My Five Word TL:DR Review: Didn’t Quite Hit the Mark

Well, I’m on a bit of a romantasy reading ‘thing’ at the moment and so this book appealed to me with its description of a cursed prince and a hard working barmaid who reluctantly strike a bargain that ultimately puts their hearts at risk!

Prince Dietan is living under a curse.  Only a few select people know the details and I’m not going to spill them here in this review.  He’s currently travelling the country, supposedly looking for a bride.  In truth, he’s looking for someone with magic who might be able to help him.

Aren Bellamore is a hard working barmaid with dreams of escaping her small world.  Unfortunately she has too many responsibilities to make this dream a reality, until a handsome prince walks into her world and strikes up a bargain.

What worked for me.

This was definitely an easy to read story.  It had a kind of Cinderella vibe but with a totally different angle.  We have Aren, hard working and responsible, her mother has died and her elderly father takes a back seat in affairs.  She has two sisters – but far from being evil step sisters they are beautiful and adorable and Aren wants nothing more than to see them happily settled.  And, of course, we have a handsome prince, supposedly looking for a bride to secure alliances for his country to stop the threat of war.

The story is told in alternating chapters by Aren and Dietan.  I really liked this approach letting the readers get into both heads to see what was really going on and of course it gives us a bit of insight into the world itself.

To be honest, I didn’t have any problems reading this, it was light, fun in parts and I was never at the point of putting it down and not picking it up again.

What didn’t work too well for me.

Well, firstly, this being adult fantasy I did expect the foundations to be a little stronger.  That being said, I’m new to romance and romantasy so I’m never really quite sure what to expect.  Personally this felt very focused on the romance and less so on the fantasy.  The world building was thin, I never really got the feeling of threat and most of the story was the two povs travelling together with little thought about the looming war – I don’t know, I just didn’t feel any real urgency just a lot of backward and forward ‘does he doesn’t he like me’ and ‘does she doesn’t she like me’.

I also thought that the other characters were very underplayed.  I mean, let’s take a look at Aren’s sisters for example.  They fall in love instantly, they have no voice at all, they do nothing whilst Aren runs herself into the ground running a bar, staying up into the early hours sewing dresses to make them look amazing, cooking – I mean, she really is a Cinderella character – but they’re adorable, supposedly, I just don’t understand why they don’t offer to help maybe, or occasionally get more involved, or, maybe they don’t want to be married off either?  The same with Dietan who has his two closest friends travelling with him – they never really get to play a strong role or have anything useful to contribute.  The four of them exist purely so they can all fall in love and not take part in the story at all, so why include them at all?  Just start with Dietan and Aren and keep it simple.  It felt like a missed opportunity not to have the four of them contribute a little more.

That probably sounds a little more critical than I intended.  On the whole, this was an entertaining and light read.  It didn’t quite work for me but I can definitely see it working for other readers who are not only more familiar with romance and therefore know what to expect but also have a firmer grip on what they’re really looking for.  These are new waters for me and I’m still really finding my feet so strictly speaking it’s more a case of ‘it’s me not you’ at play here.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks.  The above is my own opinion.

My rating 3 of 5 stars