Category: Fairytale Retelling

Magic & Manners by Melissa Constantine

On By TracyIn Fairytale Retelling, Historical Paranormal/Fantasy, Paranormal / Fantasy, Part of a Series, Tracy's Reviews, Young AdultLeave a comment

Magic & Manners (Curtsies & Consequences Book 2)Magic & Manners by Melissa Constantine

Tracy’s Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Series: Curtsies & Consequences #2

Release Date: June 9, 2025

After suffering from a heartbreak due to unrequited love, Lady Diana Yarborough of Wills gets a second chance at love when she and her mother are invited to spend time with Prince Travers of Tull. But when her mother gets ill right before they are supposed to leave, she thinks she will have to cancel. But her mother insists that she must go, so she sets out for the Kingdom of Tull with just a handful of servants and a mountain of luggage. But her hopes of an idyllic visit are blown almost as soon as she arrives – to a bay full of dead fish and no royal escort awaiting her. She learns that the prince and his aunt the Duchess are not in residence and there is not another ship leaving for weeks! She checks into the Rutledge Hotel (which would have been lovely if not for the aforementioned dead fish) and plans to leave just as soon as she can. But upon arriving she runs into Sir Jordaan, a knight she met last spring who is at the hotel recovering from a sleeping sickness, a man who is as infuriating as he is attractive and who is completely wrong for her. But her return to Wills won’t happen any time soon, as she is caught up in a mystery involving the prince, fairies, a witch, shapeshifters and of course the one man she absolutely shouldn’t be thinking about…

Sir Jordaan Van Dine is the youngest son of the very powerful Baron Van Dine and a knight in service to the Duke of Lower Miser. Last spring while helping his friend Sir Robert find a missing princess, he somehow contracted a sleeping sickness and has been unable to stay awake for more than a few hours a day. He seeks out the help of Caris Mourne, a powerful witch and she has concocted some potions that help him stay awake, but they still don’t know what is causing the sickness in the first place. The arrival of Lady Diana perks up Jordaan, but falling for her is a mistake, she is from a royal house, and he is the fifth son of a baron, nothing but heartache can come from loving her.

I read the first book in this series and was disappointed because I was expecting an adult romantasy and got a YA fantasy story. So, with that in mind, I entered this story with entirely different expectations, which enabled me to enjoy the story a bit more than the previous book. I did like the story and enjoyed the banter between Diana and Jordaan, as well as the barbs traded between the secondary characters. The mystery played out nicely and the author gave readers more than one twist to keep things interesting. The same issues I had in the first book were in this book in the form of title errors, unanswered questions, no spice at all (not even a kiss) and no definitive HEA. Overall, with my lowered expectations, I did like this book more than the first one, but I am not sure I will be reading the rest of the series. This is the second book in the series, and while the books can be read as standalone titles, I think reading them in order might give the reader a better understanding of the characters.

*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that I requested and was provided to me by the publisher/author. All opinions in this review are my own. *

The South Wind by Alexandria Warwick

On By TracyIn Fairytale Retelling, First Person Narrative, New To Me Author, Paranormal / Fantasy, Part of a Series, Romantasy, Tracy's ReviewsLeave a comment

The South Wind (The Four Winds, #3)The South Wind by Alexandria Warwick

Tracy’s Rating: 2.5/3 of 5 stars

Series: The Four Winds, #3

Release Date: May 27, 2025

Princess Sarai of Ammara has less than three months to live before death claims her. Cursed as a child to die on her twenty-fifth nameday, she will do whatever it takes to secure her realm’s future, including an arranged marriage to Prince Balior, a handsome young noble from a neighboring kingdom. But another man vies for her attention as well: Notus, the South Wind, god of the desert breeze, and Sarai’s ex-lover.
Sarai is determined to stay away from the god who betrayed her and honor her father’s plan. But Prince Balior has an agenda of his own, and as Sarai learns more about her betrothed, she realizes he might be a dangerous threat to her people. So despite her hatred for Notus, she fakes their engagement to escape the arranged marriage and unearth Prince Balior’s true motives surrounding his obsession with the menacing labyrinth that sits in the palace’s grounds.
But darker forces are at work, and time is running out. Together with Notus, Sarai must face the horrors dwelling inside the labyrinth to save herself and her realm—but in order to succeed, she must confront her pain and the monsters she carries within herself…

My Thoughts:
I loved the idea of this story, a mix of myth and fairytale, featuring a fake betrothal and a slow burn second-chance romance with a bit of intrigue to keep the pages turning. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work for me for several reasons, the primary reason being that the book is written in the first person (this is obviously a personal opinion, I dislike reading books written in FPN, so if you like that style please disregard my bias) the second reason was the lack of chemistry between Notus and Sarai and finally, Sarai herself annoyed me, she was whiney for most of the book and while she does redeem herself, it was too little too late for me. Overall, I think my dislike of the FPN tainted this book for me and while I liked the idea of the story, I didn’t like the execution and felt like it was more of a YA story than adult romantasy, however, I did like Notus and enjoyed the mythic elements of the story and I thought the intrigue was very well done. This is the third book in the series, but I believe they can each be read as standalone titles without diminishing the reader experience.

*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that I requested and was provided to me by the publisher/author. All opinions in this review are my own. *