this book has got so many of the things i love.....arranged marriage, touch her and die vibes, brute of a man, and a woman who’s more than she seems.....oh and not to forget about DRAGONS

tbh imo the writing isnt fantastic, some parts have a fair amount of repetition...but the entertainment value is there and the pacing is on point which had me reading this in one sitting and staying up far too later on a work night HA.
the spice was certainly spicin and the plot while predictable was entertaining.

Despite the personal issues that I had with this story, I did enjoy it. I liked it. And yes, I would read the next book. But I didn’t love it.

The book was very predictable down to every single aspect of the plot. So I wouldn’t call this thrilling or a nailbiting page turner.

We have an adopted “princess “who’s not really a real princess and she’s known as the whipping girl. Every time her sisters is getting in trouble. She’s the one that ends up getting the physical punishment.
When The Border King wants to claim a daughter for his own as a wife, the King and Queen sacrifice the whipping girl, their daughter, Tasmyn.

But Tasmyn is not a normal girl. Of course she’s not. And it’s very obvious from the very beginning what she is and who she is.
The internal dialogue is painfully repetitive. And I noticed that that’s a main issue for a lot of people reading early reviews as well. This book is repetitive as hell.
The book is also quite choppy. So there’s not a lot of description in certain scenes and they end abruptly. Chapters don’t flow easily from one to the next.
It’s a fast paced storyline. Some stuff happens, but also not really.
It’s strangely entertaining enough that I would read the next book, but I did end up canceling my pre-order for the hardcover because it’s just not a book that I loved enough to have on my shelf to be honest.

This is a very light fantasy novel. Very awkward sex scenes so a little bit of spice. Very little politics.
It’s the cliffhanger that got me with willing to try out the next book

Dragons no longer fly over Penterra but inside the palace life is still perilous. Tamsyn was raised in the courts alongside the princesses and it is her duty to be punished for their misdeeds. She fits in nowhere and only has the Captain of the Guard, Stig as a friend. To save the princess she is commanded to wear a veil and marry a brutal warrior and she must leave her entire life behind. The wedding night starts with passion but ends near violence when her trickery is exposed. Rather then start a war she is accepted as Fell's bride but can he accept all of her dark secrets. Magic is not dead only sleeping.

I really enjoyed this book, it had me hooked from the very beginning, It was fast paced but slowed down a bit after the wedding. The FMS was strong and the MMC was obsessed with her from the beginning. They had good chemistry. I love anything having to do with dragons and this book definitely delivered.

I was given an ARC from NetGalley with the request of an honest review…this is my review.
I have read other books from Sophie Jordan but not in this genre, and I can say I was not disappointed! The writing style took me a few chapters to get used to as each chapter is told by one character at a time. I was fully invested in each and every page as the story progressed, a story of a whipping girl who is so much more than she thought she could be. Tamsyn did everything she could as a whipping girl for the royal family, without complaints. One day, Fell (a warrior) came and demanded a princess for payment of protecting their land. The princess he got was not what he had asked for. Will Tamsyn and Fell work out their differences? Will they fully understand one another? You MUST read this book to find out. Hold onto your seat, because you are in for a wild ride!

Format: Ebook
Genre: Romantasy
Spice: 🌶️🌶️💫

Thank you to Netgalley for the Arc. I wanted to read it because of the concept it had. I love a book about Dragons and it seemed to meshed a few different world of them, witches, courts, and warriors.

While I loved the idea of the book, I wasn’t a fan of the execution. Was it an easy and enjoyable read? Yes. But the book felt very surface level in concept and connection. I didn’t feel as though the story was clear and where things were going. The relationship between Fell and Tas was not following. Also, with Stig? He was not my favorite.

Unfortunately, I was not a huge fan of this book. I had to force myself to finish it. The premise sounded intriguing - a royal whipping girl who is tasked with marrying the Beast of the Borderlands in order to spare her more fragile sisters. The pacing was inconsistent, with a large portion of the book just dragging and then a really rushed ending. I felt like the lore was not fully flushed out and didn't necessarily make sense. Tamsyn as a heroine was frustratingly obtuse at times. The relationship between her and Fell felt empty and lacked connection. There was way too much internal monologue and repetitive descriptions - it was a huge part of the pacing problems. This is a start to a series and I'm not sure I'll be continuing the journey.
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC - all opinions are my own!

2.5⭐️
First time reading from this author. I fell asleep several times while reading it. The inner monologue was daunting and repetitive. So many inconsistencies throughout. Pacing was off. This is a shifter book. No character developments. I didn’t feel good chemistry between the FMC and MMC. Felt very YA with adult spicy scenes, the FMC seemed immature and had a hard time connecting. Little twist towards the end but ya knew something was up with the MMC, but the ending delivered.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishing for the eARC

I really enjoyed this book! It was an interesting take on dragons that I had never seen before. I love when there are multiple POVs in fantasy books, I think it just gives you so much more of the story that is very needed in a fantasy book, so I really liked that.

This book was really good. I don't usually like stories that are told from "back in the day", but this one wasn't bad. This girl goes through so much, but always seems to keep her head up and keep pushing. It was a little slow at the beginning, but boy does it pick it up when those magical beings start appearing. You will get more that one surprise along the way and of course you get a huge shock and then...cliffhanger for the ending. All in all, a good fantasy book! I will definitely read book 2.

Sophie Jordan is one of my favorite romance authors and this book did not disappoint in that category. However, I was also pleasantly surprised by the depth of the fantasy and character development in this work. Without giving too much away, there is a very unique perspective on dragons filled with internal conflict that I found very fascinating, and the twists and turns kept me up reading late into the night. I highly, highly recommend this book!!

I 100% took a chance on this book, and I don’t regret a single second.

Sophie Jordan was an author I read years ago, and I remember she wrote a YA dragon shifter trilogy when I was a teen. When I noticed this was an adult spin on a dragon novel, I just had to have it!

This book follows three perspectives: Tamsyn (FMC), Fell, (MMC), and Stig (the annoying boy who can’t take a hint 🙄). Tamsyn’s duty is to be raised alongside her princess “sisters” and take any punishment the sisters have earned. This leads to 20+ years of going to bed hungry, slaps, and whippings. Soon, Fell arrives with his troop to demand one of the princesses as his bride - a reward for guarding the kingdom from enemies. The king obliges and gives him…Tamsyn. Now married to a woman he didn’t originally want, Fell needs to get Tamsyn back home to his lands where he can plot his revenge. But along the way new enemies will be made, true identities discovered, and a love to remember will blossom.

This was so creative. It gave off Jennifer L Armentrout book vibes in the beginning, but it’s definitely a new spin and all its own.

I don’t want to give too much away, but here are my favorite aspects of this novel:
1. Fell’s kindness (eventually)
2. That bedding scene 🔥🔥🔥
3. Fell calling Tamsyn “my woman” or “my wife” Swoon!!
4. Tamsyn’s and Fell’s secrets!! 😱
5. New take on dragons

Things I didn’t like or wanted more of:
1. There was spice but I wanted it spicier.
2. I wanted Tamsyn to smack Stig across the face (sorry not sorry bro)
3. The book is divided into 5 parts and I loved the first 3, but the 4th and first part of the 5th were just eh. Could have used a bit more excitement.

Overall, I loved this book. I’m going to be searching everyday for the announcement for book 2. Gimme Gimme!!!

*An ARC was provided by NetGalley and the publisher Avon in exchange for an honest review. And honestly preorder this book right now!

ARC- Review

In a world where magic is decimated and dragons thought to be long extinct, a young woman is raised alongside the kingdom’s princesses to be the one to accept punishments for their misbehavior. When a warlord visits the palace on the heels of winning yet another battle at the border, he demands the hand of a princess for his hard work. The king, being an arrogant and cruel man uses Tamsyn as a pawn in his game to keep his daughters out of the hands of this border lord. Now, Tamsyn is left to navigate her sense of duty while also battling unshakable feelings for her new husband. When their journey back to her new lands brings about a whole slew of challenges, Tamsyn learns more about who she is at her core. Will her new husband accept who she has become? And more importantly, will she accept herself and embrace the changes that are bound to alter her perceptive of the world? Or will everything she know go up in flames?

I really enjoyed this read. It was shorter than I thought it would be, which made it a very quick read. I am very interested in seeing where the story goes from here, as we are left on quite the cliffhanger. I will say, I had a difficult time picturing how the dragons in this book were supposed to look. I will be looking into character art as soon as any becomes available. I don’t often struggle with imagery, but something about how these dragon shapes are described left me struggling to piece a full picture together. Overall, I look forward to reading book 2 whenever it comes out!

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was one of my most anticipated books of this fall, unfortunately it did not live up to my expectations for it and I was incredibly disappointed in it. While I did like the writing, the story and plot were a huge miss for me.

The pacing was odd. The first third of the book is just leadup to a single event. The second third of the book is primarily characters traveling with exactly one conflict. It is not until the final third of the book that it felt like things really happened. I felt that the first two thirds of the book could have been condensed significantly and a lot more could have happened overall.

The event the first third of the book leads up to is a deception that was just not believable to me. It didn’t feel that it was particularly believable to the author either. When the MMC, who is being deceived, questions things, as he really should, someone who is on his side whispers in his ear and then all of his concerns are gone, and he moves forward. We don’t know what was whispered to him to make him continue on, but I can’t come up with anything that would have made much sense.

Our FMC suddenly suffers from an ailment that is incredibly significant, can’t be hidden, and will most certainly continue to ail her. A witch comes to her rescue and suddenly she wakes up and is all better other than this ailment definitely happening again at some point. The witch tells her she can’t help or explain and sends her on her way. This just made no sense. Clearly something helped her, there is no way, in her position, that I would just leave without answers. This whole scenario just felt lazy and like a way to move the plot along.

We have a final big twist, but it was a twist that I predicted rather early on and with one bit of information in the middle, I had no doubt where this was going. I wanted to be wrong because I am not a fan of something so predictable, but unfortunately I was correct in where the story was going.

This also felt very YA, but with an adult level of spice. The characters came across as very immature and I really struggled to connect with them in any way.

Overall, this was an unfortunate miss for me. At this point, I seem to be in the minority on this, so I would definitely recommend giving it a try.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a complimentary copy of this book. I leave this review voluntarily and all opinions are my own.

Honestly? Not bad.

The beginning (roughly 1/3 of the book) felt like your standard romantasy with an underdog heroine and a gruff, beefy warrior as the MMC. It was slow and somewhat predictable but entertaining nonetheless. I did have to take a few breaks here and there and asked outloud “where are the dragons” a few times. It continued on for roughly halfway through the book… and then things changed.

And I had my suspicions about certain characters but I was never quite sure where exactly it would go and who would be affected. After the first big reveal the plot started to come together and I knew what the next big “reveal” would be but it was still glorious.

This had some great plot devices in it and was unique enough from other romantasy that I was pleasantly caught off-guard. The writing took some getting used to as it felt bit bogged down by all the extra internal monologuing but the story itself was pretty decent!

If you liked certain elements of Blood and Steel as well as Glint you may like some of the characters here as well. The romance was pretty much instalust and lacking any build up or push and pull or soft, sweet pining feelings. So if you’re only interested in the build up of a sweet romantic relationship, this will not be the book for you. Oh and… yes, dragons. There are in fact dragons.

This book was CRAZY.
Imagine the winter king meets the fourth wing and sprinkles of some ???????.
It was WILD girlies. As an oblivious reader, I was just perplexed as I kept reading. If I keep talking about the story, I might spoil it.
Join if you want to be shaken and a little upset. The book ended too soon, from my point of view.

First, thank you to Avon & NetGalley for the chance to read!! This one was way up my alley.

Before I get into my review, I will stress that I never read Jordan's YA novels, which may be part of my problems with this novel... The first half was amazing, and I loved getting the introduction into this world, but then it quickly fell apart in terms of pacing.

Everything moved so fast that I lost that connection to Tamsyn, and to Fell, and it seemed like the book became just a means to the real action (in book 2). Even the romance - which is definitely the heart of this story - totally slips off the page. I'll probably read book 2 when it comes out because my curiosity is there, but the best readers for this one are those who already know they click with Jordan's writing style.

4.25/5 for me. This is a well balanced, quick, romantasy read. I don’t think you can get many quick fantasy reads nowadays so I really liked that for this, and it didn’t cut down on the space in order to do it 🤌

Here are some spoiler free notes

⭐️So the first half of the book to me was a little more medieval-esque minus a few mythical mentions and I felt like the fantasy really came in closer to the end, but that’s okay.
⭐️ I was NOT drowned out too much in the beginning with world building, but there was still some information towards the middle of the book that came about a little randomly that sort of confused me. Nonetheless I pushed on and (sort of) figured it out as we went on.
⭐️ Zaddy Fell, what can I say?? I sort of knew how everything would eventually fizzle out in the book with Tamsyn, but I loved the ride. Sweet zaddy Fell has a soft spot for our little red headed girly pop and boy am I heeeeeere for it

Honestly, I could not put this book down. I really enjoyed it, but unfortunately I need the next book immediately or I will have to hack into the authors computer :/

Thank you to the publisher & netgalley for the ARC!

Raised in the palace alongside the princesses, orphan Tamsyn is more than a “sister” she is the royal whipping girl. Considering it her duty to suffer and protect the princesses and knowing that she may never see the only family she’s ever known again, she agrees to don a veil and marry the Beast of the Borderlands in a deception that could end in violence and most certainly lead to an unhappy marriage. But even as these secrets emerge, there are deeper deceptions buried in the history of a kingdom that believes that dragons are extinct, witches are exiled, and magic is dying.
I devoured this book. Even though the first half is utterly predictable (and laid out in the description), I couldn’t help but read on in the hopes of catching a hint of the magic buried within Tamsyn, not to mention the palpable tension between Tamsyn and Fell, the Beast of the Borderlands.
As far as spice, the wedding scene was the first and most satisfying. None of the other encounters lived up to the promise, often feeling rushed. I don’t need a book to be spicy, but when it leads with that much heat, I expect the rest of the book to rise to the occasion. I would have loved for this book to invest more time in developing the relationship between Tamsyn and Fell, both in and out of the bedroom. That being said, I will eagerly await the next book in this series.

A magical and twisted beauty and the beast retelling. Marrying herself to the monster that attacked her village, we follow her through plans of lies and deceit. Of course, she will need to survive to be successful.

This book is going to be a hit.

The characters are strong and interesting. The world is interesting. Knights and dragons. Romantasy. Touch her and die. It’s sweet and a quick/easy read. The fantasy world is light, nothing complex to understand. It’s not a deep obsession book, but it is great. Fast paced. Can’t put down.

I’m not exactly sure how I’m supposed to wait who knows how long for the sequel that hasn’t even been announced. I need it now. I need more Fell and more Tamsyn. I need answers. There isn’t a crazy big cliffhanger, so you won’t feel tortured waiting but you also will want to read the next one.

Thanks to Harper Collins and Sophie Jordan for the advanced copy. I had no idea what I was getting, but I’m so so happy I got to read this and recommend everyone keep it on their radar for release!