Curse of Shadows and Thorns: The Broken Kingdoms, Book 1

There wasn’t anything that I didn’t like about this book. It had hate to love, lovely friendships, a lot of characters with backstories, and included Norse mythology words which I thought was very cool. The world-building was great, and I truly enjoyed it. At the beginning, I kept waiting for Legion to be bad/evil because the author said this story was supposed to be for villain lovers. But it never happened. Legion was a complete sweetheart, a hopeless romantic, and had his way with words. I’m thinking maybe in book two he may act a little bit more villainous because of something that is revealed at the end of the book, but I wouldn’t blame him. I loved everything about him.Elise is also unexpectedly a strong romantic female lead. There was a comment that said she was very annoying, childish, and dumb, so I was waiting for her to act like a brat, but I loved every single aspect of this character as well. Sometimes she was reckless but it brought spice to the story. Honestly, I hate it when (in some books) the FL keeps denying her love/attraction for the ML and always finds very dumb excuses to hate him, but in this book our sweet heroine is not like other FLs. Elise is kind, brave, and very loyal to her feelings. Every time she wanted to hate our ML, she just couldn’t endure it for too long, and I loved her for that.With so many characters, locations, families, words, kingdoms, and species it was a bit hard to keep up. I had to make my own list to remember every single thing (I have terrible memory). I think it would be very helpful if the book came with it's own glossary or something. Map was good and helpful!

I have read many, many, many romance/fantasy books in the last two decades. This one earns a grade of B. I read it critically as some of the reviews were scathing; I found the reviews to be unfounded. I enjoyed the characters; I found Elise to be quite humanly written- people can be naïve AND fierce, innocent AND feisty. Legion is written blithely, I’ll admit. I have read books that could be made it to saga movies, and books that could be HBO miniseries. This book could be a “CW” series. Not overly complicated, dramatic, or swoon-worthy, but interesting enough to watch once a week.

It’s been a while since I read a story with Norse elements. It’s only loosely inspired by Norse mythology, but that is for the better. As the stories I’ve read that are more firmly planted in the mythology, tend to fall short. I love the little sprinkles and hints of familiar lore and language (even though it’s Swedish).The characters are interesting and come alive in my head. I understand Elise, and look forward to getting to know her better. The pacing is good, it kept me reading without overwhelming me. Look forward to the next book.

Like the story, don’t care for MFL, loved Gray. Elise comes off as a naive teen. She’s set up to be the black sheep, who wants to chance how things are…but at the worst possible times 🤦🏻‍♀️ Times where it just made her look young and dumb. She also “trains” in secret….but when the real danger comes she seems like she is about to put those “skills” to work but then nothing. Like there’s a build up of the character but to add to the drama there is no follow through. She can’t be a strong woman with knife skills and a damsel in destress at the same time! Pick a lane? She can’t hold a knife, shake, stab, cry, get kidnapped, saved, lied to, betrayed, then run to the very person who saved her, be mad, and be told how she’s strong. Like what? The story starts with her already sorta interested in Grey. With their very early interactions she’s already head over heels for him (again the writing builds her up then nothing) She gets angry one minute then pining the next? She so easily manipulated it’s, ugh.We don’t have Gray’s POV, so, he’s just doing his thing, which is consistent. His character is more believable with consistent follow through. He tells her very little and touches her and she’s just cool with it. Not questioning anything. Well, not really. Her inner monologue is annoying at times. Just when you think, ok, shes starting to think, nope. It starts off that way and then nothing. Gray is a jerk at the end but you’ll have to read it to see what I mean. It will make you angry for Elise cuz she doesn’t. She actually continues to want him like nothing happen.The author did a good job with the world building. The story is itself interesting. I can look past Elise and enjoy Gray and the side characters. We will see if her character develops in the next book. Judging by the sneak peak I just read…she seems the same. Fingers crossed she actually makes him work-even if it’s pretend-for her forgiveness. Geez.

Kept me into the story from beginning to end and made me want to read the other 8 to see where to story goes.

Es hat alles, was eine gute Fantasy Geschichte braucht. Es ist gut geschrieben spannend erzählt und hat einen unvorhersehbaren Verlauf. Es hat liebenswerte Charaktere, gute Chemie und macht Spaß. Es ist gute Unterhaltung und ein großartiger Zeitvertreib

This book had me hooked immediately. What a story. So gripping, so addictive, could not put it down.The FMC Elise is a member of the royal family, as much as it pains her to be sometimes, she’s good at staying quiet and knowing her place. Which means when her father’s health gets worse and her uncle steps in to marry her off she has no choice but to accept. Except the man who is supposed to choose her future husband is someone who she can’t help but gravitate towards. She’s not sure why, she knows he’s hiding something, but then she is hiding who she really is, she just doesn’t know it.Legion the MMC is good at putting on a show, his whole persona is one. The real him would make people run and hide, which many people have done. There is something in his darkness that is pulling towards the light in Elise and he won’t let her slip through his fingers, no matter how hard she fights him.Dive in to this world, you will not be disappointed it’s a wonderful world to get lost in

I read this because I keep seeing it on Tiktok..It took me some time to get into the story, the beginning had a lot of world building and word introductions (fury = magic).Sometimes people were interchanged with their profession. Like Mattis - the carpenter. For some reason I missed those hints and when they talked about the carpenter I got confused.Some people/names were also introduced with three at a time. But again that's more a me problem than a book/writing problem.*MAYBE SPOILERS*In the end, everything that was hyped on tiktok took a while to actually happen.The plot focus/goal also seemed to change for me. It started with Elise (main female character) needing to find a husband and getting a negotiater (main male character). Offcourse she wants to have a choice in the matter and have her voice be heard. Meanwhile the king is a mean *sshole, same goes for the future king (her cousin) and queen (her sister)... Incest, yikes.The kingdom struggles with Agitators who are trying to get the 'real King' on the throne.This takes up about 70% of the story.And then suddenly we find out that Legion Grey (the negotiater) is cursed (this was hinted at twice in a small manner). And after that it was really just focused on this curse and Elise helping him find a way out of it (Beauty and the beast fibe for about 20% of the book).In the end we quickly came back to the main storyline after mostly losing it by focusing on this curse.*END OF SPOILERS*In the end. Cool world, even though it took a while for me to understand what was happening (mostly who was who and where from?). I liked the touch of Swedish in the book but I don't think I'll be picking up the next book.Maybe if it's on sale or free on kindle that I would consider. (Or put in it my digital library and then forgetting about it like the other 40 or more books on there...)

Nice story . I liked it a lot just right amount of everything, whether it is suspense, action, drama or romance loved it a lot.