TLDR:
• ⭐⭐⭐I enjoyed the book and if someone told me they were reading it I would let them know I enjoyed it, but may not be quick to recommend it
🌶️🌶️🌶️Explicit and multiple instances. Most of the scenes weave into the plot and move the plot forward, though some may not
• I enjoyed the premise and the MMC, the world was beautiful, but I thought the plot was a bit messy and if simplified a little more, it would have been a stronger story
• I found the FMC a little frustrating

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Full Review:
Crown of Slumber offers a unique twist on the classic Sleeping Beauty tale, blending elements of star-crossed lovers and enemies to lovers. The novel presents a visually stunning fantasy setting and features a cheeky male lead and lovable dragons.

The story revolves around a strong female protagonist however her constant fight picking and tendency to reference an unexplained memory ("but I can't think of that right now") became quite frustrating. Her reluctance to share felt like a narrative ploy that eventually wore thin. Despite her strength, I found her character more irritating than engaging, especially in contrast to the more logical and relatable male lead.

One major issue for me was the plot's initial major hurdle, which lost significance as the story progressed, leading to plot holes and rushed explanations that were unsatisfying and the retelling, while hitting some key points of Sleeping Beauty, strayed significantly from the original tale.

The spicy scenes were well written, however I found one in particular to be incredibly odd due to the timing. It was one of those moments where you're watching a movie and the characters are in immense danger and choose that moment to catch up on their feelings - now is not the time.

Lastly, while the villain setup added complexity, I felt that simplifying the antagonists might have made for a more compelling story.

On the positive side, the book’s standout moment is the memorable meeting between the main characters, which I thoroughly enjoyed. This was far and away my favorite scene as well as a perfect nod to the original tale.

Overall, Crown of Slumber creates a beautiful fantasy world and serves as a solid introduction to the genre, though it falls short in some areas of character development and plot cohesion.

Reading Scale:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐I think about this book long after I've finished it. It left its mark and I would recommend this to anyone and everyone
⭐⭐⭐⭐ I loved this book and would absolutely recommend it
⭐⭐⭐ I enjoyed the book and if someone told me they were reading it I would let them know I enjoyed it, but may not be quick to recommend it
⭐⭐ I would not recommend this book and is someone said told me they were reading it I would give my honest opinion
⭐ DNF

Spice Scale:
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️Incredibly Explicit and lots of it. So much so that there is little plot left
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️Incredibly Explicit and lots of it. Not all of it adds to the plot but there is still a plot/spice balance
🌶️🌶️🌶️Explicit and multiple instances. Most of the scenes weave into the plot and move the plot forward, though some may not
🌶️🌶️Intimate scenes but milder language. They add to the plot and are used as character development
🌶️Intimate scenes but mild language - just a step past closed door

Rating: 3.5 / 5

A standalone Fantasy Romance, Crown of Slumber takes the Disney Sleeping Beauty story and adds a few twists, and a sprinkling of spice.

The concept of the story, the magic in the world and the dragons (and their lore) was well thought out and quite unique. I really enjoyed the aspect that each dragon has differing magic and differing connections to people depending on the land that they’re originally from.

The two main characters were well structured, plenty of backstory which was revealed at critical points within the story, and just enough to want you to keep reading to reveal more. For a Romantasy, their love story was believable enough to myself as a reader to want to cheer for a happy ending. However, I would not class this as enemy to lovers.

The spice was good - it didn’t overwhelm the story and remained appropriate for a “book with spice” (as a Romantasy should be), rather than a “Spicy Book” (like erotica).

Unfortunately, the last third of the book fell slightly flat as the story was rushed towards the end. I can see why, this book was clearly designed to be a standalone and it needed to be wrapped up, however I genuinely think if we had stopped the story at where Aurelia is captured within the Star Court and then had a second book, with a more fleshed out ending (and more dangerous situations to the characters), it would have been a fantastic duology.

There seemed to be a lot of villainous characters throughout this book, but the “Big Bad” never quite lived up to expectations. She was easily defeated and I never had any sense of trepidation or fear that Aurelia would not win.

Overall, a really fun read. Definitely one for those who love a fairytale retelling!

I want to thank NetGalley and R.L. Perez for the opportunity to read this as an ARC. The review is my own opinion and I have given this freely.

I did find that I actually enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. I did get through it pretty fast as well. The FMC and the MMC were engaging, and I loved the banter between them. It had strong world building that I didn't find myself struggling to get through. There was a tasteful amount of spice, and of course, dragons. And who doesn't love dragons?

I think overall it was a great twist on a beloved fairy tale, without straying too far as to not relate to the original at all.

Some trigger warnings however; mentions of sexual assault/r*pe, abduction, imprisonment, as well as violence and death.

A retelling of Sleeping Beauty. Princess Aurelia must pose as Prince Fenn's betrothed to obtain stardust to break her family's curse. He needs the alliance to protect his court....

Love the magical world... I like Aurelia and Fenn too. Love their relationship and how it grows... Their scenes are terrific. Love their chemistryt. Really enjoy the twist in the story. A terrific book.

Thanks to the publisher for the arc.

This has dragons and fae and goblins and court/kingdom politics and magic and so much more! And we all know how much I love all of that stuff.

The dragon lore! Oh my goodness, I could go on forever about how cool this dragon lore is and how much I enjoyed learning about it. I thought it was so cool how the different types of dragons have different connections to each other, people, and the land that they're from (I thought that part was especially cool). I will forever love dragons and will always appreciate when they're given cool and interesting lore that you don't see too often. I found the land connection part of the dragons to be so unique, I've never seen that before!

The court/kingdom politics were so good in this book and I really enjoyed that they were interwoven with what the characters were doing (whether or not they were at court at the time). I thought making the politics an underlying problem, even on unrelated adventures, kept that sort of tension around it.

Sometimes, certain parts of character relationships felt a little flat or rushed, but it really didn't take that much away from this reading experience for me.

This really was such a fun fantasy book and I will definitely be continuing the series!

Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review! My review is already up on Goodreads and my TikTok (Zoe_Lipman) review will be up at the end of the month with my monthly wrap-up.

Crown of Slumber was a refreshing take on a fairytale, that managed to twist the story while never losing the classic feeling.

As a Romantasy, I think it succeeded at making the relationship between out main characters believable. Both were three-dimensional , had their own motivations and backstories that didn't revolve around each other, and were lovable enough to care about for the almost 500 pages.

Positive:
-Well done characters
-Interesting plot
-Interesting world-building (including the lore of the world itself, and the particular magic/powers of each of the creatures and people we were introduced to)
-The disagreements. Our characters were attracted to each other from the beginning, (which I find much more believable than them only realizing after 400 pages)
-Almost 500 pages total but it's super fast paced and easy to read. The last maybe 70 pages felt a little dragged out and that brings me to my one negative below.

Negative:
-The conflict of the third act of the novel felt both predictable and not up to part with the rest of the story. It was easy to anticipate, the most obvious option, but felt a bit lazy given what we knew (Spoilers: the power our main character had and, on top of that, her stubbornness made it a little unbelievable that she was not able to just... get out of that situation. I understand panicking, feeling defeated, etc, but every other time she was presented with a dangerous situation, she was resourceful and fearless. It felt like her reaction to this new problem was only different because we needed it to last a bit more and be the final issue, which tends to take more than a chapter to fix)

I will most definitely pick up other fantasy novels from R.L Perez in the future. This was a 9/10, or a 4.5 stars, but will round that rating up on Goodreads because of the lovable characters and good tension throughout the whole story.

Just okay.
I have read multiple sleeping beauty retellings and this is honestly my least favourite.
While the whole concept is a bit more unique than other retellings, I feel like it was missing something.

What I liked:
- the main characters have interesting backstories, and it was fun to see how their relationship progressed
- dragons (although I wish they were more of the main focus)
-I like that this was a standalone
- the spice was pretty good

What I didn’t like:
-Plot holes, especially towards the end.
-the ending felt a bit rushed
-Mediocre villain (I felt like every other character besides the two mcs needed to be fleshed out more)

Overall, an okay read if you are in the mood for a romantasy retelling of a classic fairytale.

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley.
Crown of Slumber is due to be published on 15 September 2024.

I really enjoyed this retelling! Sleeping Beauty is my absolute favourite fairy tale so I was excited but nervous! I was absolutely captured by the story. It has great world building, a strong FMC, a playful MMC, great banter, some tasteful spice and dragons (everyone loves dragons and these ones are prominent). It had a really nice flow to readability and it kept you wanting more so I found putting the book down to actually do life was tough and I wanted to be back in Valora. On the whole I really enjoyed this read and anyone who loves the popular tropes - forced proximity, (kind of) enemies to lovers, self discovery, fake relationship, magical systems, alternate dimensions, shapeshifting. As a stand alone its pretty good - It does do a pretty neat wrap up at the end which is sufficient.

The ONLY thing that might be beneficial:
- Having some trigger warnings at the start for the mention of sexual assault/rape, abduction, imprisonment, death and violence

**Edit to add that the author has advised that a trigger warning will be included in the final manuscript**

this book!!! i absolutely devoured this book!! this sleeping beauty retelling paid homage to the story while also having its own separate plot points and twists and turns. the beginning of a book is always the hardest for me, but that was not the case with this one. from the jump, i was introduced to the story and the characters in a way that i knew what was going on but i wasn’t thrown so much information that i was bored. the introduction was a smooth and exciting ride. i loved aurelia’s free spirit from the start and as soon as fenn was introduced, i already loved him. the way they met was one of my favorite scenes. it felt like the connection just became so easy to them right away. their banter and flirting was so good that i was blushing, giggling, kicking my feet on so many instances. i loved the journey of power, self acceptance, and love i found in this book. i found myself laughing and crying along with aurelia and fenn. my favorite part of any book is the ability to make me feel, and this book did just that. add this one to your tbr, folks!! it’s a good one! the crown of slumber comes out september 15th!

also thank you to R.L Perez, Willow Haven Press, and Netgalley for this ARC!!

Note I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley but all opinions are my own.

Overall, I liked this book. I imagine readers who liked Fourth Wing and a A Court of Thorns and Roses will find this appealing in the romantasy category since it has good elements and tropes from each of those books. I read this in a few hours this morning but I tend to read fast.

The romance felt somewhat natural, had some nice tropes going and seemed believable enough.

It's nice to have a release that isn't part of some trilogy or longer series, but it does suffer from a lack of character development in my opinion for anyone other than the main characters. I suppose this can be typical of this genre given it's focused on the leads, but you couldn't get a grasp of other characters' motivations in a way that they felt illogical sometimes. I get that not every character could be explained fully, but even the antagonists seemed... one-dimensional.

It felt like there were plot holes too, and things were hastily wrapped up at the end. I imagine it had to be that way to fit it all in one book but there were just so many things I felt were brought up earlier in the book which seemed like parts the author would elaborate on eventually that were quietly omitted.

The worldbuilding was good in my opinion, but there were moments where some mechanic of the world was mentioned and it makes you wonder about another part of the plot.

The spice was generally good. (I've omitted part of my review since it contained spoilers)

Overall, it's a fun read though not anything that I'm obsessed with despite loving similar books in the genre. It's a better read than most kindle unlimited books I've read in this genre and is an enjoyable enough way to pass the time.

This was a nice sleeping beauty retelling, but still original enough that it felt like its own story.
It is written in first person dual POV.

What I liked:
- Dragons. They are not the main focus but appear multiple times and I just love dragons
- The MCs, both have their past they have to deal with and interact accordingly and stay true to themselves.
- The relationship of the MCs seemed less rushed than most standalones. It is difficult to have the characters fall in love within only one book and make it seem convincing (also this is still fantasy) but compared to other works the way it was done in this book felt more realistic. And the book was thankfully not filled with both of them pining for each other. There was actual plot and a goal.
- The smut was nicely written and in an adequate amount. Not too much not too little and not overly horny.
- Author gives a nice unraveling at the end of where certain features of the story were drawn from which I really liked.

What I didnt like:
- The villain. I like more fleshed out villains and especially considering that it is supposed to be a sleeping beauty retelling I wish we had learned a bit more about them, maybe a small prologue would already have satisfied that.
- Towards the end there were some plot-holes which bothered me a bit. It did not change the story per se but some of the explanations for the past were not explained well enough to my satisfaction.

Would recommend if you like forced proximity, fake-relationship, dragons, powerful MCs. Even if you dont like fairytale retellings maybe give this a try because to me it did not feel too much as one.

wow...

i devoured this book it was soo good! the world building, the characters and the story were great
it has dragons, fae, witches and more, what else could you ask for in a fantasy?

its got all the good tropes including my fave enemies to lovers and ultimate betrayal
the spice was just the right amount and just the right spiciness
i feel like i can't find the words to talk about this book im just.. wow

Wow! I was in the mood for a bit of a retelling, and this book definitely helped cure that craving. Was a bit tropey, but overall a great book that will get you through a reading slump!

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. (via Netgalley)

I enjoyed this enough to read it in one sitting. I like when retellings stay true to the original while adding their own spin on it, which I feel this story accomplishes. The world building and characters were well done. I also felt the spice was appropriate and added to the story. Looking forward to more in the series!

This is a 3.75 ⭐️ for me!! I loved this world so much and the world building! I can’t wait to read more books by this author because i’m obsessed!!!