The series starts with a human woman kidnapped from Earth who escapes her captors on an alien planet, good aliens rescue her and introduce her to their society which due to the population disparity between men and women, women are pretty much in control – men have to take classes in school on pleasing a woman with the hope they will be chosen for a marriage which is a short term commitment in which a woman decides if the man is worthy of raising a kid and if so attempts to become pregnant before the marriage ends and she moves on to another husband. There is a lot of really interesting world building that goes into this and the society is a bit more complex than can be easily described here. There is of course also the magical ‘mating bond’ in which a couple is soul mates or whatever and that transcends everything else but of course that hasn’t been seen in like over 100 years and is totally impossible right, jk this is a romance novel of course that is what happens.

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.

 It was fine. This story suffered from too many characters too little time to get into them. The story follows Cari (what is with fantasy characters named normal things it totally throws me off) who is the princess of one warring realm who is sent by her dictatorial father to marry the princes of the other realm they are warring with. That’s right, princes, because tradition is crown princes share a bride and there are 4 of them. I am clearly not opposed to polyamory (in fact much prefer it to a love triangle) but this story falls in the trap that so many others do where the author just doesn’t have the skill to fully articulate 5 different characters and so they all suffer for it. Every character is a 2d version of what they could be, and while the sex is hot and the story vaguely what one could consider entertaining, it just falls flat. There is a sequel to this book (it might not be out yet I am not really sure) but honestly probably not going to read it, not really interested enough to keep reading. 

The premise is that Peter Pan’s shadow was stollen and he thinks it was by a Darling so every time a Darling daughter reaches 18 (or something I can’t remember which birthday but are legal adults basically) he kidnaps them and they are always returned but often are returned ‘mad’ something having terribly traumatized them. We pick up the story on Winnie Darlings birthday where her mom has done everything she can to keep her safe but Peter Pan shows up anyway and takes her away to Neverland to try and pry the secret out of her head. Winnie though is no damsel in distress and she befriends/ seduces the primary core squad (idk what to call it) of Lost Boys and Peter Pan. Lots of sex and chaos ensues. I will say this story is definitely the dark story I was looking for but Winnie is a really compelling character and I really enjoyed her frank use of sex as a tool at her disposal without any shame about it, I thought it made for a much more interesting reading than endless internal shame spirals about liking rough sex.

So the blurb is what really got me to read this book which is something along the lines of epic fantasy mix of Hades/ Persephone, Beauty and the Beast, and Finnish folklore, which like, with a description like that how could I not. I enjoyed this book a fair amount, I feel like it slightly oversold itself and I would have liked a bit more epic world building and character development to live up to the promise of the blurb but it was still good. Essentially an estranged daughter goes on a quest to the underworld to save her father from death. The main character was interesting and compelling but her journey into the underworld was not long enough (it should take more than a day or two I feel like) and the story suffered deeply from a lack of communication between the main characters. Hanna and Death actually would have made really interesting foils to each other if they had ever spoken more than like 5 words at a given time which was really frustrating. There was also a lack of introspection on the main characters part which was also irritating. All in all a really interesting concept handled a bit clumsily.

The series is a sort of dark Beauty and the Beast where Beauty is a badass but not in an over the top way in a way that seems authentic and genuine to her character. We follow Finley a shifter in a kingdom cursed by a Demon king, where before the curse everyone could shift into different animals and their kingdom was ruled by dragons. The curse prevents everyone from being able to access their animals and an illness falls upon the kingdom. Finely is from the poorest village and is determined to not watch anyone else wither away and die from the curse and ends up creating an elixir which stalls the curse illness but does not cure it. After watching both her grandmother and mom die she is determined not to let her dad die as well but of course the main ingredient is in the forbidden woods where a beast lurks. She goes anyway and makes it back but the beast finds her and she runs from her house to spare her siblings lives and then finds out that the beast is actually the last dragon shifter whose wings have been torn off by the curse. He kidnaps her and takes her to the castle since she has been stealing from the forbidden woods. Beyond that we get some standard Beauty and the Beast scenes but the story defiantly takes on it’s own tone and life as well. There is a bit of enemies to lovers thing going on, the beast is a bit grumpy, but overall as far as romance goes I was pretty happy with the way the relationship progressed particularly with how much the male main character appreciated and trusted the female main character, he was protective of her but didn’t feel full on cave man which I always find a bit irritating.