Rating: 5/5
I have received this ARC from NetGalley for my honest review.

This book has the most stunning cover, I was instantly drawn to this cover, and it led me to take a look at the synopsis. Who does not love a great book about a curse, kidnapping and a handsome stranger that saves your life. This book has all that and even more and I cannot wait to read the other books to find out the ending of this story, however at the same time I do not want it to end.

Sabeara Aigoviel is one of the main characters of this book and all she has dreamt of is becoming a Stone-Hearted ever since she was little, and of course to see what powers she will hold. However, with her kingdom divided she must restore the peace before it's too late. The rebels want to remove her family from the crown of Aveladon and their first act is to kidnap princess Sabeara. If it wasn’t for the handsome Mid who knows what would have happened to her but for the first time, she goes on an adventure and along the way she finds a lot out about herself and a horrible curse that might wipe away everything that she holds dear.

In this book you get a beautiful detailed world, that had me wishing it was real. From green fields, to snow capped mountains and beautiful water cities, huge ancient trees and amazing magical talents. The author's attention to details wasn’t just in the writing of the world but was also done beautifully with bringing the characters to life. With Sabeara you get to see a young woman struggle with her two sides of what she wants: love and to unite her kingdoms and have peace. There were a few times I wished that I could have reached into the book and just shook Sabeara but to me that is what makes an amazing read. You get to see the Mid and the struggles he has in his own identity, who and what he wants to be. However, he doesn’t ever change from the amazing character you instantly fall in love with.

With all the magical, great humor, romance and action packed scenes in this book I do not think it will disappoint you if you were to pick it up and read it. It's a fast paced read and I easily finished it in 2 working days. I hope you find this review to be insightful and jump over to buy this book and give it a whirl.

I want to thank NetGalley for allowing me to read this book for my honest review, and to Kendra Thomas for writing a wonderful series, I just can’t wait to dive into book 2.

This YA book was not my cup of tea but I appreciated the flow of the writing and how the story progressed. the main character was extremely likable and I was rooting for her journey throughout the novel.

Granted had the right premisses, with an interesting magic system, that, unfortunately, was not well explored, a magical universe, cold, icy, and rustic, and a nice prompt for a love story.

Unfortunately, the story seemed chopped and kind of rushed. And, as I've mentioned, not well explored and explained. So, yes, I wished there were more examples of characters showing their magical powers, or some explanation on what is a stone heart and what was the curse, which is the center of the entire story. Also, the romance was messy, but it especially didn't work due to the characters. Our main lady was immature, though, in the final chapter, there were some traces of small growth. The male interest was just annoying and too pushy which was a turn-off for me to like him. The sister and the guard were interesting though. Finally, the book needs some more editing to help it with a smoother reading experience.


I've received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Great quick read and kept my attention. The author had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. She kept me guessing what would happen next. I couldn't put this book down and it was a page turner. Great book and nice plot.

Oh my gosh what a book, hooked me from the get go and that was it read in one sitting, didn't want to put it and could not, so gripping and such a story that kept you guess and wondering what was going to happen, fantastic read don't miss out.

5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I knew I could no longer be Sabeara. My reflection had proven that much to me. It was as if my heart knew I could no longer be the princess, and a new identity had graced me.
The words came from my lips before I could think of the consequences that would follow.
"My name, is Ehren."

Oh this freaking cliffhanging end.

I'm raging at this point. I'm freaking mental, and so angry with this book, this plot, this ending. I love and hate it SO DAMN MUCH.

Tropes:
✨YA Fantasy
✨Stranger to lovers
✨Forbidden love
✨Dagger to the throat
✨Feisty Main Character
✨Charming love interest

This book has a lot of good things. From page 1, got me hooked. This is my type of fantasy. The good kind, with tender moments, a good plot, good conflict, good love interest and feisty main character with a destined of becoming the savior of her kingdom. I wish I knew what I was getting myself into before reading it, I went COMPLETELY BLANK. This book is mainly fantasy with the trope of forbidden love. Which I don't hate. Actually love it, the tension around this kind of trope is always THE GOOD STUFF. And this was not the exception, but sometimes the conflict resolves itself mid throw the book, THIS WAS NOT THE FREAKING CASE.

The story follows the Kingdom of Aveladon, in which our princess Sabeara doesn't want to be part of in the royal duties. With an absent father due to the grief of her late wife, and a perfect sister she loves but can't help herself compare to, Sabeara just wants to live a normal life in the forest, exploring and finding some adventure. But what she most desires is The Stone-Hearted power that is received at the age of eighteen. And with a war rising and a grim curse looming over the kingdom, the Stone - Hearted it's what her heart desires the most. After her unfortunate kidnapping by the enemy, Sabeara found herself rescued by a handsome stranger, together they navigate the kingdoms to bring her to safety. The problem is Sabeara never tell's him she is the princess of the neighboor Kingdom, and feelings start to linger between them. But this is a fantasy romance book, and it's never that easy.

And wow. When I tell you, this book has everything. My heart was fluster so much with each tender moment the characters had between them, and at the same time it was ACHING WITH THE SITUATION. Which I won't talk about cause I don't want to give spoilers, and also don't want to write about cause I feel like crying so much. It really hurts in ways you can't imagine.

Loved too many characters.
The Main Character, my dear Sabeara , was my favorite of course. Felt bad for her the whole book, she deserves more than she is being given. I want to hug her, and I hope she can have her happy ending (tho i don't know with who she's gonna have it with, either the current love interest or *this is a theory of mine* another love interest that's gonna be introduced in the next book). And the whole "you are destined to save our kingdom", I saw that coming since the begging, what predictable and cliche, but we actually love it.

I had a difficult time figuring out who was gonna be the love interest, I first thought it was the guardian, Oli which later I figured he is more of a brother figure. Then I thought it was gonna be a morally grey villain situation , like a Stockholm situation, but that was not the case either. Instead it was a "I fall for my savior" situation, with the charming Mid. Who got me feeling all fluffy with his boldness toward her, they had a great chemistry. At one point, their situation, specially in a scene were they are at a festival in the Kingdom, it was so Tangle like. Then thing got HORRIBLE AND EVERYTHING GOT SO FUCKING COMPLICATED. Which I can't rant about without giving a spoiler, and I don't want to, cause I really want people to read this book. It's beautifully written by and independent author, so please check it out.

My only consolation is that this is a series, and book two and three are already out.
*Book three's birthday it's today so CONGRATULATIONS*

I totally recommend this book if you like fantasy, romance, forbidden love and A LOT OF ANGST.
So stop want you're reading and read this book. 📚💕

Granted by Kendra Thomas is a very character-driven young adult fantasy about a princess who stumbles across the existence of a curse threatening her kingdom. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with character-driven (over plot-driven) books and I’ve read plenty of great character-driven stories. However, I picked up this book up because its summary intimates an intriguing magic system and adventure prompted by a looming curse. I was also looking forward to a little YA fantasy romance.

Unfortunately, the magic system, at least in this first book of a trilogy, is somewhat underdeveloped. At the age of 18, the Stone-Hearted people receive their power from a magical tree that houses spirits and magic. Each person’s power is different as is the magnitude of said power, which is indicated by the color of their glowing stone heart. The author sets up a perfect opportunity to tell us more about this system in that Sabeara’s sister, who’s just turned 18, is about to receive her power. But the door to learn more is literally (in the story) shut and we only learn snippets about it as Sabeara meets new people and learns what they can do with their power. I feel like it was a missed opportunity to tell the reader more about how a Stone-Hearted person receives their power. I can only hope that Thomas elaborates more on this in the next book.

Thomas does, however, spend more time developing Sabeara’s character than she does with the magic system. Sabeara’s mother died when she was young. In his grief, Sabeara’s father, the king of Aveladon, loses sight of the importance of running the kingdom and giving his daughters the attention they deserve. As a result, Sabeara doesn’t feel like he’s been a good father and loses some of her respect for him from his poor governance. This sort of situation is a breeding ground for complicated feelings. Thomas does explore this, but the way Sabeara navigates these emotions fell a bit flat for me. Sure, volatility, glares, and disrespect from Sabeara are to be expected, but the way Thomas writes these actions make Sabeara seem more juvenile than she actually is.

With respect to the promised YA romance, it is a bit trope-y. Guy rescues girl and they end up liking each other. I’m totally fine with that trope. I have absolutely no problem with it and even concede I have a soft spot for it. However, the flirting dialogue was cheesy and forced. There are a lot of sarcastic “sweethearts” (think Han Solo from Star Wars, but not witty). There’s a lot of smirking and a lot of the author describing words and emotions as “sarcastic.” I think the most interesting part of the romance is when [semi-spoiler!] we find out he has a hidden identity, which causes some family drama later in the story.

Thomas also misses an opportunity to tell us more about the curse. She describes Sabeara spending hours reading about the kings involved in this old curse. But as a reader we learn almost nothing from Sabeara or her conversations with others who know about the curse.

The writing in Granted isn’t bad, but it could be improved. In my opinion, there’s an overabundance of passive voice for a first person narrative. I also feel that there are unnecessary descriptions of rather mundane topics. The example that sticks out to me is the description of clothes. I don’t need to know what each character decides to wear each day; it’s not important to the plot. I constantly felt like the author used a thesaurus to insert synonyms into sentences. There are many sentences whose structures seem “off” (and I know I’m not perfect, either!), though for the most part I did understand what Thomas tries to impart to the reader. For example:

“The roof gave the resemblance of a tower to my prison…”
“An outside wind drafted into my bastille, causing me to be wracked with more shivers.”
“Unable to control the excitement within me, I fell onto the bed of roses and sunk into their soft contents.”

Overall, I feel like this story needs more copy editing. The magic system and the history of the curse provide a good backbone upon which the author can elaborate. I hope the next book(s) delve more into these story elements. Personally, I probably will not continue this series.

My review will be cross posted on my blog at aliteraryescape.com on October 17, 2021.

First, let me start with saying how gorgeous all 3 book covers are.
Second, I adore Kendra on bookstagram. She is fun, interesting and sweet all together in every post.
Third, who doesn’t love a food YA fantasy like this series?! As a 40 yr old book nerd, I enjoyed every single minute of this book. Sabeara is a young girl who finds her own path in her own way… and the discovery to that is mixed with magic, inner strength, family, fantasy and of course love.

Can we talk about Oli??? He’s my FAV! Cannot wait to finish this series this weekend. I will be posting it on @flowersfavouritefiction when I’m done the upcoming Beloved! Can’t wait. Thank you @netgalley for a gifted copy in return for an honest review. It was so refreshing to have a YA fantasy series that wasn’t all about sex 😉 nothing wrong with that… but nice to have series like this mixed in that I can share with nieces

*Thank you Kendra and Net Galley for the opportunity of reading and reviewing this book.

This book follows the story of Sabeara, the younger princess of the Land of Aveladon, this world has a magic system that consist in having a stone heart, and depending on the color of the stone heart, is the strength of their power, and this power is received when they turn 18, called Granting. At hers sister's Granting Sabeara gets kidnaped and this is the start of her journey on this story full of adventures and love.

Overall I really like this story and I can't wait to continue reading the next book, but I would like to mention that at first I found it a little slow, but as I kept reading I started to get more and more engage with the story and it started to flow really easy so if you find yourself in this situation, my recommendation is just to give it a try and keep reading, the story is worth it.

I was lured and ensnared by a pretty cover once again. Will I ever learn? Probably not. Pretty covers are my own personal kryptonite. Seems I'm forever fated to be duped by them.

I had such high hopes for this book. I went in with every intention of loving it, but my expectations were quite thoroughly crushed.

Allow me to regale you with my tale of woe.

First of all Sabeara. I just didn't like her. She came across as very entitled, immature and spoiled. A brat, basically. In the beginning I'd been so convinced that maybe she'd started out that annoying because a huge character growth arc was on the horizon, but to my profound disappointment she didn't grow up at all. She was just stagnant in her "poor little rich girl" persona.

The other main character, Mid, the love interest, I didn't quite like either. I couldn't get a sense of him aside from being arrogant and self-confident. Both Sabeara and Mid were just forgettable characters. And as for the rest of this book's cast, it was more of the same. I think the one I liked the most was Oli, Sabeara's guardian, but his character was also underdeveloped. None of them stood out to me or had any memorable qualities. They were all very one-dimensional. And very emotional—someone was always tearing up.

I had my issues with the plot, pacing and writing, too.

I think one more editing round would have done the book good. There were commas missing, misspelled words (ice sickles; using too instead of to, for example), and other snags like dialogues from different characters taking place within the same paragraph.

The pacing I felt was inconsistent, especially when it came to the development of the romantic relationship between the lead characters. It was messy and rushed, and something that seemed like it had to be done for the sole purpose of it being already set up by the time the betrothal revelation came around. I wish more time had been given for Sabeara and Mid to naturally and organically fall in love, maybe then I would have found there to be any sort of chemistry between them. As things were, the spark between them was completely missing as far as I'm concerned.

I wasn't a huge fan of the writing either. It was reminiscent of SJM's style, but with the use of adjectives taken to the extreme. There were so many of them—too many for my taste. The end result was that everything was so thoroughly explicated and painstakingly described that at times I just grew weary. Things were either overly explained or not at all. If you've already shown us, there's no need to tell us, too. Trust in your readers. If you've properly set things up, we'll have no problem picking up what's going on, without it needing it to be spelled out for us (bonus points for the addition of unusual words, though. I learned a couple of new ones). I didn't think the dialogues were realistic or believable, either. The character interactions were very awkward and unnatural at times.

The plot was fine, except very little of it was actually developed. We don't know where the Stone-Hearted power comes from (the tree?), or why it was called that. It wasn't clear whether different powers were tied to different colors, or if the colors merely related to the strength of the magic. Are specific colors or powers hereditary? It was hard to appreciate the scope of how detrimental the curse could be when I didn't really understand the magic system. Most of the book was world building and relationship drama and very few strides were made in unraveling this curse, but I was still left with more questions than answers. I also don't know that the betrothal mess meshed well with the mystery/adventure aspect of the story. At times I felt I was reading a historical book instead of a fantasy.

Overall, this book missed the mark for me, and that's why I'm giving it a 2.5 rating. But I'll concede that maybe I simply wasn't in the right mood to enjoy it. I also believe a younger audience may find it much more compelling than I did. You never know whether you'll love or hate a book unless you take the chance and read it.

**I received an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher**

“For when the bright and beautiful morn shines down on this heart. Will there not be an endless day? The cold, black night never again will befall this paradise of her”

What an intriguing read! This story consists of adventure, war, magic, and love.
It’s hard not to feel for Sabeara, being the younger sister, princess, who didn’t have power and didn’t feel perfect. She was good at getting into trouble. And just when she finds her footing, she goes tumbling down. All the chips are against her. Yet despite that, she remains a strong, selfless character. Putting her sister, her kingdom in front of her happiness. And the ending was a great twist!
Only negative comment I have is that there were times where it felt too “busy.” I would be reading a passage and it would just describe every small detail, which was unnecessary.
All in all, a good read.

Sabeara Aigoviel, princess of Aveladon, is a rebel. The forgotten second daughter of a king who has withdrawn from public life, she finds herself constantly longing for change. In a kingdom where everyone receives a "stone-hearted power", Sabeara, at seventeen, is a year away from receiving hers which adds to her dissatisfaction. What follows is a storyline filled with adventure, surprises, love and heartbreak. The first in a series, Granted by Kendra Thomas is an author to watch.

I was so psyched to read this one. I really loved the cover and the premise. But the story just wasn't for me. The plot was great but the characters just weren't all that great. I wanted to be invested in it but sadly when you just don't care about the characters its hard to love the story.

OH MY GOSH this book was good, I read it quickly and devoured it. I laughed, I cried, I hoped and i gasped. I was soul destroyed, heartbroken and completely smitten. A really enjoyable, quick, easy read that I have taken to my heart.

Thank you so much publisher providing an arc! I just devoured this book. I can not express enough about the plot. The plot is so interesting that you will find yourself gasping everytime you find something new.
I really like the worldbuilding, and how the author can create a world that has the capability of making us vicariously live through it. I feel like the introduction was a bit too slow-paced for me. The characters are fairly interesting.
Henceforth, it was quite a good read.

Loved this book. I loved the twist and turns. I wish it never-ended. I thought the plot was good. I loved the names in the back of the book because a lot of them were harder to pronounce in my head. But overall I really enjoyed reading this book. Going to read the next two in the series because I need to know what happens. Thank you so much for an arc of the book. I highly recommend this book.

Thank you Netgalley and publishers for allowing me the chance to read and review.

Granted definitely had a interesting plotline and it has potential to be more. It also had a super stunning cover and both were what caught my eye in the first place.

However this book ended up not being for me since I lost interest quickly. This was just a two star rating since it ended up being ok.

Amazing debut novel! YA Fantasy is one of my favourite genres and this one did not disappoint. Combine a curse, a polar bear, forbidden love and royalty and you get a book I was unable to put down. I have already purchased and started reading book 2.

Gotta love a female protagonist with a wild, independent streak who is a royal. Just when I thought some of this book may be predictable Thomas throws in some twist and turns. There were parts that seemed slightly slow but honestly I think it was just do to the character building. It is easy to fall in love with the characters , enough so that when the book ends I was left hanging and looking forward to the next book. This is a great young adult book. Special thanks to NetGalley and IDPA for giving me this e-ARC in exchange for my honest reveiw.

DNF

This had a lot of potential, gorgeous cover and interesting world building – it just needed a very thorough editing. The SPAG and formatting mistakes throughout were really off-putting, but more than that I couldn’t get into the writing style. In part, this was because every single sentence just told me things without showing me or letting the reader infer anything. The plot moved so quickly but needed developing and was comprised almost entirely of logic leaps I.e. we need to X simply for plot convenience with no real character motivations etc driving the story.

With a good editor, this story could be great. As it was, I found it a bit boring, like reading an endless synopsis for a story instead of the actual novel.