I really really tried. I wanted to DNF in the first 2 chapters but I made it halfway through the book before I could really bring myself to do it. Basic premise is that Rasputin is actually young and hot and Anastasia has magic and I guess they plan on overthrowing the Romanovs together??? If you don’t know the fall of the Russian royal family is one of the time periods of history I’m always down to watch a documentary about but not like, one of the ones I’m really obsessed with (looking at you MA in ancient history) so I was really excited to see what the author would do with it, spoiler alert, nothing interesting. By the time the story really starts we are already wildly outside of actual history, all the Romanov children are grown up and married (which they never got to do) even Alexi the prince and so far it just seems like he straight up doesn’t have Hemophilia which was the whole reason Rasputin was even brought to the royal palace in the fist place??? Basically there is a really interesting and complex thing going on in actual history and the author says what if not that and I make the king and queen evil to their one daughter (which as far as I am aware they were actually pretty loving parents for royals?) for no real reason. Basically this story would have been so much better if the author had just made up a completely fictional setting for the story but has to make so many changes to historical fact that it is so not worth it, also the magic system is bad and dumb and makes no sense and is a completely over powered fix it for completely contrived conflict. Also Anastasia is the main character and she is characterized so completely shittily I can’t even handle it, her inner monologue is draining, as is Rasputins, actually every POV character is exhausting and sounds like they were written by an overly dramatic 12 year old. I really did not like this book.

I will preface this by saying I did not actually finish The Forsaken King by Penelope Barsetti but I read like, 85% and it was like so long so I feel like I put in the hours to at least give it some of a review. I was feeling in the mood for some dark fantasy as the book I read before this one just ended up falling flat so I thought this might fit the bill. TW: there is reference to non-consensual and it is threatened against a character which is sort of where this book lost me. It could have been really interesting, princess character grows up not knowing that her wealth comes from her fathers cruel and violent take over and is then kidnaped by the son of the man her father deposed but honestly this just skirts all the interesting possibilities for dramatics. The main character is tough, until it isn’t useful to the plot and she is smart, until it isn’t useful to the plot, and she holds her own, until it isn’t useful to the plot, and honestly the plot was worse off for it. The point that really lost me the worst though was when the main character makes a very valid comparison between the male main character and her father and he storms off, never apologizes for it and just fucks her instead and calls her baby (can fantasy novels stop using baby I don’t know why does this shit throw me out of it so much but it does). Like her dad did some majorly fucked up stuff, like real bad, but not like the main male character hasn’t also done shitty stuff, it’s only because the female main character is into it that it isn’t worse. Uncountable baffling decisions.