A slightly lighter fantasy book than most I’ve read. The couple have met but have had their memories of the event stolen which did ever so slightly cause me to wonder what was actually going in initially. However I pushed on and actually came to enjoy the path that the story took as at times it was extremely amusing. Elspeth is not the typical a** kicking heroine as she’s quite sheltered but I couldn’t fault her gung-ho attitude. Ottelo was everything I imagined a fairytale Prince to be when I was growing up. Yes there’s a slight Disney feel to it with secret identities and huge misunderstandings but as this ended I was truly invested in this fun story with its darker ending.
This voluntary take is of a copy I requested from Netgalley and my thoughts and comments are honest and I believe fair
Three and a half

I ended up DNFing this book. I couldn't get into it. It just wasn't for me! Thank you for the opportunity.

This was a interesting take on a robinhood retelling. I genuinely loved the main character but i thought it was a little unbelievable how they immediately went from having nowhere to go to being these famous bandits after what seemed to be only a few robberies. I also couldn’t believe the amount of miscommunication taking place it almost got to the point of being silly. That doesn’t mean i didn’t enjoy the book though i thought it was a fun read and i would read the next book in series. I just think if it was a little bit longer and the author has more pages to grow the story it would have been better.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. It was well paced, entertaining and enjoyable to read.

This book had great potential. The book has a fantastic hook, it’s just not perfectly executed. The found family aspect get very forced, and some of the language used took me out of the story. It’s a fun, quick read, but the subject matter feels very separate to the writing style

First of all, I wanna say a huge thanks to NetGalley and Jes Drew for allowing me to read an ARC copy of this wonderful book!

I would describe this book as a YA fantasy with lots of action and adventure, with a strong female main character. It has dual POVS which I loved and some pretty cool magic systems mixed into the world. I found there was a lot of setting the scene prior to major events taking place, so be prepared for world building rather than expecting big action right out of the gate.

One thing I found a bit odd was the male characters, the way they reacted when seeing a leg or a small amount of skin was not how I was expecting. However, in the world it seemed to be appropriate, especially for the main character (you will understand why with the back story). The way this was depicted made the male characters seem younger than they were but overall I didn’t find it to take too much away from the story.

Overall, I had a wonderful time reading this book and found myself quite immersed in it, and was left in shock when it ended on a cliff hanger.

I would definitely recommend giving this a read if YA fantasy, elves and magic are your thing.

This was a really fun, quick read. I enjoyed the world building and magic system. He’s Drew created a very interesting premise and I can’t wait to dive deeper into the world. I enjoyed the multiple POVs even though it got a little confusing at some points. The characters interacted well together and I loved the start of the enemies to lovers arc. When I realized the book ended with a cliffhanger I audibly gasped. The next one cannot come out soon enough!!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Victory Editing for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

thank you to the author and netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

<b>betrayal and banditry</b> is a slow-moving, light fantasy romance told from two separate points of view and is rife with magic, prophecies, exciting revenge plot and many twists and turns as the story progresses.

the plot was masterfully written, immediately piqued my interest, and had a gripping beginning. both of characters were interesting to read about, and i liked seeing how otello and elspeth's attraction developed over time. as i read more, i discovered a really entertaining setup for the enemies to lovers concept, as well as a gripping conclusion that kept my attention. would recommend this to those who like a fun YA fantasy read!

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me this ARC! I’m sorry, but I really just had to DNF this one. I was pretty unimpressed with the world building and info-dumping, but I think my main problem was the language. It felt like the author had thesaurus.com open and was using it excessively. I do feel like I would have liked this book much more if I were younger, as the concept was at least somewhat interesting.

This was such a fun read! It was super fast-paced and easy to read, I read it in one sitting. It was such a cozy fantasy full of adventure. I am really excited for the next book in this series to see how this story progresses!

Thank you to NetGalley and Jes Drew for the opportunity to read this book for free for an honest review.

Unfortunately, I had to DNF this at about the 25% mark. The premise looked amazing and I was really excited to read it, however, I found the writing very stilted and I was confused about what was going on so many times that I kept having to reread things to try and make sense of what was going on. Characters came out of nowhere for seemingly no reason and there were too many plot holes. It felt like we were skipping important scenes as the plot was jumping around all over the place.

I feel like this reads like a first draft, but with some work and some heavy editing, I think this book could be really good. As I said before, the premise sounds amazing, and if it were fixed up, I think I would be keen to try it again.

I found the start of the book a little slow at first and a little confusing. The timeline didn't seem to work for me because as far as I knew Elspeth had only robbed one place after the events of her family's deaths and was already seen as a legend and given the title of Bandit King. I felt I'd missed something.

As the book progressed, however, I really got into it. Elspeth really grew on me as did Irwin. I also loved Heinrich and found him very funny and witty, I really hope we see more of him in the second book though the epilogue has me worried for his character.

I love that, despite a few kisses, Elspeth and Otello didn't jump immediately into a relationship. With everything going on it was nice to see that their relationship was strained and not immediately going into a full blown love story. I felt like it would have detracted from the rest of the story.

This book was like candy, sweet and enjoyable. There were a lot of misunderstandings, assumptions and intentional deception that made this story fun with out being cheesy.
The book relies on common tropes to push they story forward quickly.

Thank you Jes Drew and the publisher for an ARC of this book. Below is my honest review.

Unfortunately I did DNF at 20%. The writing style wasn’t for me and I was a bit confused on what was happening. Maybe it was the shift in perspectives or maybe it was the writing but I wasn’t completely interested in the story and had to stop reading.

The plot was intriguing from its introduction in the first chapter! I also did enjoy both POVs of Prince Otello and Lady Elspeth, I thought their interactions were interesting!

However, I did find most of the book confusing. I think it has to do with all of the swapping between POVs and characters, I could not really tell what was happening at all.

Also, for a fantasy I think this book could have been longer to really delve into the world building, plot, and characters! I found the storyline moved rather quickly and you do not really get to know the characters away from a one dimensional level.

That being said, I did enjoy reading it and the plot was an interesting concept.

Interesting plot but poorly executed. This had so much promise but I didn't like anything about it. The writing just wasn't good. To be transparent, I did DNF at 50%, I couldn't force myself to go past.

I almost never DNF books, but this was pretty close. It was an interesting plot, but poorly executed. I felt confused half the time and it didn’t help that even the author was making mistakes in identifying characters.

Since I read this as an ARC, I’m unsure if that version was published already, but I certainly hope not - several words were misspelled in addition to character mixups.

The plot seemed really interesting - Prince meets his person and because it’s not time yet based on a prophecy, he and her are forced into forgetting each other until they meet again almost 7 years later. I liked the idea of kin magic amongst elves and mortal magic (heritage) being different. But that’s as far as I really got before we got some Prince-switching and hidden-identity twists. Necromancy pops up towards the end.

I’m not terribly interested in a sequel but I think with a re-edit/write, this could go places. But it feels very very unfinished.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an early copy of this book! Below is my honest review.

DNF-ed at 25%. I felt like there was not a lot of world building in the first quarter. It almost feels like I'm reading the sequel to a story without reading the previous book. There are a lot of things that weren't explained or brushed over really quickly, leading me to DNF unfortunately. Also, I felt like the prologue was a little weird and rushed, so it set up the book to be written in a similar manner.

Would I recommend this book? N/A since I didn't finish it.

What a fun adventurous book!

I grabbed this because I thought the cover was epic- I am only honest. This one threw me for a loop- but I LOVED it because it was more like Robin hood (with a female lead) and the merry band of thieves with adventure, some very interesting Romance, and figuring out who is who. So much fun!

Ready for the next in the series!

I want to thank NetGalley for the ARC, but unfortunately this book is not for me.

The writing seems extremely juvenile & unedited.

I’m giving this 2 stars instead of 1 solely for the fact that I DNF & it may have been a great story in the end, but for the more juvenile YA reader.