listen. i love a complex fantasy world more than anyone! but when you're 20% of the way through the book and still don't understand what's happening, it's just not fun. this reads like the second book in a series without having read the first. maybe it was just me, but this definitely did not live up to the blurb.

This was a hard read for me because of the abuse and mental health issues the fmc Aelia faces. She has been through so much and we don’t even have the whole story yet on what exactly happened to her kingdom. I am intrigued on what will happen with Caiden and hope Aelia gets to be happy with Tharan. But I am concerned for what Baylis will do to Aelia’s mental state in the next book.

I typically have a hard time with books that face mental illness and addiction so head on but I am glad that I was able to make it through because you can’t help but love the fmc and want to see her get the peace she so deserves. I would definitely recommend this book if you love a strong fmc.

A Curse of Breath and Blood is a compelling read for fans of fantasy and coming-of-age stories. K.W. Foster has crafted a narrative that balances action, emotion, and thought-provoking themes. This book is not only an exploration of magic and curses but also a heartfelt journey of self-acceptance and courage. Highly recommended for anyone looking to lose themselves in a beautifully crafted fantasy world.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book. This review is my own opinion.

I enjoyed this book. Did I rate this a 5 star, no and here is why. I found that the world building was tough. It felt like in some cases I was just thrust into a new place but didn't get much building into the world. As far as the characters, I felt that I had a decent grasp and understanding of Aelia. However, some of the other characters felt surface level or I didn't feel their background was expounded on enough. I had some difficulty jumping back and forth between Aelia and Caiden's POV. I also felt like the surface was just skimmed in regards to Aelia's trauma through her abusive relationship with Gideon. Also, I felt like it's not clear how Aelia obtained her powers. Was she made or were her powers/talents always dormant and were forced out from her abuse? I feel like we are just missing so much vital information.

I was not a fan of Aelia and Caiden's relationship, so I was glad when Tharan entered the picture. I feel like the last 1/4 of the book had the most suspense and kept me reading. The Epilogue has me wanting more, so I am looking forward to seeing the direction of the next book.

Overall, I would rate the book 3/5.

I really recommend checking out author’s website for some history of the world, get to know a bit more about the characters. She have summed it up really well! It’s very interesting to get more detailed description of the characters since there are so many unique ones as well powers!

This book gave me a real push into a well worked fantasy world with different courts, that yet doesn’t get too complicated! I felt like I was turning my head on every direction because the story was filled with all kinds of plot twists. They were really well worked and overall left me hooked! Starting from the first page, the lovers Aelia and Caiden are separated due to forbidden love and later forced to work together (which is filled with emotions and tension 👏). On the mission to find her sister, with enemies from her past on their heals and heartbreaking oaths, I was sit sat seated ready for the loop of the roller coaster!

Aelia is a fierce and brave FMC with telepathic powers, yet she has her obstacles and struggles (addiction). Through the story though we get to see her working on herself to become stronger, a better version of herself, which just made my love for her grow even more.

Caiden, being her ex now, they both have their reasons to hate each other following their past in the book. But omg the way this man would still be her personal shield is making my heart do summersaults. He’s sweet and lovingly but still isn’t afraid to speak his mind for Aelia’s best.

IF THAT WASNT ENOUGH Tharan joins to work with them adding a sparkle of love triangle! No cuz even though I love Caiden, Tharan really stepped up for me. I feel like him and Aelia can share their traumas to each other with more heart and honesty, and that’s the beautiful thing that I think was really important for Aelia to heal.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of A Curse of Breath and Blood.

The plot and storyline of this one was interesting and has promise. There needed to be a bit more world building at the beginning as it jumps straight in with little explanation which was tricky to follow. I enjoyed the story line and characters but could have use more storytelling to weave everything together. I’m interested to see what happens next!

🇬🇧
Overall, I enjoyed the book, but there were a few points that bothered me. Although it was mentioned that the book has similarities to ACOTAR, I found these similarities quite striking. The story and characters were, in my opinion, too closely aligned with ACOTAR, which often gave the impression of fanfiction. In particular, the character Tharan seemed like an exact copy of Lucien in terms of appearance.

Another criticism is the small errors I noticed. For example, at one point, Caiden was mentioned instead of Tharan, even though Caiden wasn’t meant to be in that scene. Such mistakes are not major but still unfortunate.

Despite these issues, the book has its strengths, and the cliffhanger/plot twist at the end was really exciting. I hope there will be a second part to see how the story continues. I also look forward to the development of the love story between Tharan and Aelia, as Tharan is my favorite character. ;)

🇩🇪 Insgesamt hat mir das Buch gut gefallen, aber es gab einige Punkte, die mich gestört haben. Obwohl schon erwähnt wurde, dass das Buch Ähnlichkeiten mit ACOTAR hat, fand ich diese Ähnlichkeiten doch sehr auffällig. Die Story und die Charaktere waren meiner Meinung nach zu nah an ACOTAR angelehnt, was oft den Eindruck einer Fanfiction erweckte. Besonders der Charakter Tharan wirkte wie eine exakte Kopie von Lucien vom Aussehen her.

Ein weiterer Kritikpunkt sind die kleinen Fehler, die mir aufgefallen sind. Zum Beispiel wurde an einer Stelle statt Tharan Caiden getippt, obwohl dieser nicht gemeint war. Solche Fehler sind zwar nicht gravierend, aber trotzdem schade.

Trotz dieser Kritikpunkte hat das Buch seine Stärken, und der Cliffhanger/Plottwist am Ende war wirklich spannend. Ich hoffe, dass es einen zweiten Teil geben wird, um zu sehen, wie die Geschichte weitergeht. Auch freue ich mich auf die Entwicklung der Liebesgeschichte zwischen Tharan und Aelia, da ich Taran persönlich am meisten mag.;)

probably the most confusing arc i have ever read. i wish i understood more, especially cause the beginning was at least 3/5 stars... but the middle to end, oh i had to dnf.

2.75 but rounded up to 3 stars for netgalley and goodreads
A Curse of Breath and Blood was…I guess entertaining enough that I didn’t DNF but it did leave a lot to be desired.

1. World building…needs improvement. I felt as though it didn’t give me enough and sometimes felt like the characters didn’t even know enough about their own world?

2. 30-something FMC that read more like a 18-19 year old. I legit kept forgetting she was supposed to be around my age.

3. Everything felt very convenient? Like both sides…it was like conflict was happening but also no conflict was happening since it was all resolved very quickly. From the relationships to how information was found out (telling). Characters were able to get away with a lot even though through world building they shouldn’t have… a traitorous Queen with only encountering really a set on enemies that were her husband and the castle? Even with Tharan, like “Ope yeah I’ve heard about you” and then move on. No question of anything really? Even if Gideon was an enemy, I feel like there should have been more questions around it? Also was Gidion or Erissa the enemy? I get they were working together but it was more Erissa, which I think was purposeful but the fact that I’m questioning it…? Idk.

4. Character backgrounds. I wanted MORE…but in a different way.

5. Every moment that was supposed to be “BIG” ended up being a “…cool yay” and move on. For example the end when Baylis woke up it was like “she’s awake! Okay eat” and that was it?

6. The relationships…I really couldn’t tell if this was a lot triangle? There was Ursula too? That relationship plot kinda seemed pointless… second chance romance, kind of? Friends to lovers felt more like insta like/love. Idk…again maybe this falls under the fact that everything was too convenient. Also Tharan was a bastard but became king, even though a previous conversation made it seem otherwise? Again no one questioned it except his sister, briefly… and to opened up way to quick to Aelia. I think it could have happened in that conversation but the flow and pacing was just off? I felt like it was off for a lot of the book.

Thank you netgalley for the ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book.

This was a DNF for me. I stopped reading about 40% through the book.

The story centers on Aelia Springborn, a princess who must leave her childhood sweetheart, a Sylph prince named Caiden Stormweaver, to marry a king named Gideon Ironheart (yes, all of the names are like this). However, Gideon abuses Aelia and, in the process, makes her half-Sylph, giving her telepathic powers. At least, that's what I was able to piece together from what I read, as the reader has to infer it from the disjointed conversations of the characters when they meet many years later. Caiden rescues Aelia from Gideon, but after the abuse she suffered, she blames him for not rescuing her soon enough and runs off into the world to become a mercenary who can read thoughts and alter minds.

That all happens before the story starts, which is several years later. Caiden et al find Aelia in a tavern, drinking her troubles away, after having recently done a job for a king where she had to remove the memories of his daughter and her soldier-boy paramour. It turns out that Aelia has a younger sister, and the group must save her from the evil clutches of Gideon!

From that point, the story reads like the average D&D adventure, complete with random monster encounters that have no relevance to the story. There are numerous anachronisms and colloquialisms that feel carelessly included rather than intentionally placed to create a distinct and believable world for the characters to inhabit; There are continuity errors, where a character who was not in a scene is suddenly there with no explanation; There is also a scene where they are escaping through underground tunnels, only to be attacked by a Kraken, which they easily defeat, and are then pursued by cave trolls (a nod to 'The Fellowship of the Ring'). However, unlike the scene in 'The Fellowship of the Ring', there is no purpose to the scene. At best, it is a pop-culture reference. The scene in 'The Fellowship of the Ring' forces the fellowship to go through the Mines of Moria, a path that Gandalf is afraid to take, and that dramatically alters the trajectory of the story. Here, the encounter is just another random event that has no impact on the story.

There is a story here that some people are going to enjoy. There is a plot and there are some good ideas, but it needs significant editorial help.

Aelia and Caiden are two people who are past lovers and friends. Caiden is bound to a promise he made and Aelia is broken. What happens when these two start tackling problems beyond their grasp? Tharan is a halfling who is enamored with Aelia. Will his passion get in the way of the revenge Aelia has set out to do? Curious to how this story progresses but honestly was hoping for a romantic connection with Lucius.

I really really really tried to like this book, but it was so difficult. 2 stars is honestly generous in my opinion. The world building was quite frankly just non existent. I genuinely was so confused about the court systems, the magic systems, the laws, and I didn’t even know who was human and sylph in Aelia’s and Caiden’s relationship until like 20% in😂 There was absolutely no easy explanations, you were just suddenly in a new location or court, or you were just reading about completely new information as if it was already explained (it never was). There were a lot of typos, and repetition which I can look past since I did receive an arc copy, so I do hope that it goes through another editing process. There were times when a character would start speaking and they were supposed to be in a completely different location, not apart of this scene whatsoever. I feel like all of the characters were very base level. I never found myself caring about any of them, you don’t really get to delve deep into why these characters are the way that they are, especially Aelia. I really am not sure if I’ll come back for the rest of the books in the series, hopefully the kinks are worked out.

Three and a half
This book starts with Aelia saying goodbye to the man she loves as she’s about to enter an arranged marriage. She then meets Gideon and he’s welcoming and charming. Turn the page and we are shot five years into the future and Aelia is a mercenary, apparently a traitor and has clearly been brutalised by her estranged husband. I say clearly because sadly it’s not really exactly clear what happened and we just get odd throw away lines for most of the story which leaves the reader feeling somewhat cheated if honest.
I thought the pace was a little jumpy and so much happens from numerous horrendously violent attack’s to lots of travelling about to various kingdoms. Plus the magical creatures were absolutely never ending with elves, trolls, goblins, a basilisk, a reaper ( who just didn’t particularly fit ) other creatures too numerous to mention and to top it all a unicorn ! Obviously from the synopsis it’s easy to spot what I can only call the ACOTAR trope as the initial love interest seems to get kicked into touch and even now I’m not sure how I feel about that.
This has been a very difficult review to write because I actually enjoyed the story particularly the last half of it . I think perhaps the author was so full of ideas that she unintentionally just put too much into this and sometimes less is more. I’d definitely read a sequel but would hope for more world building, less chasing around constantly and of course show or even tell , not leaving the reader to flounder about and try and imagine for example how Aelia betrayed her Kingdom. There are some interesting supporting characters and of course the epilogue means there’s still trials and danger to face.
This voluntary take is of a copy I requested from Netgalley and my thoughts and comments are honest and I believe fair

This was a fun and face paced read, but it really felt average to me in every way. There was nothing I really had an issue with, however nothing really stood out to me. It seemed sort of to be a collection of things that I've seen before in other romantasy novels.

Despite me not really finding anything groundbreaking about this book, I had a good time, and felt myself rooting for the characters and enjoying the world we were put in, despite me wishing there was a little bit more worldbuilding. It just didn't have anything in it to differentiate itself in a market that at this point is really saturated other than the fact that the main character was an established adult instead of a teenager.

I did find it very full of action, and the plot never felt like it dragged ever, I just felt myself wanting more from pretty much every aspect of the story and world.

This was...fine. It had a LOT of potential, but a lot of things just fell flat for me.

There is virtually no worldbuilding for this book--you are thrown directly into the story, then given a time jump. With that time jump comes no explanation as to what happened or how we got to the point that we did. It *kind of* gets explained as you go through the story, but not in any meaningful way. Being that there's no world building, this is paced VERY quickly and similarly to YA titles--before the 50% mark, our FMC almost dies literally 5 times. I counted. But there's so much action constantly happening, that we don't get any character or relationship development. We're told who our characters love, told that they love each other, told that they have thoughts and feelings, but aren't really SHOWN anything. It makes the second half of the book feel VERY insta love to me.

All of the characters have a lot of potential to become more than just 2D background characters, but no one really does. I was most disappointed with the villain of the story--we're literally told he's bad and awful, but we don't actually see him DO anything bad or evil until almost the end of the book. If you want me to root for our MCs, I need to believe they have something to root against. And it just wasn't fully there for me.

HOWEVER, I DID love Aelia a lot--she's in her 30s, she's flawed, she's irrational, and she's healing from a lot of trauma. I think we got a great characterization of how she's coping with her trauma and what it did to her/how she's working on healing. Even though we don't get much info about the trauma itself. I can see how a lot of folks won't like her, but she definitely feels like a version of Aelin in Throne of Glass if she hadn't landed where she did, when she did.

This was a super-fast read because it's action packed, and the parts of the story/world that are there are interesting and entertaining. I just wish this had been divided into maybe two books and more time was taken to develop characters, the world, and relationships to make me more invested in the outcomes.

This is definitely for someone who likes YA Fantasy but wants a more "adult" feel, and doesn't want a lot of world building. Unfortunately, I'm just not that person so this wasn't my favorite read.

I really enjoyed the story however the plot moved a little too quickly for me and I found that when I came back to reading I was confused about what was going on and had to reread passages again.

4 out of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. The first half was perhaps quite slow to get going, but once the action kicked in it was a fast-paced and gripping story. I love a good fantasy romance book, and this most certainly did not disappoint. I would highly recommend.

When I read the first 10% of this book, I couldn't stop praising this book, but my opinion has completely changed. The reason for my sudden dislike is the same reason why most people seem to enjoy it - the female main character. She is portrayed as morally grey, but I just see her more as morally confused character..

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me review this copy of “A Curse of Breath and Blood”

𝘈𝘳𝘤 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸.

2.5 stars rounded down.

Originally the description for this novel stood out to me with the promises of a thrilling 𝒂𝒅𝒖𝒍𝒕 fantasy romance plot, found family & tension at every turn. However within the first few chapters alone, I realized this novel wouldn’t hit the mark for me (personally).

Off the bat the story begins with a prologue followed by a time-skip, I honestly feel like this story would’ve gone a lot better had we gotten a few chapters explaining the events during that time-skip. I can appreciate the choice Foster made to begin with a prologue, it just didn’t feel right to me as the rest of the time we are backtracking trying to put together what happened in a not so worth it way. A lot of the dialogue in the first 25% is followed by a narrated explanation of what we could’ve easily learned in a longer, more fleshed out chapter.

I also believe the stakes themselves in this novel would’ve felt a lot more hard hitting had we had time with the characters to learn their backstories & to just flesh them out & the world more before we jumped straight into action.

Overall the novel did have some good moments, however the lack of proper storytelling & world building didn’t give me much of a reason to feel any of the stakes in this novel & didn’t read as an adult fantasy, more so a YA novel.

A Curse of Breath and Blood is a fantasy romance about Aelia who at the beginning of this book is in a bad way as she tries to block out the past by taking on jobs as a mercenary. She reunites with a former lover who needs her help to take down her husband who is the reason she is currently in a bad way. A Curse of Breath and Blood had me hooked from the beginning and I really enjoyed reading it.

I liked reading about Aelia and liked her journey as a character. Aelia is a very different person from who she is in the prologue and who she is in chapter one. She is more of a shell of herself in chapter one as she has been hardened due to the trauma she has experienced. She is drinking heavily and addicted to 'dust' to block out her past memories. I thought her growth as a character was interesting and her ability to look through people's minds is very intriguing.

Aelia's relationship with Caiden did hook me into the story as I really wanted to know more about their history together. Although I liked reading about their relationship together I did like Aelia's chemistry with Tharan more and I'm excited to read more about him in future books.

Overall I enjoyed A Curse of Breath and Blood and I liked reading about Aelia and found her powers to be interesting. I also liked the relationships within this book and I liked the plot and found the book to be a fast paced read.

(I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley to review)