This series has become one of my favorites and I am so excited for the next book! This book was exactly what I wanted it to be. This book got deeper into the exciting world of Asperfell. The author's skillful story telling continues to shine, and envelop the reader in the magic of her story.

Slow, full of insufferable details, a protagonist who becomes more and more immature as time goes on, nosy, lacking in common sense, and immature. I was about to abandon it, but I continued because I loved the first one, how mature and well created everything was, but this one is the complete opposite. I have to add that there is a not-too-subtle hatred of men throughout the book that made me uncomfortable, but by the end this became so blatant that it's offensive.

This is a great book for fantasy lovers. It is a well-written book filled with strong characters, magic, and fantastic creatures. I think fans of fantasy and the series will be pleased with this book.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for early access to this title! I did struggle to get through this book but I can say it wasn’t my go to genre, I still appreciate being given the chance to review and it was just unfortunate that it wasn’t for me

Similar to other reviewers, I also find the covers in this series a little off putting and kind of... dated. They just don't do justice the amazing writing and storytelling of Jamie Thomas. That being said, inside the book is a completely different story. I just love the atmospheric writing, intricate world building, and continual secrets and mysteries that continue to unfold in this story. These books are such classic fantasies, and the characters are so relatable and real to me. I only rate 4 stars as the beginning is a little slow, but it picks up throughout near the middle.

I endeavored to read this book without having read the first in the series and found the experience significantly better than I expected! The book was filled with phenomenal plot twists and enchanting description. I was impressed by the characterization of Briony—she was bright and bold even in the face of the significant problems dropped on her shoulders. While I didn't love Elyan, I appreciated their chemistry. I will be looking to pick up the third book when it drops!

I read this without reading the first book and it was generally easy to follow what was happening and I enjoyed the book

This book sounds like a read that i would love, but sadly due to personal problems I could not finish it before it was archived. Still want to read it nonetheless, and i´m sending all the best regards to the author.

Title: The Forest Kingdom (Asperfell Trilogy, Book 2)
Writen by: Jamie Thomas
Pub Date: 24 Aug 2021
Publisher: Uproar Books, Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), Members' Titles
Genre: New Adult | Sci Fi & Fantasy
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3861462102


Briony and her companions' have managed to escape Asperfell, however she realizes quickly that the escape was only the first part of a long and trying journey.

To get home they must first gain the help of another kingdom, one that seems to embody everything Brony hates about wealth. It seems that even the need for help wont stop Briony specking and acting as she sees fit. This irritates Elyan no end. It's almost as if he has never met Briony.

In the end it might be an ancient goddess they need help from and not a kingdom.


Spoilers



In some ways the second in the Asperfell series repeats some of the aspects and themes of the first book. We see unconditional friendship and loyalty. Some new aspects include the coming out of a character as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. There were also the themes of equality, poverty, murder, abuse, and more. .

Unfortunately I can not say I liked this book as much as the first. To begin with a lot of what were meant to be plot twists were actually quiet obvious and therefor dragged out.

Some parts of the story seemed conveniences that only appeared to speak to the political ideals of the writer. For example the abortion plot was extremely unnecessary. None of the characters were mentioned again once the woman escaped the palace. This leads to the question did Thomas add this "sub plot" to voice her anti-abortion opinion?

As if this was all a reader would question about an author who considers themselves to "Aim to smash patriarchy one novel at a time" and who hopes to "Inspire, empower and elevate women."

Unfortunately not. Briony is painted as someone who believes in equality., this seems questionable at times. For example even in the first book Briony questions the relationships around her. Particularly where sex is involved. She constantly judged anyone at Asperfell for having sex and not being married. In this book the same judgement arises. It seems as though when it comes to feminism Briony draws the line at sex before marriage and female bodily autonomy. Meaning that Briony is judging others by standers set by the patriarchy.

Perhaps if these were my only arguments I could give this book four starts but then there are two other major problems.

Firstly Elyan is an abusive character. What was plaid of as brooding and emotional, misunderstood should-be-King has mutated in to controlling and abusive behavior.. In too many scenes to count Elyan's behavior to the others and Briony is abusing and gas-lighting. Ranging from him demanding that she be quiet to grabbing her.

Are we not advanced enough to see this as abuse and not romance?

Secondly, and worst of all Thomas goes on to use one of the worst and most damaging tropes there are. After Briony is sexually assaulted by the King of Syr'Aliem and other men of the palace she then tries to have sex with Elyan.. (once he saves her from the clutches of her attacker *rolls eyes*) We are supposed to believe that Briony now thinks her self not worth Elyan and suddenly does not believe in marriage before sex? If Thomas thinks that sexual assault is foreplay or a turn then she is mistaken and to write such a scene between Briony and Elyan seconds after an assault scene is disgusting. and worthy of a bad Hollywood movie.


Regardless of how much I liked Phyra's character, the LGBTQ+ relationship, the goddess or what feminism there was I will be rating this book 2 stars for the reasons above. Bitterly disappointed


.

I really struggled to get through this book. It just wasn't the type of book that I am usually interested in, but I wanted to try anyways. I definitely wanted more romance and some steam, thats just my cup of tea.

Thank you so much, NetGalley and Uproar Books, Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), Members' Titles, for the chance to read and review this book in exchange of an honest review.

Briony isn't prisoner anymore, she's free from Asperfeel but still stranded in its strange and peculiar world. Lost in the wilderness, she and her friends are trying to look a way to get back to their world, to the kingdom of Tiralaen, with the Prince Elyan and stop a civil war. Discovering an ancient world isn't exactly in her plans. A world with decadence and riches, where a goddess is about to awaken and exact her revenge from those, Briony's people, who intruded in her world. Briony finds herself between two difficult choices: to leave this world behind and leave its people to die or to fight, but leave her own home and the people she loves, including Elyan.

I loved reading Asperfell. I found the book thrilling, written beautifully and full of twists, secrets and lies and its sequel doesn't disappoint at all. Briony is a brilliant main characters, weighed down by choices and responsibilities, expectations and feelings and she finds herself caught in a complex web of lies and power and kingdoms at stake, while battling against her own feelings and desires. I loved her bond with Elyan, they are amazing together. The story is complex, captivating and I was so intrigued by the world created by Jamie Thomas. Asperfell was intriguing and The Forest Kingdom even more so. I really enjoyed reading this book, I was so in love with everything and I definitely recommend this to everyone looking for an amazing fantasy, complex characters and impossible choices.

Okay, so.. When I started reading this, I completely overlooked the fact that this is book two in a series. That being said, I still enjoyed it. The writing style was great, I felt it was well written. The characters and setting weren't that hard to get into. I'd read more.

'The Forest Kingdom' is part 2 in the Asperfell Trilogy, and I was thrilled about the opportunity to read this book.

I loved the writing style, and the flow of the sentences. I also love how this book had a more classic fantasy feeling of a group of mages traveling together with a certain goal in mind, finding new places and (obviously) problems on their way.

I did notice that I felt less connection to the characters in this book than with part 1. However, I do think that is because there was some time between reading (part 1 was reviewed at January 8, 2020. There was a year and a half, and a whole effin' pandemic in between!), and because in a part 2 we are supposed to know the characters, of course the focus is more on the plot. I do recommend reading those books with less time between them though, because it will obviously enhance the reading experience.

4.5 Stars

The Forest Kingdom picks up pretty much when Asperfell stopped. After our mixed bag of criminals/heroes escaped the Sentinels, they went into the woods where they have been travelling for a few weeks now, looking for a mythical cave that should return them to their world. We find them hunting for their dinner.

In a trilogy, the second book is often the weakest, kind of a transition between the juicy bits. This is very much NOT the case here. The story is so well crafted that it could almost be a standalone. The world development is fairly extensive, the newly introduced characters have their own agendas, there is a lot of action, a different magic system, goddesses, creatures... I have a feeling that we haven't seen the last of the world beyond the Gate and that some of the new characters will play a role in the third book, their stories don't seem quite finished yet.

The Forest Kingdom starts with a memory, a memory of when Briony was a teenager living a sheltered if somewhat wild life with her aunt in a remote estate. The power of the memories in the book is perhaps one of my favourite things about it. I love how Briony looks at her past from a more mature point of view and a sense of irony, and at the same time is able to engage us and transport us there completely. She still can look and laugh at herself with kindness and to me that makes her very human. At the same time, she is very impulsive and makes some pretty dumb decisions without really thinking them out or talking to the people that surround her.

Elyan, as a character, did not get the development I was hoping for. He spends a lot of the book brooding, being evasive or just being rude. He is so focused on finding the Gate that he often looses sight of everything else. The love between him and Briony develops at a very slow pace, they don't have a lot of space to be alone. BUT I love the fact that they see the other's faults and foibles, they bicker if they are frustrated and they fight, they sometimes doubt each other and their hearts get hurt. That is what real people do.

This was a great and engaging read, and it will be great to revisit it when the third book hits the shelves.

This book, this series really, deserves a better cover. The cover makes it seem as if the writing will be a lot more "indie" than it is. Jamie Thomas is an excellent writer. I do think she would benefit from a bit more experience, a bit more polish and development of her craft. I can see the potential for greatness, and I don't mean that in like a War and Peace kind of way, but she could be a really good, really popular fantasy writer one day.

Okay so this one started off a bit slow for me, and actually a bit young. It was around the 40% mark that suddenly we're dropping F-bombs and people are getting randy. Briony can be so frustrating. She's super impulsive and often just dumb. Elyan is such a dick so much of the time. I mean, I usually like that, but he is the kind of dick where I'm like EXCUSE YOU SIR?

This could have been a 5-star read for me if there was just a bit more character development and relationship progress. We are pretty much in stasis with Elyan and Briony for the entirety of the book. The relationship doesn't progress. They profess their love for each other but rarely even talk. We get like a couple make-out scenes and that's it. They aren't really ever in the same room together for very long. It's a romance that's much more told than felt, and the book suffered for it, for me at least. The setting was great. The kingdom is so lush and vivid. It's very over the top with the bling and the decadence, and I really enjoyed that. There's a lot to this book that I really liked, but it just felt like there was something missing, a few somethings, but I can't really articulate exactly what.

I really quite enjoyed this book once I got into it, and I likely would have rated it more highly if I had remembered anything from the previous one when I started reading it because I didn't have any connection to the characters until like halfway through. I highly recommend giving Asperfell a re-read before you start this one if it's been a while. I read it in January 2020, and that was too long.

Also, this book marks me starting my note to self so that I have some semblance of an idea wtf is going on when I pick up the next one, which I will be doing. I most definitely want to read the next one.

spoilers ahead!!!
This book is definitely a must read!!
I really enjoy the simple elegant cover. Also I thoroughly enjoyed the imersive world that Jamie Thomas has written. The characters are all deep and have vastly different personalities giving the story even more dimension. There were so many parts that I had no idea evade would come next, I loved the unpredictability of it! I never saw it coming that "king" Anwar was the usurper and purposely watching his land die just because he wanted the illusion of power. I can't wait for book 3 to see west adventures they have when they get back to Tiralaen.

I enjoyed Asperfell much more than The Forest Kingdom. The plot took an enormous detour and once the main characters ended up at this new kingdom, things really fell flat. Briony has become an incredibly judgemental and selfish character, and while other characters actually point that out to her, she is such a Mary Sue that it all gets forgiven because she is needed to be special and to save everyone from everything. Elayn is completely one dimensional, and barely present. Maybe the 3rd book will be dependent on what happened in this book, but it felt less like a sequel and more like a standalone story with the same characters.

I also found the way the same sex relationship was handled to be very bizarre. It's like the author wanted everyone to pay attention to the inclusivity of the book, but instead of seeming like a normal, natural relationship, there was all kinds of judgement and guilt and stupidity surrounding it.

I received a copy of this book from Net Galley.

The Forest Kingdom is the second in the Asperfell Trilogy and having escaped the walls of Asperfell our mixed band of intrepid heroes and wandering in the wilderness aiming to find a mysterious cave that will allow them back to their own world.
I read the first book in this series without knowing very much about it and enjoyed it very much, this second book was very much a Second Book. The main arc of the trilogy concerns Elyan getting back to his kingdom to reclaim his throne from his dastardly brother but this whole second book is all about another kingdom and their problems (which are many) so it all seemed a bit spurious. Thomas aims to make it relevant by holding up this corrupt kingdom and comparing it to where they originally come from and the main take away we are supposed to get from that is that monarchies are bad we want democracy!
Elyan makes himself pretty scarce throughout this whole book and when we do get him he is usually just there to have a go a Brionay who is at her most tiresome for the majority of the book. Even she knows she’s being tiresome but still she keeps opening her mouth because that’s what plucky heroines do and all the powerful men around them can’t help but love her. It is well known that men in positions of power are hot for outspoken, tactless women…
There is a lot packed in here and it reads easily and moves forward quickly, the secondary characters are well rounded and interesting as is the world itself but I will be happy to get back to the main plot in the last book after this, what I am sure will turn out to be completely necessary, interlude.

This book had a vibe I can't quite articulate, but I really enjoyed it. I think I was in the mood for an easy story. The prose flowed with grace and I was genuinely interested in the characters from the first page to the last. It's been a bit since I've read something romantic, and this really scratched the itch. Also, I much preferred the smaller group in this story. It felt like a found family, and I genuinely connected with each member.

However, just as in Asperfell, there wasn't a ton of depth and I was a bit confused on the magical side. Magic seemed to be more of a convenience to the story, and I wasn't quite tracking with the climactic events. It's maybe the lack of concrete rules? The magic seems to do what it wants when it wants to…and then at other points it's of no use. In particular, I couldn't tell the difference between those who had magic in their blood and those who used magic from the source-thingy (already forgot the proper name). Despite this, I was happy to somewhat gloss over the parts I didn't get and enjoy the story anyway.

As a debut series, I think what Jamie Thomas is creating is a genuinely interesting world fleshed out through beautiful prose. Though I came into this series by accident, I intend to see it through when the third book releases next year.

I would be the First to tell you that Asperfell, the first in this trilogy was one of my favourite books in this rather distinct genre. A gothic Fantasy with the added bonus of a streak of feminist steel to the spine of our Heroine. Despite the gap between books, I found it easy to fall in again with our less than merry band of intrepid escapees. From the prison city of Asperfell.

The banter between two of the five has not subsided and the Romance still sizzles despite the increasingly dire circumstances that Briony and Elyan find themselves. The world that Jamie Thomas created both expands and contracts in this second instalment. We still get eerie spectral appearances, magics born of life and death . Nature is still a major character in her own right, and creatures tragic, majestic and ridiculous pepper this story too which was part of the allure for me in the first place.

Where our favourites learn to adjust and evolve in a plot of rescue, growth redemption , greed and compassion . The ultimate big reveal to set up the big finale was counterpointed by a loving subplot so delicately played and movingly resolved that it warmed my heart-immensely… I honestly think this is the more interesting of the two books thus far.. Ms Thomas takes the braver less trodden paths away from tropes to empower her characters and lay their foibles bare so they become nuanced and more relatable… men are both strong and vulnerable and women, wise, impetuous and committed to each other. There is power in those facets that made this a book I enjoyed immensely.