If you love badass females, magic, and adventure, as well as secrets and betrayals then this is the book for you. It balances court intrigue and quests quite nicely, containing the best of both worlds.
Keltania is the badass female in question, along with the rest of her people who are druids and send their females to guard the Fae when they have completed their training. Their people are the only ones who have had any kind of magic for a very long time and so are highly coveted, and given the honour of serving the Fae as a result. Keltania has spent her entire life expecting and eagerly anticipating the time she will be given a charge to safeguard, and it doesn’t quite end up being what she expects when she is sent to protect Valen, the prince of the Winter Court, who very much does not want to be protected.
Enter Valen, said stubborn prince who will do whatever he can to chase Keltania away rather than be subjected to her protection. I honestly loved what a snarky, self confident, deliberately blasé and careless hellion Valen came across as. He’s super sassy which I love, and has no illusions about his own status and how appealing he is to others and he isn’t afraid to use that. I was all about his confidence and how he attempted to use his wiles against Keltania constantly. They had such great banter between them which made me really enjoy their interactions.
As I said, there’s plenty of adventure as the two set off to fix a problem they wind up needing to deal with, and it was a fun little read altogether. I don’t won’t to go into too many details in the interest of avoiding spoilers so I’m being deliberately vague. There was a hint of romance though if I’m honest I was wanting a bit more to work with, and it definitely wasn’t spicy at all. But, other than having a bit of a slow time getting into it initially, it was a quick, enjoyable read and I did very much enjoy the world and its world building. The magic and the fact that it was dying which results in a somewhat dying world had me hooked and my favourite part was getting bits of history of the world prior to the loss of magic and the events that went down that resulted in it happening. I loved the courts and the Fae and human relationships in all their intricacies and I think this will be a very interesting series as it goes along. I will be interested to see more of what is to come, particularly with some of the reveals closer to the ending.
