Do you ever read a book and you’re like, “Loved it. But I have no clue who I’d recommend it to?” lol

Here’s my thesis: my love for this (highly unusual) fantasy romance involved two kinds of nostalgia—
✨ old school historical romance nostalgia
✨ 90s era high fantasy nostalgia

Because it had a ton of bodice ripper stuff:
✨ think, secret identity princess in an arranged marriage to the enemy king where she has to produce an heir in a year or he’ll kill her (lol) with some dub con added in for effect 😬

And it had some Wheel of Time-feeling stuff:
✨ think, magical sword only to be wielded by the prophesied hero on an epic battle field plus inherited magical abilities and a plucky sidekick.

But this was published in 2014 and it was pure camp:
✨ for the romance—our heroine was giving Cinderella, our hero was giving Beast, his ‘inner wolf’ recognized her as his mate, and their ‘passion’ was so old school it made me laugh
✨ and that fantasy world building had to be a bit tongue-in-cheek. Cheeseball names abounded (his name was Wynter and he was the Winter King), people were talking to animals, the pirate people fought with tridents, the winter people had battle ice trolls, and characters were magically saved from death every few pages 😆

It satisfied my craving to be the adult version of the kid at the beginning of The Princess Bride movie, being told a story. Especially the audiobook, with its vaguely Russian accents.