This cover and synopsis caught my attention. As a horse girl, I needed to read this story. I enjoyed all the horse puns throughout. The relationship between the main characters progressed really well. I loved that they could communicate when he was in horse form. I really liked Aric's character, he's such a cinnamon roll mmc. I wish I had gotten a better sense of what Bianca's condition was. It could have been anything so I just sorta forgot about it after awhile because I wasn't getting any real insight. I also thought that for these characters being older they felt very early 20s. It did take me awhile to become invested in the story, probably around 30%. All in all this was a fine story just nothing very memorable for me. Three stars

• bianca, fulfilling her duty to her family, agrees to a marriage-of-convenience to the heir to the throne of the neighbouring kingdom, despite the fact that prince aric doesn’t seem to want anything to do with her. when a wedding night plot to kill him goes awry, and ends up with aric turning into a literal horse with bianca as the main suspect, the unlikely duo must work together to reverse the curse & clear their names.
• i went into this book with pretty low expectations, and was very pleasantly surprised with how fun this story turned out to be! we love a murder plot investigation, and the whole “king turns into horse at night” part just added to the fun!
• this one’s for the horse girls who never got over their dreams of marrying a horse one day, and spent all their spare time reading ‘saddle club’ & ‘pine hollow’ books.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for the ARC of Behooved in exchange for an honest review. This was so much fun!

A rom-com fantasy with an arranged marriage and a quest to fix a spell gone wrong… yes please. It gives My Lady Jane and Shrek with lots of witty and sarcastic banter. Light hearted, silly, cheesy romantasy in the best way.

What do you do when your husband is turned into a horse? That's exactly what our main character is going to find out! Horse by day and infuriatingly handsome man by night, they will need to figure out how to break the curse put upon them.

Major Lady Jane vibes on this one, which I loved. But this really didn't hit the spot for me otherwise.

I really want to love this one but it was just okay. It's a cute book and I laughed a bunch but I just feel like it didn't shine the way I hoped it would.

An incredibly cute premise with a sweetheart of a love interest that I wish in the end had played out more strongly than it did. I didn't feel the overall politics were well enough thought out to maintain the romance (it was odd to have a democracy be the source of evil while actually the inherited monarchy was good, really, and we should keep it). This is exactly the sort of romantasy I want as escapism: an almost princess bride fairy tale feeling with a love story that doesn't rely entirely on the man being big and strong and angry, but the execution felt flat.

I had a lot of fun with Behooved, especially with all the horse puns scattered throughout it. And as a horse girlie, I love anything where a horse is one of the MCs.

Both the main characters take a bit to grow on you, but I did end up loving them. Bianca is smart and strong, both mentally and physically as she fights through a chronic illness and against the foes on the book. Aric is also smart, and is very much a book worm who would rather read in the library than go to a ball. Together they end up making a great team.

Right off the bat, the comparisons to “My Lady Jane” are inescapable! Who knew there could be two fantasy novels where the love interest is cursed to turn into a horse by day?? Unfortunately, while this one did have a few high points, I mostly set it down wishing that stupid Amazon hadn’t cancelled the “My Lady Jane” show!

I do think this book is at its best when it was leaning into its romcom elements. The absurdity, the banter, and the swift-moving romance are all best appreciated in line with tropes found romcoms. In these moments, the characters were amusing and the love story sweet, if a bit underdeveloped. On the other hand, I think the book struggled when approached from a fantasy perspective. There simply wasn’t enough “there” there. The magic system was incredibly ill-defined and there were many plot moments where, if you allowed your brain to turn back on, you’d be left scratching your head.

I also struggled to enjoy the main character. While I appreciate the author’s creation of a character who suffers from chronic illness, I think the execution was too heavy handed to be very effective. In the first few chapters, especially, it feels as if this is the only aspect of Bianca’s character that anyone cares about, including Bianca herself! It’s referenced a truly boggling number of times in a very small number of pages. Of course, this is an important part of her life and is a source of friction between her and her parents, who see this only as a weakness. However, I began to feel as if Bianca didn’t have anything else making up her character either, defining herself completely around this one aspect of herself, which seems completely contrary to how one should understand people who live with chronic illnesses.

I also struggled with the romance itself. Alas, the story leans heavily into the miscommunication trope, one of the banes of my existence. The wild leaps of logic were truly baffling at times. For example, on the night of the attack, Aric and Bianca are both attacked. But for some reason Aric goes on to think that Bianca was behind it all? And, as is so often the case with this trope, much of the confusion and animosity between them could have easily been solved with a few very short conversations.

Overall, this was an ok read. Strangely, this is one of those cases where I feel like the book would have been better served to have leaned more fully into the comedy aspects of the story. The attempts at serious fantasy elements or its handling of important themes all became stumbling blocks to my enjoyment of the book. That said, straight romcom readers may enjoy this one more than me! Especially if you don’t care as much about the fantasy portions of the story!

Rating 7: While the book did have some sweet and funny moments, I struggled to enjoy it due to its weaker main character and the heavy use of the miscommunication trope.

Link will go live on May 2 on The Library Ladies

Cozy romantasy about a woman who accidentally turns her new husband into a horse on their wedding night and then must learn to trust and cooperate with him in order to break the spell and keep a kingdom from certain disaster. Great disability rep and sweet, witty writing.

I got through about 6-7 chapters, then skimmed through parts of it, then gave up.

The premise is great. "Princess Bride" levels of humorous and interesting. NetGalley was even able to make it sound interesting enough for me to request it. To be excited to read it, even. This was going to be so fun and I would recommend it to everyone I came in contact with.

L. O. Fucking. L.

Nuclear. Dumpster. Fire.

When I was eleven, I fancied myself a writer. So I wrote a fantasy "novel." The pacing and flow of this book - which was presumably written by an adult who has honed their craft, edited by a professional team, alpha and beta read by many readers, and being marketed by a major publishing house and set to release in a little over a month - was eerily similar to the pace and flow of the rough little novel I wrote when I was barely on the cusp of puberty.

Dear indie authors - Never let TradPub snobs make you feel like your work is inferior. Not when THIS crap is getting pushed through the pipeline.

Characters are reduced to "She has [color] eyes and [color] hair with olive skin" and "He has [color] eyes and [color] hair with olive skin." Somehow, everyone has olive skin (um, yay diversity? I guess?) Every character has the same flat personality, and they only speak in exposition like they're in a bad Shyamalan movie. Servants know about SOOPER DOOPER TOP SECRET AND CIVILIZATION IMPACTING EVENTS five minutes after the main character gets it dropped on her like a bomb out of nowhere, and the reason the servants know is because "Tee, hee - servants gossip." Dialogue is just there to move the plot forward and it might as well be delivered with that cringey "As you know..." preamble. There is no sense of who these characters are, why they're important, and why I should care. During the dance scene at the ball, I totally missed that she changed dance partners - they were all the same!

The random sprinkling of "modern" terms was too jarring. The prose would be going along like it's trying to evoke a medieval/high fantasy tone, and then the MC will suddenly use terms like "horse's ass" or "puking." Did this person suddenly travel from the 1980s?

Also, a pommel on the saddle is NOT the saddle horn. The pommel is the raised part on the front of a saddle below the horn (if you're using a Western saddle. An English saddle has no horn). If a character is gripping a pommel with two hands, they're about to be thrown off, whether they like it or not. I don't care if this bisexual plank of wood has an allergic reaction to touching her horsey husband, she is going to grab onto his mane or SOMETHING.

(Excuse me, but I grew up around horses and details like this are like nails on a chalkboard. If you can't get something this basic right in a book WHERE THE POSEIDON-DAMNED MMC TURNS INTO A HORSE, there's no hope).

I know this was published by Tor and their standards for character development are in the gutter, but I REALLY want to emphasize that sexuality and celiac disease are NOT a substitute for actually writing interesting characters. I hope whoever's eleven-year-old niece you cribbed this manuscript from and added in "spice" to market it to adults is getting some big-time compensation for this tire fire.

I have to be honest. The cover sucked me in on this one. It's gorgeous. And the premise is interesting. Bianca is a noble who knows that duty comes before her heart. She has no magic and a mysterious ailment but she ALWAYS does her duty. For her country, she agrees to a marriage of convenience with the prince of a neighboring country. But their uncomfortable meeting leads to an even more unpleasant wedding. A spell gone aawry leads to a wedding night disaster, and the unlikely pair dashes across the country to find a way to reverse the curse and discover who has betrayed them.

The best part about Behooved is how campy it is. Unlike most romantasy novels, it is humorous and fun and does not take itself seriously, which is a lovely change from tortured teenagers who grimly fight monsters under the eyes of uncaring adults. I enjoyed the twist on the Firebird tale with our hero turning into a horse by day while he is a man by night. The writing was good and the story galloped along at a good pace. Sadly, I felt that the relationship was a bit too instalove for my taste and the plot wrapped up rather too quickly to provide maximum enjoyment.

A fun romp with a few bumps. 4 stars

Thank you to Bramble and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this title.

I thought this was such a cozy romance. Spice was minimal but I loved seeing the attraction between Aric and Bianca bloom after several misunderstandings. I absolutely adored how the two helped each other’s confidence grow. The world building wasn’t too heavy in terms of magical terms and locations so I think this might be a great intro to the romantasy genre. And I had a lot of laughs courtesy of the horsey innuendos 😂

If you enjoy the arranged marriage trope and liked the vibes of books like Shoestring Theory by Mariana Costa and my Lady Jane then you will enjoy Beehoved. The author wrapped things up pretty well in this book but I would be happy to see more of Aric and Bianca if she decided to write a sequel!

A very fun magical adventure! The growing romance between Bianca and Aric was satisfying in the pacing and emotional beats. The mystery of who tried to assassinate Aric was a touch predicable, but the romance made up for it!

A cozy-ish romantasy with a royal arranged marriage that leads to a lot of mutual pining. The romance was very sweet, with a capable woman managing her chronic illness (akin to celiac) paired with a very soft and bookish prince.

The writing is very Disney-esque, and the main character's sheltered perspective makes the book read quite young. But somehow, it matches the overall plot.

It took a while to get through the introductory world-building (which did not have much bearing on the story), but once the plot kicked in, the book ended up being a cute but straightforward romp.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bramble for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I LOVED this enchanted fairytale romance. A nerdy, soft-hearted heir apparent with a habit of turning into a white stallion at sunrise, a baddie FMC with a chronic disability and soft edges. The perfect read to snap me out of my reading slump and a highly anticipated read of the year! It definitely lived up to my expectations of being a cutesy fairytale.

Going into this, I expected a silly, lighthearted story. I mean, seriously, riding your husband on your wedding night... because he accidentally turns into a horse? Don’t overthink this one. It’s a rom-com, not a deep dive into emotional motifs, heavy-hitting conflicts or complex world building.

Behooved by M. Stevenson is a refreshingly different fantasy—no grand battles or overpowering magic, but an intimate, character-driven story rich with political intrigue, slow-burn romance, and thoughtful world-building.

The female main character suffers from an unnamed but recognizable celiac disease, which is misunderstood in her world and seen as a sign of weakness. Despite this, she remains fiercely dedicated to her family and her seemingly more "advanced" nation. Meanwhile, the male main character is a bookish, science-minded intellectual from a country more in tune with nature, highlighting the stark contrast between their homelands. Their romance builds gradually, woven into a story of duty and personal strength.

With a mix of quiet tension, steamy moments, plenty of riding, and a deep exploration of resilience, Behooved is a compelling fantasy worth picking up.

Thanks to Bramble for the digital advance review copy!

✨ARC Review✨

✅Magic
✅Arranged marriage
✅Reluctant ruler
✅Betrayal
✅Diversity and Inclusion

If you’re looking for a fun romantasy, Behooved is for you. M. Stevenson’s novel is a blend of humor, romance, adventure and magic.

I loved the FMC Bianca. She is strong, smart, and has a sense of duty. She cares for those around her including her parents who take advantage of her. She is excellent with swords and defending herself.

The MMC Aric is the opposite of Bianca. He is a reluctant ruler who values books over ruling. When we say opposites attract, it is very true for the main characters.

I found the side characters endearing as well especially Tatiana. She loves her sister so much. Also, Tatiana provides comic relief in the book.

I appreciate the representation in this book. We need more stories that represent how diverse people can be.

Some things that I thought could have been improved:
- I wanted to see more of Varin’s and Bianca and Tatiana’s parents’ motivations.
- What was causing Bianca’s illness that the greenwitch alluded to?
- The beginning dragged a little. I wished it gave more time for Bianca and Aric to develop their feelings for each other.

Absolutely love this book! I was skeptical at first but I highly recommend this book. I will say the spicy parts were very... different.. than what I expected but not complaining at ALL.

Reading the plot of the book had me a little nervous but this actually ended up being very cute, maybe I do like enemies to lovers after this. I do wish the FMC didn't complain so much about how much of a liability she is but I still appreciated the representation.