Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

King's Bride by Beck Michaels

2 reviews

daisycantread24's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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koistyfishy's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

4.5

4.5 Little Thorn Stars ⭐️
Spicy Rating 🌶️🌶️🌶️/5

There are many books which claim that they are the “cure” for a book hangover. But trust me when I say if you are suffering from a book depression or reading slump and need something to drag you back out, THIS IS THE BOOK TO DO IT! I don't think up until now I have read a book that resonates more with that claim, than King’s Bride!

This was a good ol’ bowl of trope soup, but I love tropes and GOD WAS IT DELICIOUS. I feel like Beck Michaels climbed into my mind and withdrew exactly what I wanted to read AND in my eyes bring on the bread for the soup! Anyone should be able to dip into this book, as you will find a trope in this for you!

We have
❆ Enemies to Lovers
❆ Beauty and the Beast Retelling
❆ Slow Burn with Spicy Payoff
❆ Dagger to the Throat
❆ Arranged Marriage
❆ Touch her you die
❆ One Horse
❆ Rhysand Teaching her how to read

This is a stand-alone NA third-person narrative following Sunnëva set in Urn (the same universe as The Guardians of the Maiden Series). Sunnëva is living in a village that is really suffering. They are in the Everfrost, which is a land completely covered in snow and ice. This means food is very scarce and limited. One day her bother is bitten by a warg, and the only way to save him is for Sunnëva to steal one of the God Kings Roses. Things do not go as planned and events lead to Jökull giving her the impossible choice of becoming his bride or she and her entire clan dies. (I mean that seems like a pretty easy choice to me)... Sunnëva uses this as an opportunity to find his weakness to kill him once and for all.

Something I loved is you can always see how much care and thought Beck Michaels puts into her story and writing with how well thought out the plot is and how magnificent everything manages to wrap up together. There are influences of mythology, aspects from the traditional Beauty and the Beast Story and glorious nuggets from the original Guardians of the Maidens Story. It’s just so brilliant in its complexity that it made me giddy (But do not worry if you have not read GotM you won’t miss out on anything)

Obviously we know this is Enemies to Lovers, but what pans out is a beautiful slowburn romance that really does take the proper steps of “relationship progression” to lovers. Sunnëva’ hatred starts to thaw as she uncovers who Jökull is, learns and understands his motivations and reasons for his actions. And I believed every step of the journey.

In general, the banter between the two was just perfect and the tension between them could have been cut with a knife, it hung so thick in the air. Jökull is quite protective and possessive of his bride in a very typical alpha male way, and takes the trope “touch her you die” to the next level... Like if you just breathe wrong in her direction, he might rip out your spine.

I also really loved the way Sunnëva was portrayed as a character. She has had a lot of hardship thrust on to her. Not just difficult living conditions but is also recovering from a past assault that has physcially and mentally scarred her. She carries these scars and the trauma of that night with her and defines herself by them. It was really moving and inspiring to see how she learns to overcome this skewed definition of herself as her relationship with Jökull progresses.

Ultimately I loved it! I loved every moment of this! I am so glad that Beck Michaels has dipped her toes into more NA and embraced spicy. It might be because it plays into every trope that I love, but I am a girl of simple pleasures if they are done right, and this DOES IT RIGHT. I stand by if those tropes make you tingle, this is the book for you!

Also if you haven’t read The Gaurdians of the Maiden books yet! GO READ THOSE TOO!!!!

Thank you so much to Beck Michael’s for this eARC in exchange for a review!
All thoughts and feelings are my own

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