The Dark Years

I received a review copy for free courtesy of NetGalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

The Dark Years is the first installment in the four-book series about Princess Aurora, Future Queen of Archenland. From the summary of the book, it is known that these books will be a love story between her and Martin, the guard Captain sworn to protect her, however, this book was much more than that.

What I liked about this book:
1. I like the feminist aspects of the book. Despite tradition, her father wishes to teach her everything a son/future king would learn, especially given her grandmother was a strong and independent queen. I love that she is required to train with the guards so she can understand their thought process as well as have some self-defense skills. I also appreciate that her parents don’t care who she marries (noble or commoner) as long as the love is great and makes her a better person/ruler, fully realizing that whoever she marries won’t be the true controller of the kingdom, it will remain in her hands.

2. I appreciated that this was a short novel with mostly short chapters. There was no real fluff to try to quickly read through to get to the good stuff, it was all captivating.

3. I like that Aurora is witty and smart, as well as can hold her own in combat against the guards. She is definitely a firecracker. However, she also is shown to be depressed, unconfident, and needing to learn various skills in this first book, so she is not made out to be a Mary Sue, which is fantastic. We need to be able to see her trials and tribulations, everything she goes through and overcomes to become the great ruler she is meant to be one day.

I love that we are able to see a comparison throughout the book between the situations Aurora is put in to help her confidence grow and train her for her future role as queen compared to the confidence of the women in the self-defense group before letting them flourish with their learned techniques.

4. Above all else, Aurora genuinely cares about people and will make a great queen someday, which makes me want to continue reading her story.

5. I really enjoyed the relationship growth between Aurora and the Captain. I really hope he doesn’t get killed off in one of the other books…

6. Finally, I like the idea that there are these characters in the background that are looking to bring Aurora down, but we don’t know or see much about them. It’s a mystery I’m sure will continue throughout the series and provide anticipation.

What caused the book to not have a 5-star rating for me:
1. The pacing can be a bit jarring at times. The third-person perspective will be lost in thought on something in the current and then the next paragraph there is a time jump to a week later that isn’t really eased into as well as it could be.

2. OKAY, until I was about 35% of the way through the SECOND book, I totally thought Martin was Greene's first name. I had no clue Martin was the Captain! Maybe this was just unclear to me and/or I majorly missed something, but that makes A LOT of difference. I'm kind of bummed that I didn't realize this in book 1 so I could enjoy it more.

3. The story is so short, that I feel some character development for others is skipped over. We should see more of Greene, know more of the Captain, and more of her parents. Hoping to get more of this in the next books.

4 stars!

The Dark Years is book 1 of 4 in The Guarded Heart series and opens on Princess Aurora’s 25th birthday. Right off the bat you gather that she is much more than meets the eye and feels very deeply. However she suffers from a form of depression that has stolen her enthusiasm for life and has left her longing for a piece of something missing from her life.

Not your average princess story, this book largely focuses on Aurora’s preparation for the throne which includes training consisting of less formal etiquette and more experience/confidence building tasks. It is during these training experiments that we reach the heart of what starts Aurora’s evolution from Princess to Queen, as she encounters a situation of domestic abuse and decides to take action by extending the defensive training classes she herself received to women in her kingdom. It’s here you really begin to get a picture of who she was, and who she still is under whatever weight she is carrying. I’m hoping we’re able to dive more into her past and what led to her depressive state in the upcoming books.

There are multiple love interests, however no prince catches her eye. Free to marry whoever she wants, she finds herself drawn to a new guard named Greene who also develops feelings for her. What wasn’t clear at first is why this was an issue if she IS free to marry whoever she wants. However our second main love interest comes in the form of Martin who is referred to as “The Captain”. Once I figured this out it was easier to follow the story so I’m going to help you out with this tidbit!

The interaction and budding relationship between Aurora and Martin is tender and sweetly slow and I cannot wait to see where it goes. The impression is given that the two of them do have some kind of history so I’m anxious to see if there’s more than meets the eye, or if they go nowhere and Aurora finds her way back to Greene who has never quite left her mind.

Throughout the book we get glimpses of two conspirators who are clearly out to cause harm and trouble for Aurora, and it gives the impression they have someone feeding them information from the inside so I anticipate there being more action and possibly more twists and turns as the series progresses.

Overall it was a solid start to the series and built the character of Aurora beautifully. A little difficult to follow at times, especially while switching character scenes/POV, it hits the right note for anyone looking for a modern, very female positive twist on a Disney Princess Classic-esque fantasy tale. The characters are supposed to be older (in their 20s), however they read much younger (as does the book as a whole) and I feel as though this book would be very well suited for the younger end of the YA spectrum.

TW: Depression, Domestic Violence, Abuse.

I would like to thank NetGalley for sending me a copy of this book free in exchange for my honest review!

I really enjoyed everything about this book from the stunning front cover to the goos storyline, the writing and the great character development. there were so many layers to this book and so many qualities that made this a great read. One of the main things that I liked about it was that Princess Aurora was not your typical princess demure and quiet and her parents were not the usual royal family that wanted a damsal in distress daughter. Aurora is fierce and learning how to rule like a future king in order to follow in her grandmothers footsteps. She is clever funny and I adored her.
The ending of this book just made me want more, I cannot wait for book 2 to come out and im chomping at the bit for book 3 and 4 too so i can see how her story plays out. A really good read.