Order of Swans by Jude Deveraux

If you were a fan of the TV show Once Upon a Time, this is the chaotic version.

The vibes:
Fairytale retellings
3 stars
No spice
Chosen one
Quest squad

The book had some great elements, but it was just okay for me. For the first fifteen percent I thought it was going to be about space and planets, but that tapered off when we got to the planet of fairytales. Then, we were learning about a lot of characters.

I got all the male characters confused with each other for a while and I couldn't picture their ages. I thought one of the characters was in their 20s and come to find out he has a teenage son. Not being able to gauge this took me out of the story quite a bit.

The mmc (and everyone from this planet) is keeping a lot of secrets and that might make more sense in the second book, but it's creating a lot of issues in this book. I left this book with more questions than answers. Unfortunately, I don't know that it is enough to make me want to continue with the series.

The audiobook narrator did a wonderful job. There were a couple instances of the voice not matching up with the sentence before and after, like they had to redo it, but it wasn't too noticeable beyond those two times.

I would recommend this book to those who like fairytale retellings and the first book in the series and who don't mind a cliffhanger. However, there are other books I would recommend first.

If you wanted a retelling of every fairytale combined into one, this one is for you. Not to mention it’s set on another planet with our FMC being the center of it all. It was giving Once Upon a Time vibes mixed with the enemies to lover trope. I binged it in one workday so the narrator definitely held my interest. It was a cute slow burn romance.

Gorgeous Cover? Check!
Great Narration? Check!

That is where my excitement slows for this book. The synopsis and premise of this book sounded absolutely amazing. However, I just could not get into the story.

Most of the characters are pretty unlikable, which is fine on its own — but the story felt like I was in a fever dream and could not find my way out. It all seemed very disjointed. I love Sci-Fi, but I’m not sure why that was chosen as the premise for the “other world” in this book when it actually might have made more sense for it to be Fae or something similar. I know that can be a little overdone right now, but they did not give alien or sci-fi vibes really. I ended the book just more confused than I started it, and the ending was kind of lackluster. I MIGHT pick up the next book just to get some closure, and hope that things begin to make more sense… I am positive there are readers out there that will get lost in the world that Jude created, but unfortunately I just wasn’t one of them. Which is sad, and I hate when I just can’t connect with the characters or story.

I am open to reading something else by Jude Deveraux, but I’m not sure about this series.

I do appreciate the ALC from HarlequinAudio and NetGalley.

Kaley Arens is a PhD student who is focused on folktales. After receiving bad news from her advisor about her dissertation, she decides to accompany her family friend Jobi to his home country, an island that she never heard of before and does not show up on maps. Once there she encounters real life fairy tales and other unexplainable things. Yet, she doesn’t question much.

I loved Jude Deveraux for decades and was excited that she had a new book, but it did not feel like her writing. Maybe it was just me, but I felt like I was listening to an author that wants to be Nora Roberts. Although I was disappointed in this book, I will still read the next one. I think Alexandra Hunter did a good job narrating the book. Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin Audio for the advanced copy of the audio book in exchange for my honest review.

2.5 stars

#netgalley #halequinaudio

Fairy tales aren’t just Kaley’s childhood, they’re her dissertation. But could they be her life?

Things I loved:
💀 dark fairy tales
✨ magical humor
⚔️ quest vibes

Fans of Once Upon a time will want to check out this twisted tale!

I was not sold on the advanced alien society that was also living in a technologically primitive way. The alien planet being the world where fairytales are being played out IRL did not jive for me. The combination of the two was not my favorite vehicle for this story. I can get behind the chosen-one main character being trained up to change the society of fairy tale land, she could get there by magical or scientific means, but the fact that it was a different planet and meant to be advanced enough to have traveled to and from earth for many years for different purposes was odd. The magic system and world building were interesting, but the story lacked finesse. She kept saying she was there to collect stories, but never really worked on that at all, although she did realize very quickly that she knew the stories she saw being lived out and was meant to do something about them, give them a different outcome. All in all it was not one I would highly recommend.

This book was fun. It follows a PhD student studying folklore who, when her project is rejected by her program director, goes with a family friend to an unknown “island” to study his culture—but unbeknownst to her, she’s actually taken to another planet, one where well-known earth fairy tales actually occur.

Filled with heart, some awkward-in-the-best-way romance, and many fractured fairy tales, it was a joyful ride that had me both kicking my feet and laughing. Knowing the fairy tales and what they could mean for the plot allowed for foreshadowing and foreboding. The cast of characters are well-rounded and the audiobook narration brought the story to life in a way only audio can.

Order of Swans is perfect for readers who enjoy:
Fantasy with light sci-fi elements
Fractured fairy tales
Side characters who make you laugh (and now make you want books with THEIR perspective)
Annoyance-to-lovers
Sweet romance
Magical Swans
Folklore
Adventure

Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin Audio for the audiobook ARC. I look forward to Jude Deveraux’s future projects.

I went into this book without knowing much about it, and I think that helped a lot! It seems the book has been marketed as something that it isn't, which is understandably disappointing for some readers.

It's a blend of fantasy with sci-fi and contains very minimal romance. The main character is brought to another planet where fairy tales are taking place, but she thinks she's on a disconnected island and doesn't realize that she has left Earth. A lot of things are confusing - but this seems to be deliberate, since our main character is piecing things together too. This is written in multi-POV in a really unique way, but it was a little hard to follow at times in the audiobook whose perspective we were in.

Sojee is my favorite character by far! I had some trouble relating to Kaley, although she was our FMC and is a PhD student like me. I found her to be cringey and annoying - she's somehow very uncurious while also demanding to know everyone's secrets. Still, overall I did enjoy this story! I thought the world was extremely unique and interesting, and I liked the found family element a lot. I also thought it was cool how the reader feels in on the secret of the fairy tales since we know of the stories like Hansel and Gretel and Cinderella while the characters from the other planet are all confused at how Kaley knows what is about to happen. It feels like the reader is in on an inside joke somehow, which was a really fun aspect.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the ALC of this book! I look forward to the next one.

I signed up for this book not really knowing what it was about. With that being said it really surprised me. I love how it’s based on another planet but with earth aspects. I also had fun with the fairytales added into this story. I got the audiobook version so it took me a little longer to finish. It did also have a slow start but I totally got into it after the journey/quest started! The ending is left on a cliffhanger and my jaw was literally on the floor! I will be reading the next in the series. Fingers crossed that happens because wow this was a fun read.

The romance between the MMC and FMC was definitely a VERY slow burn so that was driving me crazy but in a good way. The tension was there and the personality of FMC is spicy! I love it!

Thank you NetGalley, Harlequin Audio and The Hive for this audiobook!

⭐️2.5 ⭐️
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read Order Of Swans! Let me start with the positives for this book. The narrator of this book did an amazing job and the writing wasn’t bad other than that the book was a bit of a roller coaster ride for me. Kaley gets taken away to another planet by her Alien family friend who has been preparing her for all her life to fulfill a prophecy that I still don’t know what exactly it was. The main character Kaley and her love interest ignored each other for more then half the book and then all of a sudden were all over each other and were loved up and on this planet fairytales are real and only Kaley knew about what fairytales were but for half of the book she just thought she was on vacation in another country as they literally killed the witch from Hantzel and Gretel. I easily got lost a lot of times in this book because one moment they were doing something and then the next it was a whole different thing they were doing. Everything was very chaotic and not organized in this book and there were moments I was weirded out in this book like when she flirted with her love interests son and was making the love interest jealous by it and granted I still don’t know how old the son is but either way it’s weird. This book wasn’t for me but if you like fairytales, aliens and prophecies then maybe this book is for you! Thank you again to NetGalley for letting me read Order Of Swans!💕📚

It is not often that a book takes you completely by surprise. I thought this would be just a fun fantasy novel and yet it was a perfectly, fun mashup of science fiction and fantasy. Imagine another world where the fairytales we know and love here on earth are yet to happen somewhere else. Kaley was born on earth but her life and who she is, is not as it seems. I really loved taking the ride along this one and not knowing where it was going to take me. A lot of books I have read lately seemed very predictable but if you are looking for one that is not then this might need to be your next read.

Order of Swans by Jude Devereaux

⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3.5/5

This book was … interesting. It wasn’t bad by any means, just interesting.

Our story takes place on the mysterious islands of Bellis, a place far away from our fmc’s home planet of Earth. Our girl, Kaley Arens, is a PhD student studying fairytales and folklore. When her dissertation is turned down, she agrees to accompany her best friend Jobi to his homeland of Bellis, a place she believes to be a remote island on Earth with untold fairytales and folklore that she can use to spice up her dissertation. Much to Kaley’s shock and chagrin, Bellis is actually on another planet, three Earth-years away. While there, she learns that she may have a bigger role to play than she originally imagined, her best friend Jobi has been lying to her for the entirety of her life, and that she has been plopped smack dab in the middle of a world where fairytales come true and only she has the power to change them.

This book is a tough genre to nail down. I don’t read a lot of science fiction, but this one seemed to be primarily that with a splash of fantasy and hint of romance. I don’t think the author’s primary goal was to make this a sci-fi book because she steered away from any mention of spaceships, high-tech gadgets and gizmos, or alien life forms. However, it was hard for me to fully imagine it as a fantasy just because it still existed within our own universe. I suppose “low-fantasy” would be the proper terminology for it, but I still struggle to say that’s it’s classification. In some ways this planet is more advanced than Earth, but in other ways, it’s very primitive. I enjoyed hearing Kaley explain Earth-things to Tanek and Sojee. It made for some very funny, laugh-out-loud moments.

As far as romance goes, it is veryyyy slow-burn. Almost non-existent burn. The romance definitely took a backseat to the politics and adventure, so much so, that when the main characters finally do kiss, it feels out of place and doesn’t really make sense at that point in the story. I needed more pining and flirting. It’s absence was explained away by “that’s not how we do it on this planet.” That seemed like a trivial reason to me, and I think the story would have benefitted from just a little more romance.

The fairytales were meh to me. I didn’t think they really added to the story that much, and their presence was never really explained. We never learn why fairytales are playing out on this planet or why Kaley is able to put a stop to them. I will concede that this is a duology, and that there is a very good chance that will be covered in the sequel, so I’m not docking points for that, but it just seemed like an extraneous element to me.

I liked Kaley’s connection to the animals. I thought it was super adorable and loved all the little critters she talked to and formed relationships with. It was really cool to see creatures from Earth that are now extinct, like dodo birds, on Bellis. I enjoyed that element a lot.

I do have a bit of an issue with Jobi. He remains a mystery for the entire book. We never learn anything more than surface level about him, what he does on Bellis, why Kaley is so important to him, his plans for her, or whether he’s even good or bad. With him having such an important presence in the beginning, it seemed odd for him to take a backseat the rest of the book. A little more explanation was needed there.

Overall, this wasn’t a bad book. Could it have been a lot better? Yeah, sure, but the foundation is there. The potential is there. I enjoyed the audiobook. The narrator did a great job. I probably won’t be purchasing this book, but I do think I’ll read the sequel. I’m intrigued enough to want to see how it ends.

Thank you to NetGalley, Jude Devereaux, and Harlequin Audio for the ALC in exchange for an honest review! All opinions shared are my own.

Review will posted on Goodreads, Instagram, and Amazon, and links will be added as they post.

2 stars! 🌟 Thank you, Harlequin Audio & NetGalley for the ALC! 💌

Y’ALL. WHAT DID I JUST LISTEN TO?!

I love a good fairytale retelling, I love sci-fi, and I love being swept away into magical worlds. So in theory, Order of Swans should have been EVERYTHING. But in reality? It felt like I got thrown into a chaotic fever dream where NOTHING made sense, and I was just expected to nod along like an NPC. 😩🌪️

Let’s start with our FMC, Kaley—a PhD student who supposedly specializes in folklore. Except… she knows nothing about anything and spends the entire book being clueless. Like, girl, you’re transported to a supposed island (SPOILER: it’s another planet) 🌍, you see dragons 🐉, magical creatures ✨, and people acting WEIRD 😵, and you just shrug and move on?! At this point, I don’t think you’re getting that doctorate, babe. 🙄

And then there’s the plot, or rather, the random sequence of events that technically form a book. One second, we’re in a medieval-ish fairytale village 🏰, the next we’re on a spaceship 🚀. We have high-tech implants and teleportation but also… no phones? No logic? 🤷‍♀️ No world-building? Just vibes? 🙃

Don’t even get me started on the romance. Tanek, our MMC, is giving "emotionally unavailable but not in the sexy way" 🥴. There’s some weird love-triangle-but-not-really situation 😬, and honestly, I didn’t care enough to figure it out. 🙅‍♀️

Oh, and THE CLIFFHANGER?? It wasn’t even a good one. It just… stopped. Mid-scene. Like the author closed their laptop 💻 and forgot to write the rest. 😤🖤

Now, the reason I didn’t DNF? The narrator SLAYED (Narration: 4.5/5) 💯. Alexandra Hunter carried this book on her back and made it almost tolerable. If I had been reading a physical copy 📚, I would’ve rage-quit within the first few chapters. 😠

🔮 Final thoughts:
✧ Great concept, HORRIBLE execution. 😬
✧ Kaley, please ask a single question. Just one. 😑
✧ Sci-fi and fairytales CAN mix well… but this ain’t it. 🤦‍♀️
✧ Cliffhangers should leave you desperate for more, not furious. 😡

Would I read the sequel? Absolutely not. Would I listen to this narrator again? 1000%. 🔊

This is an audiobook review. Order of Swans is not the kind of book I typically choose to read, but Rebecca Yarros recently recommended Jude Deveraux. This book was not for me. It was slow in pace and relatively boring. A 3 star rating to me means I didn't hate it but I don't really recommend it. It took a long time for anything to actually happen, 10% in and Im like okay we are in space and there are metallic swans,. 15% in and the plot still hadn't been established. Ultimately we will always love books with dragons that feature an underdog fated FMC and a hot MMC with beautiful eyes.

Kaley may have accidentally ended up on an alien planet...and she has no idea why or how. For some reason, fairytales are coming to life, she has a really hot guide, there are no women on this island, and everything keeps going wrong.

This book includes:
- magical swans
- animal/human (alien??) hybrids
- a "chosen one"
- alien civilization

The only way I can think of to describe this book is Once Upon a Time meet Jumanji...but it feels insane to even write that down. To make things even more insane, the main character's name is Kaley. Kaley! I don't think I can morally condone naming a fantasy book protagonist "Kaley." I don't know, this was a tough one. I didn't feel like I could ever cheer Kaley on because she was so dumb and oblivious. I didn't find her funny, or charming, or even likable. When male characters started showing signs of falling in love with her, I was genuinely so confused because she has 0 redeeming qualities. Like Once Upon a Time, this book had insane, unrelated plot lines that included fairytales and just left me with more questions than answers every time. Perhaps this book was especially written for blonde, suburban millennial, white moms who have accrued all of their credit card debt by visiting Disneyland every few months. Maybe its for women who resent their husbands for completely letting go of themselves and becoming useless couch potatoes who have plateaued in their career and refuse to go down on their wives. I don't know!! But I am none of those things, so this book is not for me. even the narrator let me down with their lack of razzle dazzle. I have given this book a 3 star because it really isn't that bad, I just really didn't like it.

I received this audiobook as an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Jude Deveraux, and Harlequin Audio for the opportunity to review this book. This review has been posted across my socials under the username @tinynightingales, check out my GoodReads profile https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/62314863
my bookstagram account https://www.instagram.com/tinynightingales/
and booktok https://www.tiktok.com/@tinynightingales?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

This book delivers exactly what the author promises—a space adventure infused with fairy tale elements. But don’t expect a simple retelling where the plot is predictable just because you recognize the stories. Instead, it’s an original and intriguing adventure on a distant planet, with fairy tale references cleverly woven in to enrich the narrative without overpowering it.

The story begins with small, mysterious hints about an alien species, leaving you curious and eager to learn more as the plot unfolds. These tidbits grow into a captivating mystery, building an immersive world that feels both familiar and otherworldly.

Kaley Arens, a PhD student with a deep knowledge of folklore, is unexpectedly swept into this world of legends made real. What starts as a visit to the home of her lifelong friend Jobi turns into an adventure beyond imagination. Bellis, a world brimming with beauty and danger, is far more than the remote island Kaley thought it was. Here, folklore is not just a subject of study—it’s a living force.

Tasked with finding a lost prince, Kaley teams up with a cast of intriguing characters: Tanek, a mysterious member of the Order of Swans, and Sojee, her loyal and formidable bodyguard. As they journey across this strange yet magical land, Kaley’s understanding of fairy tales—and her own destiny—is turned upside down. In Bellis, the lines between heroes and villains blur, and nothing is quite as it seems.

What makes this story stand out is how seamlessly the fairy tale elements are integrated. They serve as touchstones that make the unfamiliar world easier to connect with, but they never dominate the plot. Instead of driving the story, they enhance it, adding depth and resonance without becoming predictable.

If you love stories that blend fantasy, folklore, and adventure in unexpected ways, this book is a must-read. The slow unraveling of the world’s mysteries, combined with the lush descriptions and layered plot, will keep you turning the pages until the very end

I actually don’t really know how to feel about this book, it has an interesting premise but I think it tries to be too many things in one. It has the classic fairy tales coming to life which gives fantasy vibes, but our main character lives in our modern world which okay it’s giving Cruel Prince or even Once Upon a Time, BUT then you have spaceship going to another planet which is more sci-fi??? There’s nothing wrong with a book that tries to push the boundaries of what a genre is, but this a little too much genre hopping. The characters were interesting and I actually did enjoy the plot and character progression, but there was quite a lot of random things happening that was kind of weird. Overall, it was an interesting read!

Imagining your whole life was planned out from birth till the time you become an adult by someone you thought was your closet friend . And then find out you have the power to alter fairytales and change a kingdoms destiny…
This book was for sure a solid novel that brought back the nostalgia of fairytales and magic of those worlds.
We meet Kaley, a expert in folklore who is thrown into a world where her knowledge is put to use in finding a lost Prince along with her companions-the enigmatic Tanek, a member of the Order of Swans, and Sojee, Kaley's colossal bodyguard-journey through a land both thrilling and terrifying, where the uncanny and the familiar go hand in hand.
The narrator Alexandra Hunter brought this story to life with a unique flare that made this story soar.
The story had its ups and downs but was enjoyable with the main characters energy that was the lifeblood of this novel.
Would I recommend it? For sure if you like reimagined story’s with fairytales injected and main characters that you root for.
Thanks to the Amazing folks at NetGalley and Harlequin Audio for a copy of this book. You are the best.
My review is a honest reflection of my feelings towards this book.

I was captured by this book from start to finish.

If you are a fan of Fairytales and modern world built in this is for you. (Once Upon A Time vibes)

I felt connected to the main character and wanted to see her prove herself throughout the story.

Enjoyed following along with each adventure and the added in Tolkien mentions etc.

Can’t wait to see what’s next for this series!

I’ve never watched “Once Upon a Time,” but I’ve heard that fans of the show love it. I really enjoyed the audiobook. It had a very different and unique blend of the modern world, fairytale elements, and space travel. It was a refreshing change of pace compared to my usual fantasy romance. I’m not usually drawn to sci-fi, but I think the genre has been a tad underestimated lately.


*Amazon review is waiting for approval.