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She wants true love.. but Fate has other plans.

Welcome!

A big ‘Thank you’ to Goodreads Giveaways for the opportunity to read an e-copy of this captivating—and moderately frustrating—fairy tale retelling of Beauty and the Beast.. or is it Cinderella? Who knows? in exchange for my unbiased review.

This wasn’t a half bad read.. if you can ignore the main character’s tendency to fawn over the idea of finding her one true love and a fairy tale HEA—I couldn’t.. but I did, surprisingly enough, like the rest of it.

Enjoy!

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Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber

First line: “The bell outside the curiosity shop knew the human was in trouble from the way he moved through the door.”

My Review:

Evangeline Fox, in an attempt to save her one true love from the curse she believes is forcing him to marry her cousin, seeks help from the Prince of Hearts, Jacks. Now, it’s never wise to bargain with a Fate, it’s never free and almost always ends badly, but Evangeline doesn’t know what else to do. And surprise, surprise—it doesn’t end well.

First: While this book is a companion novel to Stephanie Garber’s ‘Caraval,’ I have not read Caraval and probably never will.
A choice that did make things a bit tricky here and there but I was able to fill in the blanks pretty quickly and fully believe you can read, and enjoy, Once Upon A Broken Heart without exploring the Caraval series beforehand.

There was so much about this book that captivates the reader, a beautiful world full of myth and magic from beginning to end..
It seems a shame that so few of the characters were likable.

Evangeline, with some character growth, could have (and should have) been as compelling as the world she resides in. Instead, she’s obnoxiously obsessed with finding her one true love and living happily ever after. And it’s not even some subtle, little girl’s wish on a shooting star. No. It is a consistently, incessantly repeated desire we’re forced to endure throughout the book.

I know, I know, this sounds so anti-HEA. I’m not. I just don’t appreciate unrealistic longing being like.. eighty percent of a character’s personality.
Have some life goals, sweetheart.

Everything else had me completely invested.
Fates, immortal beings of great power, each uniquely imagined, fascinated me to no end. I wanted to know more about them, about their origin and purpose. The rich and exceptionally detailed world made me wish it were possible to sink through the pages and explore it myself. Then our main character arrives in The North, her mother’s birthplace, and a kingdom cursed with a history that erases, confounds, and rewrites itself. It sank its claws into me, this land with a mysterious past, so full of wonder and charm.

It will be for these things that I continue the series. I’ll just have to hope Evangeline’s character either realizes that HEAs aren’t where life begins and ends.. or gets her damn happy ending so I don’t have to keep hearing about it. Sorry, that may seem harsh but it’s honest.

Would I recommend this book? Absolutely.
Neurotic romantic notions aside, this is a lovely story, one I think many of you will enjoy getting lost in.
Spoiler Alert/Warning: As this is the first book in the series.. the ending is a bit of a cliffhanger.

And that’s a wrap
Thank you for stopping by and taking a moment to read my review, I hope it was helpful.

Have you read this book?
What did you think?

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