A fast-paced blend of romance, adventure, and supernatural mystery that pulls you in from the start. The story follows Keira, a strong protagonist thrust into a world of danger, ancient warriors, and hidden secrets, with plenty of action and sizzling chemistry along the way. While some plot points are a bit predictable, the rich history, engaging characters, and supernatural elements make for a fun and exciting read.

*I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.*

I think my biggest issue with this book is that it tried too hard, though I’m not sure that makes a lot of sense. You know how some people (teenagers especially) view things with more drama than they are worth? That’s the best way I can think of to describe it. It wasn’t terrible or anything; it just wasn’t great.

The story had potential, but the execution fell short. I wish it had all been resolved in one book (I had gone into it thinking it was a standalone), as I do not plan to continue the series.

Shay (16 then 17), the main character, was one of those “I’ve had to take care of myself because my guardian neglected me, so I think I’m extremely mature” characters. She was also very, very sensitive about people not thinking she was capable of things because she’s a girl—even though, in reality, she was unprepared and inexperienced, which did make her less than capable of the activities in question. Just saying.

The love triangle was forced—it existed simply to exist. Makaiden (18 then 19) had his moments, but I wasn’t a huge fan. His promiscuity was established early on, but then it was ignored. Why include it anyway? Brynjar (18 then 19) briefly appealed to me more, but he wasn’t in the book much, and Shay hated his chivalry and protectiveness.

I hope the technical mistakes were corrected before final publication. One thing that bothered me was the frequent use of some awkward sentence structure. For example, look at this sentence (this one is made up, the it’s patterned after its many likenesses in the book: “The morning brought with the warmth of the sun.” Something is missing, yes? “The morning brought with IT the warmth of the sun.” All throughout the book. Just add those two letters!

Note: Some swearing, including an f word.

I enjoyed this book. Shay believes she is a normal girl until she finds two guys fighting with swords over who she should go with back to faerie in the middle of New York. Kind of weird right? Well it turns out she isn't a normal teenager, she is actually a princess in faerie. She finds out that she is destined to save Acadia from their enemies. The problem is that in order to save her kingdom she will have to destroy the kingdom of Cashel. This story had a lot of action but in between battles it does get a little slow. High fantasy lovers will enjoy this book.

This a good YA fantasy.
The characters keep you engaged.
Unfortunately I found the story slow in places making it hard work to continue.
Overall a reasonable read though.

This book outweighed my expectations. It was a simple read with some cliches but it succeeded in gaining and maintaining my attention and making me continuously wonder, "what happens next?"

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was...fine. The story was nothing special, but it was cute. The major story arc was predictable, I guessed the vast majority of what would happen before they even left Acadia. There's minimal world building, but I'm happy with most of the character development. Mak and Shay focused a lot on how they were "stronger together" as opposed to the typical "I NEED YOU I AM NOTHING WITHOUT YOU" view of a romance redemption, which was nice. I did not like how Mak's redemption line focused a lot on how he was changing *for* Shay. If you change for someone else, it's not real change. It's dependent on that person being with you and that's not really something we want to teach young adults is acceptable or desirable. Though, I did love that Shay started as a good, strong person and only became stronger through the book. I also loved that that was what drew Mak to her.

P.S. Mak's internal dialogue in the beginning of the book is the most annoying dialogue I have ever read from a male character.
Mak: What does it say about me that I'd kidnap an innocent girl and give her to my uncle to kill? I really want my sister to be proud of me. *5 minutes later* I'm going to kidnap her again.
Mak: *is literally invisible* these idiots don't even know we're here!

I felt like the author used magic as a crutch. Every single thing in this book had to do with magic. Shay also didn't seem jarred, like at all, about it. Here's someone coming from New York with zero magic to whatever realm this is with magic, unicorns, portals, fairy dust healing, fairy dust paintings, fairy dust everything, and she's just like "Oh. Ok, cool." But then the castle staff treats her like royalty (because they think she's royalty) and WOAH NOW. This is where we draw the line of things we can accept. Apparently.

There's plot lines in this story that lead absolutely nowhere. The "love triangle" is the most useless part of this story. (Well, besides Sarah, but we'll get to her.) I hesitate even calling this a love triangle because there was no competition from the start. She was always going to choose Mak, she told him as much during the final battle. Bryn wasn't even present through 2/3 of the book. Why bother making him an interest? Just make him a friend. Guys and girls can be just friends. It won't kill you, authors. Sarah, the abusive guardian, is another useless plot line. She has about 2 pages in the beginning, is vaguely referenced for her abuse in Shay's thoughts, and then appears in the final battle threatening to spill some secret (but never does) that all the major players already know. Her entire character could have been relayed through the first 2 pages and Shay's memories. Also Shay was protecting her for some reason? Let's teach kids that we protect the people who abuse us. Cool.

All in all, it was fine. I wouldn't rave about it but it was cute and a nice, light read.

Thank you netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I wasn't as taken by this YA as I would have liked. The characters were bland and the world building poor. I liked Shay's spunk but the hero left me uninspired. The plot felt slow and the storyline unoriginal. I did not enjoy it unfortunately.

The cover and blurb really caught my attention and I was excited to read this book. Unfortunately I could not get into this book. At lot was happening very quickly leaving my head spinning and wondering what was going on.

Shay is a 16 year old girl living in New York with her drug addicted mother. One night after trying to get away from her mother, Shay is caught and taken away to another realm by two men. Here she finds out she is the lost princess to one of the men's kingdoms, and the enemy of the other man's kingdom. Through several fights Shay is found stuck with the enemy prince Makaiden and forced to work together to get back to their respective kingdoms. After some minor surprises, we are left with a cliff hanger leading into the next book.
I'm slightly torn on how to review this. On one hand, this seems to be a story line that we see far to often, but with some slight differences: long lost princess, falling for the enemy prince, wars started for slightly unknown reasons. On the other hand, this is my first book by Lori Brighton and I really did enjoy her character and world building and enjoyed her take on a common story line. I do look forward to the sequel and finding out how things end.

I received a complimentary copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I actually really enjoyed this book. Shay, a well likable main character, being taken to a different world from her own. I absolutely love books like that! It's fairly action packed which is a nice change from the usual. It keeps you on your toes for sure.

This book took so long for me to get invested that I was worried it wasn't going to happen. I am a huge fan of fae books and that's why I made sure to request this one. The main character is strong and independent. She grows and learns. The romance seems a tad forced and I wish it had a bit more substance or it just didn't happen at all.

This book follows the story of a teenage girl, Shay, who believes herself to be a regular, hard-on-her-luck, teenager fro Earth. All that is shattered one night when two men with swords appear and fight over taking her back to their realm. They unbelievably tell her she is a Princess from another realm and she was sent away from her home realm for her safety. As Shay tries to navigate the new world she is brought into, one of magic and unicorns, she becomes very close to the ruler of the rival kingdom. As their relationship deepens against both of their wishes, war and manipulation swirl around them. The characters in this book were sympathetic and I loved the message of girl power embedded in the book. I am looking forward to the next installment in this series.

I was provided with an ARC of this title from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Shay ekes out her existence working at Romano's and escaping the tempermental rants of her mother. Her life changes in an instant when she is kidnapped by a green-eyed stranger named Mak.

When she wakes up she discovers that she is valuable, although no one will tell her why. She fights an awkward attraction to her captor that she knows will do her no good.

Then they are ambushed. She is rescued and
finds out who she really is - and why anything she feels for Mak can never be realized.

An assassination attempt, a daring escape, and a near miss bring Shay and Mac closer to each other and closer to the truth.

This was an enthralling story and I cannot wait to read the next installment in the series.

I loved this book so much. I am a sucker for that enemies to lovers story line and this gave me all of that and more. It is such a unique story and the twists and turns had me unable to put this book down. I cannot wait for the next book in the series because Shay is going on another epic adventure back to earth realm to find the other two! The book makes me want to pick up more books by this author! Run, don't walk, grab this book up. You won't be disappointed my friends. It is a great one.

Usually I’m not a huge fan of fantasy novels but I decided to take a chance on this one based on the hook line and the title. I was not disappointed, in fact I found that I could not put this book down, I wanted more. It exceeded my expectations. I even found myself drawn into this world Ms. Brighton has created, which is very believable even with unicorns, fairies and dragons! The characters are well done and the writing very expressive. I loved taking this journey with Shay and applaud that she had so much girl power which is nice for the younger audience to look up to. The target audience is teens/young adult but I actually felt that the storyline and the writing is such that an older audience will enjoy it and take away from it more than a teen would. I wished I had read a book like this when I was a teen/young adult! Very well written, a talented author, well edited (only found 2 things that may have been mistakes) and I cannot wait for more in this series. Thank you to the publisher for an advanced copy of the book in exchange for my review.

3.5 Stars

I was pleasantly surprised by this book, I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. Don't really know shy but when I read the synopsis it felt like Shay would be the moody type of character that nothing can make her happy. So I was glad when it turned out to be competently wrong.
Sure Shay's life is pretty bad, with a terrible mother and no friends, but she's not moody just a sensible young woman stuck in a bad environment. I took a really quick liking to Shay, she actually felt like a real human being as a lot of the times she reacted to this magical land I would do to in her shoes if one day I discovered that magic was real. I also really enjoyed the supporting characters, Bryn and Helen especially, though I had a hard time with Makaidan. He's just a douche to me and the love story never grabbed hold me. That story line wasn't anything that I find interesting. I would rather have loved to read more about Shays journey to save this world, in her own way, and adjusting to this strange new world that's her home now. I also really enjoyed the grey morality of Queen Iduna, and would have loved to see more of the fairy realm (maybe I get that in the sequel).

The world was very well balanced in terms of the magical creatures living in it, but as an history nerd the descriptions of the buildings left me questioning a bit how they have Renaissance style buildings. medieval one I get as it's pretty standard style for buildings in fantasy worlds. Could just be that it's the way Shay sees it as her brain probably would try to connect the new things in the magical world to known things from our world.

The writing was good, the world interesting and Shay is a main character I really enjoyed taking this journey with, could have skipped the romance with Makaidan though. I'm really excited to continue reading about Shay quest to save her magical world.

Received an Advanced Reader’s Copy from publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

When I read the blurb for Warrior, I was utterly and confidently sure what I was getting to. In my defence, the blurb seemed like something that spoke of the usual fantasy, with typical tropes, a famous story-line that has been known to work always.

Except, Warrior wasn’t a typical book. I think the book takes everything that the blurb describes and turns it over its head. At the beginning, I think I faced a lull for a bit, because it didn’t seem very entrancing. But then suddenly, every time I picked the book, I was slowly getting drawn–further and further–into the story line. There are many typical tropes here that even a really good author can seem to sometimes hit and miss. But somehow Lori finds the mark.

The plot line starts off seeming predictable and usual and then spins and spins in directions we can never predict and there was more than once that I was shocked, you can never guess truly what’s going to happen next and what the protagonists are hiding and frankly, the plot twists were never on my list of I-totally-guessed-this, which is a BIG DEAL, because Ahana is basically Notre Dame (self-nominated).

There’s a girl and her destiny. And then, it all unravels and there’s so much more. The writing is magical, pulling us straight into the world that it describes. And it reads like it were written in magic. The mystical world that we enter, the dangers and wonder there, the entrancement and greed, the prince and the princess…

If you are looking for a read about magic, love and a story about characters who, having been ostracised all their lives, find home in their purpose, Warrior is the book for you. Lori, ❤ ❤ ❤

I really enjoyed this book! The book got me from the very beginning and kept me interested through the very end. I didn't want to stop reading. The characters have great chemistry that builds very naturally as the story develops. Lori Brighton does a great job at describing the worlds, and the people. The only thing I wish wasn't in the story is some political references to current stuff, when I am reading I want to escape. That is my only complaint. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a good fantasy story. I can't wait for the next book in the series, and to see where it continues.

I received this ebook from NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book so much! Lori Brighton takes you on a magical adventure through another realm. I could not put this book down. One of my favorite tropes is when the normal girl gets taken to a different/fae realm. I loved the character of Shay so much and fell a little bit in love with the arrogant Mak. I can’t wait for the next book to see what happens to the kingdoms. If you’re a fan of books about Fae or girls who discover they have a destiny to fulfill, this book is one for you.