Book Review: What I read in APRIL 

April was a month filled with romance exploring first loves to cursed true love to second chances. This was a month with an eclectic mix of romance from YA fairytale fantasy, paranormal fantasy and escaping to Tuscany to discover a life after grief. I haven’t read any fantasy or a trilogy in a while so I was ready to sink my teeth into a new series and as always swoon over morally grey men, who are both tragic and heroic at the same time. As always I cannot say no to a romance set in beautiful Italy. This is me manifesting a trip to Italy soon! But for now I will live vicariously through fictional characters. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for eARCs in exchange for an honest review. *There are several spoilers in this post.*

April Reads

*Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review* 

Escape to the Tuscan vineyard is a light-hearted holiday to Tuscany. This is a cute story where Abi is forced to re-evaluate her views on love and not always being able to control everything after she is given two weeks paid leave between contracts as a make-up artist. She visits her friend Holly in Tuscany, Italy and soaks in the sun and Italian culture. Abi meets Tony who sweeps her off her feet and is a breath of fresh air in contrast to her past relationships, he is the epitome of a gentleman. Together they explore themes of grief and moving on from a tragic period of their individual experiences. 

The plot is simple and the attention to detail in immersing the reader in Tuscany is good, but I would have liked more character development to understand Tony’s character in more detail and look beyond his attractive exterior. The fact that he works in film is not really touched upon and would have made the ending stronger. I think this needed Tony’s POV to create more chemistry in their growing friendship and romance. But this lack of depth doesn’t distract from the story too much and their romance. Overall, a fun and easy to read book with low stakes that had me envious of Abi spending two weeks in beautiful Tuscany. Once the story got going I didn’t want to stop reading.

*Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.*

2.5 – 3 stars.

Cursed Under London is a fun and bizarre fantasy that follows a diverse cast of characters that unite on a quest to save Elizabethan London and find a place within the divided streets of London. I enjoyed the characters and how each were well-rounded and had their own quirks, especially Amber the dragon. The author skilfully creates protagonists that are likeable, but the villains are lacking and almost unmemorable. The romance between Fang and Lazare wasn’t well built up and seemed rushed, but I was still rooting for them nonetheless. I think the romance would have benefitted from the book being longer and taking more time to understand Fang and Lazare’s background to appreciate why they would make a good couple. 

The story starts quickly, but I think in some places almost too quickly. There is a lot of world building and context that the reader must grapple with, such as the upper and lower sides of London and how these places differ socially and economically, as well as separate groups of fantasy species, such as zombies, dragons, vampires etc. There is a lot in a short book. I loved the idea of the world but this isn’t a typical historical fiction. The premise would have worked just as well in a modern setting. I think the plot needed to entangle more in the history and context of the time – such as a plot involving Queen Elizabeth I or the political issues at the time to tie to the period. 

Overall, I loved the characters and the premise, but I did feel my eyes drifting over the text and losing focus. This could be that this type of writing style and dense world building isn’t for me. But the characters made me want to continue reading.

Once Upon a Broken Heart series by Stephanie Garber is a YA fantasy series that is set in the same world as the Caraval that is a fairytale fantasy world of curses, true love, magic and the deadly immortal fates. I consumed this triology in a matter of days, but whether that is because the series is good and without plot holes in another matter. Once Upon a Broken Heart follows Evangeline Fox, on orphan and her quest for true love where she makes a deal with the Prince of Hearts also known as Jacks. In their deal Evangeline must complete three kisses of Jacks choosing, one includes with Prince Apollo of the North. Both this series and Caraval are very popular on BookTok and follow many of the tropes that are copied and pasted into many books. They are usually easy to read, but lack polish or depth in my opinion.

Now to review Once Upon a Broken Heart, I’ll review each book individually and then overall. I think this series has so much potential and I love Jacks and all the scenes that he is written in, but the rest of the characters in series I am unsure how I feel. I am torn between loving the world and also cringe at the amount of plot holes that distract from me fully enjoying the series. Preface: I haven’t read the Caraval series and I have read online that many fans of Stephanie Garber’s work recommend reading that series first before this trilogy. I am torn between reading Caraval due to the very extreme positive reviews and the more critical ones – and honestly, I don’t know if I can put myself through the writing style again. But I dare say my curiosity will get the better of me…maybe even a cheeky 0.99p Kindle book deal will sway me.

Once Upon a Broken Heart

2.5 stars. 

The more I read the less I understood. When I decided to read this book I was not expecting vampires! I liked the concept and the idea of fates with immortality and individual curses, but there was either too much information written in flowery language or not enough, but I was somehow compelled to continue reading. The chapters were short, but the book was long and took far too long to get to the point yet didn’t take the time to explore characters and world build in a way that eased the reader into what could be an exciting world. I know with trilogies that cliffhangers are common and the first book takes time to build up to the conflict or action, but things happened that were brushed over and it was very difficult as a reader to understand what were important events or characters to remember for future books in the series.

This book introduces Evangeline as wanting to stop the wedding between her beloved Luc and her step-sister Marisol, who used magic to trick Luc to marry her. Eva wants to stop the wedding and prays to the Prince of Hearts (Jacks) at his church, where he’s apparently having an emotional breakdown – due to something happening in Caraval (not that it was really explained). This is the first meeting between these characters, and Jacks agrees to stop the wedding and turns everyone to stone in exchange for Eva to be indebted to him. Eventually, Eva and Marisol travel to the Magnificent North to attend a ball, where Eva is contracted to kiss whoever Jacks chooses – he can’t kiss anyone on the lips because he’s cursed to kill by a kiss until he finds his true love – so the love story between Eva and Prince Apollo unfolds under a love spell. This is the main focus with a few poisonings, murders and confusing motives thrown into the mix. Garber creates Jacks as a hero but also the villain, but doesn’t explore his motives very well. This is the main problem I had by the time I finished the book, there were too many connections being made between motives for murder etc that Jacks didn’t seem to be that dislikable.

The world building was lacking despite the interesting concept, the characters lacked depth and as much as I liked Jacks as a morally grey character, he was hollow. I think Jacks needed to have a POV or scenes that showed that he was ruthless aside from what Evangeline notes in her narrative. Eva’s step-sister, Marisol is portrayed as a villain to lead the reader away from Jacks, but even that wasn’t particularly believable. Evangeline is naive and lacks any intellect in assessing the situation then blame Jacks for manipulating her thoughts – what does she expect when he’s allegedly a ruthless fate who doesn’t understand human emotion?! But I recall Jacks did warn Evangeline that breaking the love spell on Apollo would end badly – but she didn’t listen. She has the opportunity to be a strong and witty character but fails on the execution. Then Luc appears and Eva is torn between her growing attraction to Jacks and to her first love Luc…but he’s a vampire so that’s a no go. I didn’t expect vampires to play a huge part in this series, but I was wrong.

Overall, I am conflicted in my review I didn’t understand much of the world, characters or the plot but I felt compelled to read the second in the series in the hope I would figure out what was happening. This was a whirl-wind of ideas that had no real direction.

The Ballad of Never After

3 stars.

The second in the series follows Eva as a princess after marrying Apollo and trying to reverse the curse placed on him by Jacks – which he did because apparently there’s a prophecy about some arch that only Eva can open. Eva soon discovers that a mirror curse is placed on Apollo that means if he is injured it is mirrored onto her. Why? I have no idea. But now Apollo becomes the archer from the fairytale and must capture his fox (Eva). Jacks appears and then disappears constantly and saves Eva from practically everything. They are searching for stones to open an arch that has something good or bad inside.

This book was much better than the first, but the plot still felt very muddy in places. The constant reference to the fairytale of The Archer and the Fox only made the story even more confusing and how this related to Jacks’ backstory. I don’t understand how Evangeline can be so naive? She is determined to save Apollo but I haven’t read any evidence to prove that she actually loves him – for the majority of their very short relationship he was under Jacks’ power. This is something that could have been fleshed out, that maybe she felt obliged to save Apollo after Jacks cursed Apollo to be frozen in a stasis after his brother Tiberius’ attempted murder. I liked the scenes between Jacks and Eva, and Jacks’ character and sub-plot really carried this series. If this was written in Jacks’ POV and had a depth of angst instead of Eva then I think this would have been much more enjoyable. Still the story was more fleshed out and made more sense than the last – famous last words!

The ending was emotional with the opening of the arch and Chaos (a vampire helping) draining Eva’s blood was a twist that I didn’t expect and Jacks’ anger that he uses the arch to go back in time and save Eva at a cost. After this, Apollo steals Eva’s memory, I’m not thrilled about Evangeline losing her memory and I am yet to fully understand Apollo, Jacks or anyone’s motives in the books. While Jacks is an interesting character he flits between being a villain, tragic and a hero all at once. I hope the third book in the series gives an insight into Jacks’ intentions, plans and character. 

Overall, I enjoyed this but again the more I read the less I truly understood. I still have no idea why vampires are there, or what the point of Luc is and Marisol appears to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

A Curse for True Love

1.5 stars.

The grand finale to any series should always explain and tie all the loose threads together, but these threads seem to have frayed so much that they disappeared entirely. By this point, Eva has lost her memories from the last year and Jacks – the last two books – and is trapped inside the palace married to Apollo. Jacks’ backstory of how he became cursed with a fatal kiss is explained but last minute it is twisted and only someone who will never love him back will break the curse – clearly that’s not Eva. Suddenly Aurora is new player after being freed from the arch and is madly in love with Jacks, which is a plot twist that I wasn’t expecting and really didn’t see the point.

I have so many unanswered questions, this felt like a fever dream for the most part. Is Jacks still immortal by the end? Why did Evangeline survive the kiss – was this due to her wearing that glass bracelet? What happened to Luc, Marisol, Chaos or Aurora? Where does Eva and Jacks live or do after that epilogue? Can Eva still use her magic? The villain is continually changing to the point everyone is to blame. Eva is either getting cursed, married, kissed or stabbed and I have to ask the question does she truly deserve Jacks after hating/ falling in love with him? I don’t understand why Apollo is the villain, he seemed pretty stupid in the first book and why is he so obsessed with Eva? Was this to do with Jacks’ will in their first kiss? Where is Tiberius? So many plot holes or plot points left to the side. This book felt like the author couldn’t decide on the main focus and just wrote scenes that sounded cool or added in new ideas and forgot about the previous point.

I enjoyed Eva and Jacks’ banter and relationship in the second book but this disappeared in this book. Jacks loses all his allure and interest and when he does a a POV it is bland and hollow that’s very jarring to read. My recurring comment with this series is the more I read the less I understand. This felt like a draft that had everything thrown at it. I only recently learned that the author has written 4 different epilogues that are only available in the special editions of the book. The ordinary edition that I read shows Eva and Jacks immediately after the events of the book and doesn’t present what the future may be like for these two characters who finally get their happy ending. After some research, I discovered that Eva and Jacks live together in the Hollow, but that’s it in terms of their story. There is no mention of Marisol, Tiberius or Luc who were major characters in the first book. This idea of not having a real ending that is universal in all versions of the book really impacts the reading experience and creates a divide between those two can afford and access special edition and those who can’t. I can’t help but think was this just a money making scheme to sell more special edition copies?

The series as a whole: I love Jacks and his backstory but the reader doesn’t get enough of him and when Garber does write multi perspectives in the third book, we get Apollo with a rambling inner monologue about protecting Eva from Jacks because she still loves him and not Apollo. There are elements I really enjoyed for example some of the dialogue and the world, but I was really thrown off by the lack of structure and plot holes. If I was just reading this for vibes and characters and not for a cohesive story with tied up plots then I loved it. But the plot holes and lack of clarity made me compelled to read more but question what I’d read previously. I’m still on the fence with my review.

Final Thoughts

Overall, April was full of surprising and enjoyable reads even if I was perpetually confused while reading some. I think the biggest criticism this month was either the lack of build-up to romance, character depth and the fleshing out of back stories and plot. I haven’t read fantasy in a while so this was nice to delve back into longer series and whimsical worlds that push the boundaries that regular fiction cannot. An interesting mix and diverse cast of characters.

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