.

Drug Content
Characters drink alcohol.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: The Blessing by Lyla Stone

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, New Adult 18up, Paranormal, Romance, , , , , , ,

The Blessing
Lyla Stone
And She Was Publishing
Published May 24, 2024

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About The Blessing

It’s a fine line between a blessing and a curse.

When ancient Water Spirits seek revenge against the Forest Witch who imprisoned them thousands of years earlier for the crime of blessing one ancestral line while cursing another, they each enlist modern-day descendants as their champions in a fight to the death.

Margot comes from the blessed line. Jessica from the cursed one. Neither wants to fight someone else’s war.

As their town is pulled into a battle between land and sea, the distinction between good and evil becomes as indistinguishable as the line between love and hate. Margot and Jessica are forced to choose between saving their love or saving themselves.

My Review

The story alternates between Margot and Jessica’s perspectives. I think Jessica is my favorite character. She’s spunky and has great exit lines. I liked the way she uses sarcasm and snark as armor even though underneath that prickly exterior, she does care about people and feels incredibly lonely.

Margot is a great character, too. She wrestles with guilt over her best friends’ deaths in a car accident. She also wants desperately to protect her little sister, who will be next in line as the three spirits’ conduit if Margot refuses to do their bidding.

The whole book is set in a small Maine town, which I also enjoyed. I liked the vibe of the town and the way it felt hemmed in by the power of nature and the natural disasters that the supernatural battle spawned.

The beginning was a little bit slow as the story introduces the history of the blessing and curse, but once Jessica and Margot meet, the pacing picks up considerably. I flew through the last half of the book, really eager to see how things resolved and what the girls would have to do in order to free themselves from the battle between spiritual forces.

The cover notes that this is a new adult fantasy, and the writing does fit that age group and genre. I think the main characters are in high school, so the book will appeal to some young adult readers as well. Another reviewer recommended the book for Amanda Hocking fans, which is a great comparison. If you liked Watersong, you will want to check this book out.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Representation
The Blessing is a retelling of a Yiddish fairytale. Margot and Jessica are both Jewish.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Some f-bombs and other strong profanity used fairly frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
References to a one-night stand. Kissing between two girls.

Spiritual Content
References to Jewish faith and practice. Three sister spirits blessed one family and cursed another. A Forest Witch imprisoned the sisters in ice when they cursed a family line she protects. Now the sisters are free and want vengeance on the Forest Witch and the girl from the cursed line. Some supernatural things happen in the form of weather and other strange events. A character gives Jessica tarot readings to try to figure out what she should do next.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Waterspouts, flash flooding, and other natural disasters occur.

Drug Content
Teens drink alcohol at a party.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: Burning Crowns by Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , ,

Burning Crowns (Twin Crowns #3)
Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber
Balzer + Bray
Published April 25, 2024

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About Burning Crowns

Twin queens Rose & Wren survived the Battle for Anadawn and brought back magic to their kingdom. But danger lurks in Eana’s shadows.

Wren is troubled. Ever since she performed the blood spell on Prince Ansel, her magic has become unruly. Worse, the spell created a link between Wren and the very man she’s trying to forget: Icy King Alarik of Gevra. A curse is eating away at both of them. To fix it they must journey to the northern mountains—under the watchful guard of Captain Tor Iversen—to consult with the Healer on High.

Rose is haunted. Waking one night to find her undead ancestor Oonagh Starcrest by her bed, she receives a warning: surrender the throne—or face a war that will destroy Eana. With nowhere to turn and desperate to find a weapon to defeat Oonagh, Rose seeks help from Shen-Lo in the Sunkissed Kingdom, but what she finds there may break her heart.

As Oonagh threatens all Rose and Wren hold dear, it will take everything they have to save Eana–including a sacrifice they may not be prepared to make.

My Review

I’ve followed this trilogy since the beginning, so I’m really excited to have had a chance to read the conclusion. What a wild ride it was!

Wren and Rose share a connection, but they’re really different as people. I liked the way they related to one another but yet had their own values and approaches to ruling Anadawn. Each sister has her own romance underway from previous books, and those progress here, too. I’m not gonna lie, I kind of hoped one sister would make a different choice than she did, but I felt like the ending was satisfying nonetheless.

The romantic plot contains some of the most mature elements of the story. It does fade to black before characters go further than undressing, but the characters definitely have some lusty thoughts and desires. The rest of the story feels solidly young adult. Rose and Wren are both still figuring out how to step into their adult roles as queens. They’re falling in love for the first time. I felt like those components really anchored the story as a young adult fantasy.

Wren and Rose and their relationship stands at the center of the story. In this particular book, they face a threat from their shared ancestry, one they can only vanquish together.

All in all, I enjoyed the series, and I’m glad I read all the way to the end. I think readers who are just outgrowing Disney fairytales would like the Twin Crowns series.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 15 up.

Representation
Minor characters with brown skin. Two minor female characters are in a romantic relationship.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. In two scenes, characters undress one another, and the scene fades to black.

Spiritual Content
Some characters have magic. Wren and Alarik performed forbidden blood magic in an earlier book, which bound them together under a curse. A cruel past queen raises humans and animals from the dead, creating an undead army.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Battle scenes. References to torture. Descriptions of desecrated graves.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.