Curse of Shadows and Thorns: A Dark Fantasy Romance (The Broken Kingdoms Book 1)

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Legion was fantastic! I kinda guessed his twist but the reveal was still very anxiety-inducing though. He's a tortured morally grey hero and I can't wait for him to make me question why I'm still on his side. He's hot okay? That's all you need to know 😅 I did read the descriptions of some later books in the series after reading this first book. If you're hesitanting to start reading because you're intimidated by 9 books, it looks like books 4-6 and 7-9 follow their own storylines that are just connected to the kingdom in books 1-3. So, different main characters in those ones. The world building is a bit chaotic. There's a ton of information thrown at the reader and lots of things renamed to be more "fantasy." But readers need a frame of reference and renaming common terms only confuses us more.

Everything Happened So Fast. In True Game Of Thrones Fashion, The Potential For Character Building And Plot And World Building Was There. But Bam. Rush Through It All And Make It A Letdown. The world building is still really good and the fighting scenes were epic. The excerpts of Queen Lilianna’s journal were a nice touch to help develop the history of the land. The world building I think needs the most help, this is supposed to have Vikings in it and I’m not getting that at all from this. You can make the characters use Norse terms, braid their hair and carry hatchets into battle, but it doesn’t make them Vikings. Sorry 🤷‍♀️. I don’t buy it. I ADORE this sequel as much as I loved Curse of Shadows and Thorns!! This time around we get a dual POV and I loved how it's done here. This way we get a little bit into what's going on in Valen and Elise's minds and why they're acting the way they are. This way I didn't feel angry or annoyed at either one for making dumb decisions. I got to see the why behind their decision making. They're both trying to deal with all the craziness that is the end of book 1! I loved how authentic both their points of views felt while dealing with everything. Superb writing! Ohh and the steam level went up a little in this book and it was fabulous and so well done!!! Una de las cosas más destacadas es que el libro tiene muchísima acción desde el principio, algo que te mantiene enganchada a la lectura, a querer descubrir más tanto sobre los personajes, así como sobre la propia historia. No os diré que ha sido el libro más original que he leído, ya que tiene ciertas semejanzas a De sangre y cenizas pero aún así lo disfruté y me ha hecho pasar un buen rato, que es lo más importante.As secrets of Castle Ravenspire come to light, Elise and Valen discover their enemies hold more power than they ever imagined. And while this story is interesting (and the audio good enough), I’m not yet sold on this series nor the author’s talent of storytelling. It was a bit slow going tbh. Of course, with me having read the spin-off first, the big plot twist came as no surprise to me but I tried to not let it influence my judgement.

When her uncle holds the life of her deathly ill father over her head, reluctantly, Elise puts her fate into the hands of Legion Grey, the handsome and mysterious dowry negotiator. He may be arrogant and infuriating, but soon Legion incites a blistering, forbidden passion she can’t ignore.The world LJ has created for The Broken Kingdoms series is also truly taking shape in this book. The questions I had after book one were answered. We were given some delicious plot twists, and although I have to wait a few more hours to get home again, I'm already extremely excited to start the next book in this series. In addition to the strange fascination with war, Elise is portrayed as being somehow better than her fellow Timorans for believing that Ettans should be equal. The ways in which the alt right do this are not bound by historical accuracy by any means, but designed to push an agenda. This also seems to be the case in this novel. Vikings would definitely have slaves, but historically these slaves would more than likely have been from the British Isles or from Finland, or other neighbouring countries. Ettans, on the other hand, are described explicitly as dark skinned. Mucho tiempo atrás, los antepasados de Elise le arrebataron la corona al rey de las hadas; ahora, ella, como sobrina del actual rey, debe asegurar que su familia mantenga el trono, lo que significa casarse con quien le indiquen, mientras que ella prefiere escaparse a garitos de juego con los criados. Sin embargo, debe ceder si quiere salvar a su padre moribundo, así que se pone en manos del atractivo Legion Grey, su negociador matrimonial, por el que no puede evitar sentirse atraída. Pronto, se dará cuenta de que todo está a punto de cambiar, de que Legion esconde secretos que desconoce él mismo, y que los ponen a todos en peligro... The pace of the plot is strange, it goes from a really good pace that I was lapping up, to being incredibly slow and moving nowhere to again speeding through the end.