I like characters that have some ambiguity to them.

There are some that I liked better than others and some that I didn’t quite know what to think of. Anyway, bottom line is that this story was a lot darker than I expected but I loved it for that.Īs for the characters, I had a good time with them. This is a story that not only plays with tropes but asks, ‘hey, how about that propaganda, eh?’. But what about those that have lost loved ones to this forest? Is the sacrifice worth it? Well, everyone’s about to find out. Look–the forest is bad news! And it’s something the people in the kingdom have to live with but it seems a small price to pay for the relative prosperity of the kingdom due to some enchanted crown that was totally given freely to the king by some magic forest woman some centuries ago. Or get eaten by one and then turn into a monster. Because, really was everything going well in this kingdom? Sure but also don’t go into that forest because you might turn into a monster. What I liked about this is the story takes these familiar tropes and twists them just so.

It’s like one moment you’re all Morning Mood vibing and next thing you know In The Hall of the Mountain King suddenly breaks out (why yes I did just reference the Peer Gynt suite because it’s SUCH A MOOD HERE–it would honestly be a great soundtrack to this book). Everything goes so spectacularly wrong so very quickly. You have a prince and princess and a commoner’s daughter as well as an ‘enchanted’ forest and a kingdom where everything is going exceptionally well. I don’t know what I expected with this book but weird zombie forest was definitely not it. But the road is darker and more dangerous than she knows, and as secrets from the past are uncovered amid the teeth and roots of the forest, it’s going to take everything she has just to survive. It’s up to her to find the legendary Lady of the Wilds and beg for a way to save her home. Cerys is forced on the run, her only companions the small fox from the garden, a strange and powerful bear, and the magic in her veins. The most danger she faces now, as a gardener’s daughter, is the annoying fox who stalks the royal gardens and won’t leave her alone.Īs a new queen is crowned, however, things long hidden in the woods descend on the kingdom itself. Now Cerys carries a small bit of the curse-the magic-in her blood, a reminder of the day she lost everything. Cerys knows this all too well: when she was young, she barely escaped as the woods killed her friends and her mother. But as Aloriya prospered, the woods grew dark, cursed, and forbidden. It has been this way for hundreds of years, since the first king made a bargain with the Lady who ruled the forest that borders the kingdom.

Here there are no droughts, disease, or famine, and peace is everlasting.

Of beasts and briars