Dear TBR:
Yes, I AM that boring girl who actually doesn’t like to read creepy books during the alleged “spooky season,” but there IS a such thing as an overload. I may circle back to my “challenge myself to read genres I don’t care for” again in January – but for now, I’m returning to another of my earlier projects – reading YA/MG books which are published by very small presses and/or self-published (with a decently paid editor, a good plot arc and strong writing, an zero AI-generated garbage. Sorry to have to specify this). I found this book – I guess we can label it a fantasy romance (oh, wait. It’s a romantasy, isn’t it? I have tripped and fallen on-trend for once, go me) – a long while back, but hadn’t gotten around to reviewing it. It’s trope-y, but in a fun way that reminds me of so, so many of my favorite books. Anyway, welcome to my coziest autumn read. The plot, as one of my BookTube faves might say, it goeth thusly:
Leiria is a cursed kingdom. A fae princess lost her temper, and a lot of people – a LOT of people – are still suffering disease and bad luck and poverty over it, fifteen years on. The prologue gives a clear picture of this – there’s a Blight, crops and lives are fading, and the curse is straight up vicious.
As mentioned, the fairytale trope is strong with this one – to break the curse on the kingdom, someone has to fall in love with the schlumpy, unattractive, socially awkward king – and it’s gotta be the real deal – or the curse causes her to die, and rolls viciously on. This was designed by the fae to punish the great and glittering of the court, namely the king. And, there’s no avoiding the Questioning, which happens on the last night of the annual ball. Each girl who has caught the eye of the king must own up to her feelings – and the Court Magic – which is actually the curse – somehow knows the truth. It’s a rigged game that everyone eligible has been forced to play, and every year for the last fifteen… there’s an unfortunate girl who thinks she’s the one. She’s… not. This book is giving vibes of The Selection by Kiera Cass from 2012, and – hah – The Bachelor reality show, but with a further twist.
Rather than just punishing the court, the vengeful action of the fae princess is affecting everyone, and the citizenry is desperate – but many of the wealthy are still playing power games. Who wouldn’t want to be the queen and be the one to end the Blight? And then she could “help” the rather hopeless, feckless King to rule… It seems very clear that some people are benefiting from the Blight and all the deaths. How can any kingdom recover from that?
When a disinterested country girl named Samiris is chosen as one of the annual crop of eligible consorts for the king, she wants nothing to do with the whole thing – and not just because she’s afraid to die. She won’t fall in love with the king, and she’s only nobility in name. She doesn’t know all the dances, and doesn’t want to indulge in the soft life a court, not when she has a critically ill family member and a younger sibling, and her whole focus is getting them enough to eat and medicine. (She gives a bit of Katnis Everdeen vibe.) Trapped in the magically wonderful palace, Samiris finds a way to subvert the plan to be beautiful and courted – and seen by the King – that the Court has for her, in a big way. And it’s fun to see her refuse to go along with things, change and soften and not have big preconceived notions about everyone and everything (yes, there’s Pride & Prejudice vibes, too). By the end of the novel, you’re really rooting for Samiris, in unexpected ways. The writing is well paced and there’s a lot of chit-chat and banter that doesn’t sound as artificial as it could, if that makes sense.
While I loved the final scenes, you might be able to guess the final shocker of a twist, if you read with attention and tend to be good at figuring out the real bad guy rather than the obvious one. There are a couple of plot questions I was dying to have answered when I put on my reading critique hat, but that was only AFTER I was finished with the novel. This fun book reads compulsively, and it was still a delightfully satisfying conclusion for me when it all worked out. It is frothy, fast, fairytale fun.
Fresh onto the TBR:
- Haunted Ever After, Jen DeLuca
- The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax, Dorothy Gillman
Until the next book, 📖
Still A Constant Reader
