The Divine and the Cursed: A Fae Fantasy Romance (Fae of Alastríona Book 1)

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FAE OF REWYTH Show no weakness. Yield no mercy. Jade may have survived her wedding night in the ruthless kingdom of Rewyth, but her battle is far from over.

Thank you to the author, J E Reed, for providing me with a free digital copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. THANKFULLY, I'd add, because The Divine and the Cursed is actually avwell written and interesting little gem that will definitely surprise its reader. General Rion is ruthless and commanding. He relishes in his reputation as The Demon-a vile creature incapable of love or compassion. With a secret no one can know, Arianna strives to placate him while plotting her escape, but sometimes fate has other plans and rumors can’t always be trusted. I absolutely loved the worldbuilding and magic in this. The descriptions of how the magic worked and wound itself around the characters and how they used it were incredibly unique for a take on elemental magic and beautifully written.It took me a little to convince myself to add it to my tbr, because, let's be honest, the current one doesn't do it justice and it almost made me wanna pull a Kaz Brekker on my own eyeballs.

When 18-year-old Arianna is stolen from her family and sold into slavery, she spends months disguised as a half-breed Fae struggling against the devastations of a decade-long war. But she never expected to find herself at the mercy of her country's greatest enemy. This book begins by introducing the main character, Arianna, who has been captured and enslaved. I really liked that the author does not give the full story upfront, but reels you in slowly. You learn about her anquish and pain she is experiencing and piece by piece how she came to be there.

So I finally finished this book. And it is no mistake in the plot, quality of writing (which is excellent), or the story why it took me so long. It's just I enjoyed this as an audiobook, which I received from the author directly, and I didn't really have a lot of time with everything going on in my life to sit down and listen to the book. Also, why do they mention 5 countries if only 3 of them are going to be relevant. I know the world's wide and everything, but if I haven't seen them in a map I don't need to know they exist, and hearing abotu them will only be distracting. Loved the beginning. A true enemies to lovers with tropes i adore! I thought the magic and fighting scenes were fantastically done as well. The writing style was dual pov first person which is my favourite format to read, so I loved that! And the writing, wow. I am an aspiring author myself and hope to one day write as good as name. My heart broke for them so many times. I ugly cried a lot, so I craved the sweet moments as much as I crave chocolate ice cream...every damn minute.

I really felt connected to both main characters. Rion is the "demon" and is hardened from his own battles and pain. I also want to give a major, major shout-out to Laura Horowitz, who did the audiobook for this. She did an amazing read of all of this, and I definitely increased my enjoyment of the story. I loved the way that she managed to give a personality and a distinct voice to every single one of the characters that were portrayed. To put it plainly, this was terrible. The only reason it doesn't have one star is that I don't think I actively hated it, but it was just so painful to read. From everything being terribly plot convenient, to there being no stakes at all in any point of the book because everything happened in the most predictable way... I truly should've dnf'd it halfway through. However, I have zero complaints about how the enemies-to-lovers part was handled and I find super refreshing how Rion and Arianna were virgins. It was very cute, especially considering that Rion's this big and strong and deadly soldier who you'd think has sex every other minute.

She felt like every colour, constantly spinning, never settling in one place, because this feeling, this love was too strong to be confined to a single colour. It was infinite and ever-growing, and she'd never tire of it." However, the reason I’m rating it low is that this book is desperately in need of an editor. There were so many errors that it consistently brought me out of moments in the book. There is a scene between a villain fae and his commander that was super unnecessary and felt like not trusting the readers to connect the dots. There were some errors in the sentences and the pacing didn’t make sense. The book starts with a bang, the writing is easy to understand, the chapters are short, which just helps to pull you in and not let go. The story was compelling and I really thought the idea was original in lots of ways and would read a series of it.