Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC. I was really excited for this one. The world building was great and I was intrigued by the dynamic between Lystra and Elerek. However, the plot was a bit slow for my taste so I quickly lost interest.

Queen of Shifting Sands is an amazing fantasy that is so unique. I really enjoyed following the main characters through the different aspects of their journey. The world building done by Kaitlyn Carter Brown is so immersive, it really helped you connect to the characters in the story. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

To be honest, I am slightly conflicted, and can't quite make my mind up about this book.

On the one hand, the writing was lovely - gorgeous descriptions and metaphors, flowing beautifully. On the other hand, the pace was so incredibly slow that I found myself bored very often. It took me 10 days to read this book - that's a very long time for me.

The overall concept was incredible, the curse original, and idea of a marriage of convenience between two people affected by grief was certainly interesting. Ultimately, I was disappointed with the execution of it all, because the focus was on the wrong things.

Lystra constantly wondering if Cormack knew about the curse, grieving his loss, yet falling in love with his brother fairly quickly.

I didn't really understand why Lystra and Elerek fell in love, I didn't feel any chemistry between them. I was hoping that the fact they couldn't touch would mean a lot of forbidden longing, but unfortunately this was severely lacking.

The pace picked up in the last 20%, but I personally didn't like the way things ended. This is book 1 in a series though, so hopefully, it gets better. Truthfully though, if the pacing of the entire series is the same as this book, it's going to be a no for me.

This story was insane and amazing and incredible and unlike anything I have read before. I absolutely loved following our two characters through their grief, romance, and battles, bother internal and external. I cannot wait to read more of Kaitlyn Carter Brown!!!!!

I thought this story was great and very unique. There are a lot of stories about someone hidden away, but this one was written in a way I’ve never read before. I really liked how immersive the world building was, and I especially felt connected to the characters, especially through the growth they experienced as the plot continued. Thank you Whimsical Publishing for sending me a copy of this book.

When I started the book I was very excited for the concept. I remember reading Girl Serpent Thorn when it came out and loved the idea of a cursed royal hidden away. So I was excited to see the same theme in this story. However I did not like the way it was done. It is supposed to be this deadly secret meant to be kept from everyone, but about half way through the book its seemed like the secrecy was discarded. And I am not talking about the big reveal in the last battle.
Speaking of the last battle, another theme of this boom is “one summer to live” and they spend so much time just discussing the possibility of the attack after wasting a bunch of time mourning and the waiting to get married. I understand that Elerek lost his brother and Lystra her beloved, but they repeat so many times they need to live and defend their kingdom. Then spend two weeks training their army. Mind you the training does not start until halfway through the book. The start of this book is very slow and then seems very rushed at the end. Based on the ending there is going to be a second book and I am guessing that the two books could have been combined into one.
At the start if the book I enjoyed Elerek and Lystra, but by the end I did not like them. Lystra talks about being a strong queen, and I think she really could be if she was part of the training of cardants and apart of that force when it came to the battle. However, she really just places herself into the box of figure head and then complains about being places into that box. Elerek l, I think, was very unfair and callous toward Myra for a majority of the book as he is pinning after Lystra. Then at the end he is distraught about losing Myra.

Like I said I was very excited of the concept of this book and thought the themes could be done very well. However the book moves so slowly and I think the characters contradict themselves many times throughout when it comes to their values.

With the death of her fiancé all of Lystra’s dreams come crashing down. In the midst of mourning and facing an invasion from a warrior tribe looking to conquer their country, she must make a hasty political marriage to the new king, Elerek : her fiancé’s brother! Together they must find a way to keep their country free but Elerek has secrets of his own that may stand in the way.

The world building in this book is fantastic. KCB’s vivid descriptions and wonderful creatures (giant reptiles you can ride and condors you can fly on!) create the fantasy setting of our dreams. The religion is based in the stars, which is something you don’t see very often in the genre, and their magic has a uniqueness all its own (Elerek’s curse is like nothing I have ever seen before, and Razhar’s healing powers are incredible, although apparently limited).

There is a great disability representation for even though Elerek is wheelchair bound he manages to do everything that he would have been able to out of it; he remains positive and determined, but still fair and compassionate despite the circumstances and in the midst of grieving the death of his only brother. None of the people treat him any differently despite his disability—in fact the only people to bring it up are his enemies!

The romance, however, seems rather forced to me, and it comes on very quickly, which makes it seem unrealistic. Lystra has no time to grieve her loss before she is flirting in the marketplace with random strangers and falling for Elerek after he gives her gifts. Elerek too was already in love with someone else yet feels no guilt for the person he cast aside to fall for Lystra, which honestly was just cruel to poor Myra. I feel that the relationship would have been better for them to become friends first—perhaps to grieve together for the person they both lost and then let planning the defence bring them closer together—and then transition into something deeper in book two. But honestly Lystra constanly comparing him to his brother would always make me suspect that he was a replacement rather than a real relationship.

The book does end a bit abruptly with too many questions unanswered so I am sure there would be a sequel, however I probably won’t continue with the series.

There are aspects of this book that are good. The prose is clean and provides just enough description to paint a rather gorgeous image of Instanolde and the characters. I found the mourning stripes at the beginning to be a particularly poignant image. I think many of the tensions within the story were interesting, perhaps especially Elerek's curse and the concerns and problems it created.
However, there were other aspects that made me stumble over the story. I had a really hard time understanding the characterization and motivations of many of the characters. Lystra was confusing since she had such a strong sense of duty and continually referenced her dedication to "her people" and yet a lot of her internal monologue sounded more like entitlement and desire for power. Her love of Cormek and love of her people were juxtaposed with her irrationally negative view of Elerek and her initial fury at him making her realize that war was coming. I don't really understand why she felt so strongly that she should be queen and Elerek needed to be deposed, especially when he was the one that first brought up how Instanolde was in danger and they needed to act. By her own admission she knew little about him, so why didn't she approach him with a more neutral feeling? It seemed she immediately decided he was terrible and couldn't possibly hack it as king. I guess part of it might have been poison dripped in her ear from her grandmother? But I didn't find the through-line to be very clear. I just didn't understand Lystra very well, and didn't empathize with her a lot. My continual struggle with her character made the story difficult to engage in.

This is a fantastic slow burn romance, I really appreciated the grief and pain in this book. The author doesn't shy away from it so we get this very beautiful, raw story of two characters coming together through their shared grief and hope to build a brighter future for their people. The worldbuilding was super unique and I really enjoyed the desert setting, it felt so real. I loved the representation of having the main hero in a wheelchair, especially in a romance, it's not something I've read before! His curse broke my heart and the cliffhanger at the end is gut wrenching

Queen of Shifting Sands is a slow read. I feel like I've been reading it forever, and that's its most significant problem. This book featured a lot of creative ideas, but I wasn't a great fan of how they were executed. The curse component was very interesting, and it's one of the things I'm looking forward to seeing more of in the future book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Whimsical Publishing for this advanced copy! You can pick up Queen of Shifting Sands now.

Kaitlyn Carter Brown did a fantastic job creating complex characters, an intricate world, and a gorgeous magic system. I love how we were introduced to these characters and their struggles and appreciated how their healing journey played out. I'm ready for more books in this series and from this author!

Thank you to NetGalley and Whimsical Publishing for the ARC of this fantastical novel.

Already from the description I knew this book would be interesting. Curses, royalty and a slow-burn romance? Yes, please. I was also pleasantly surprised to fin out that the MMC was in a wheelchair. It was great seeing that a disabled character still can be strong in a fantasy novel. We need more of that!

This book started off strong but lost me as it neared it’s end. I loved the first third of the book, where we meet our main characters and the situation that leads to their forced/arranged marriage and the curse. Elerek and Lystra are seemingly opposites who are forced into a political marriage, which starts their relationship, which for me developed a little too fast considering her former betrothed was his brother. I think if there had been more scenes showing their romantic development it would’ve been better, but a lot of their chapters were repetitive monologues about saving Instanolde from the Jarkin’s attack and how they couldn’t love each other because of the curse, which got old after a while. Speaking of protecting Instanolde, there was so much build up and talk for like 3 chapters of an attack, one of which barely showed action and all were too easily ended and felt anticlimactic. I wished for more action in a battle that’s been discussed and planned for throughout the whole book.

Overall, this book started out good but left me wanting more

Read if you like…
•arranged marriage
•curses
•slow burn
•disabled mc
•dual pov

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the gifted ebook!
I really liked this book. The story felt really immersive, and I was constantly trying to guess what would happen next. The pining had me in a chokehold. I’m glad I decided to read the prequel before this, since I believe it made it easier to get into the book and understand the world/characters.
One thing I wish I understood more was how/why Lystra was so beloved by her people. It was repeated a lot, but we were never really given a how or why. Reading the prequel didn’t offer any insight into this either. So that aspect of the story felt more “tell” than “show.”
I’ll definitely read the sequel whenever it’s released!

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this book. I truly enjoyed this book from start to finish. The world building was fantastical and beautiful. The plot was filled with intrigue, and I love the main character. This book had adventure, fantasy, and a slow burn romance, Fantasy readers will love this one.

This is the first book in the new romantasy series “Instanolde Chronicles” and is filled with unique ideas with a desert setting. It has a dual POV and a slow pace, but it compensates with the worldbuilding.

We have complex heroes and despicable villains while we discover secrets around every conner. The story made me feel like I was in the heat of the desert feeling grief in the start of it to an impossible fear of the curse that was threatening to end the promises of new love.

I wish the pace was a bit faster, but I enjoyed the story and would recommend it especially for those who thinks disabilities don’t belong in the fantasy world.

Thank you, NetGalley & the publisher, for approving me to read this arc and write this review.

First of all, thank you to NetGalley, Whimsical Publishing and Kaitlyn Carter Brown for allowing me to read the ARC to "Queen of Shifting Sands" in exchange for an honest review.

A crownless queen. A cursed prince. One summer to live.

This book was rather slow in the beginning, I will not lie. I will let everyone straight away that at the beginning, you might will not find yourself as taken as you wish to be, but I do promise you, it does get way better, way quicker and by far more intense. What I thought to be a flaw at the beginning, did expose itself to be a beautiful representation of the main trope, a slow burn. Because me and the book, too, had a slow burn love for one another and yet, now it runs deep.

Political schemes, fantasy, a curse and love all merges into a fantastic story.

The world building is outstanding, it was so vivid and so inimitable, you could swear sometimes you feel the wind or water brush your skin during the read, that is the power the author possesses.

From loss, grief, guilt, to slow burn and love triangles, the story delivers and it only goes uphill --- and it does not ever go down, instead, the books end with a cliffhanger THAT I ABSOLUTELY NEED TO HAVE RESOLVED ASAP.

I received a review copy through Netgalley

Unfortunately I realized I am unable to get this book on my kindle app to read and I can't read long books like this on my computer, so I am unable to read this book at this point.

This is a decent book though perhaps too long winded and lacking in impetus. It feels like a prologue that was elongated into an entire book; one where the author wanted to spend a LOT of time developing the characters. As such, the characters do have nuance but the plot and placing did suffer a lot as a result.

Story: The country of Istanolde teeters precariously on the brink of war. The previous king was a vicious war monger well hated by both hisecountry and its neighbors. His son and heir was just brutally murdered in a desert ambush by a foreign country. And now all that is left to hold the country together is a disabled prince and the former fianceé of his brother. Together, Elerek and Lystra will have to unite a country, prepare for all out war, and scramble to find allies amidst nobles and neighboring countries who bear ill will to Elerek's throne. But unknown to either enemies or allies is that Elerek bears a curse that could destroy them all.

Admittedly, it felt like most of the book was Elerek bemoaning his curse and the effect it has on those around him (if he touches someone, they will eventually die a horrible death) and Lystra bemoaning the loss of her beloved fiancé prince, Elerek's brother. The rest of the book was the politics in preparing for a war. It doesn't mean the book isn't decently written; rather, it is that nothing much happens except for a lot of inner dialogue (whose sole purpose was to show that the characters are good people who care about others).

I appreciated that we had a very able disabled protagonist. The politics were somewhat interesting and certainly we could feel the very loose grip Elerek has on the Kingship since attaining the throne at his brother's death. Quite a bit of this first book is about Elerek's curse and his deadly touch; so much so that Lystra's POVs felt almost superfluous at times. That said, I appreciated that time was given to develop the characters so they were not wooden cardboard figures.

I will likely pick up the next book in the series since there is promise here. Hopefully, the pacing is a bit tighter and we get fewer chunks of soliloquys and musings by the main characters. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

This was a fantastic read, I really enjoyed it though it took me a little while to get into it. World creation is immersive and characters were realistic and relatable. The representation was good to see as well.

- Great world building
- NA Fantasy
- Well written
- Interesting plot
- Romance sub-plot
- Romantasy
- Fast-burn
- POC rep
- Disability rep
- Vivid characterisation
- Dual POV
- Arranged marriage
- Found family
- magical creatures and world