“What your heart desires, there your fate lies.”
★ – 4/5
🌶️- 1.5/5
Blurb
A bargain between enemies. A curse without an end. A love that will bring a kingdom to its knees.
Long ago, Elise’s ancestors stole the crown from the fae king. As the niece of the brutal, current king, her purpose is to do whatever is asked to ensure her family keeps the throne for centuries to come. The trouble is, Elise would rather sneak into gambling halls with the servants than be a silent princess at a ball.
Soon reckless games are ended when her uncle forces her into negotiations for a marriage. If she refuses, her deathly-ill father will pay the price.
Trapped by her sense of duty, Elise is given to the charge of Legion Grey, the handsome and mysterious dowry negotiator. But Legion holds more than her future in his hands. He incites her anger and a forbidden passion.
When a coup upends the kingdom, Elise flees with Legion, only to discover he holds more secrets than anyone. Unknowingly, Elise sets in motion a beastly curse Legion has endured as long as he can remember.
As secrets unravel about Legion’s vicious past, questions rise over who has the true right to the throne. When answers come, more lives are put at stake, and Elise is forced to make an impossible choice: avoid a bloody game by leaving Legion to the beast within, or end his curse and restore magic to the land by sacrificing a life–hers.
Tropes
❥ Enemies to Lovers
❥ Touch Her and Die
❥ One Horse
❥ Forced Proximity
“The only hands I consider capable are my own.” Legion lifted one brow, a playful gleam in his eyes. “Ah, but you have never experienced what mine can do.”
Review
Curse of Shadows and Thorns is the first book in a series of nine books, which is why I’m not going to complain about the length of the book, because it was rather short. Things escalated a bit quickly, but I do believe that it will make sense in the books to come. It didn’t stop me from diving deep into the story, and laugh and cry with the characters.
The mix of Viking lore and fantasy made into a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, made this book stand out to me, and I really enjoyed the concept of it. I also like when a foreign language is written in books, and it’s a language I understand, being Scandinavian myself.
“Skam vara din! Smӓrta från eld!”
Elise
The book is written from Elise’s POV in third person, and she’s a witty one. A strong and independent woman, but trapped in a man’s world. She’s the second daughter of the King’s sister, which makes her a kvinna, a Timoran royal daughter. Her older sister is to be married with the King’s son, and it’s announced at their engagement party, that the king is opening up dowry negotiations for Elise.
Elise does not want to get married, at all, and since her father is too ill to take care of the negotiations, another man has to take that responsibility. The king has assigned Legion Gray for the task, a mysterious and gorgeous man with many secrets, whom Elise already had admired from afar, but having him as her negotiator makes him her least favorite person in the world.
A proper lady might flush or turn away embarrassed. I was neither proper nor a lady.
They get to know each other, and Elise realizes that Legion is not like other men, and she’s experiencing having a voice of her own in the matter of her heart and future. Legion lets Elise make her own choices, but little does she know, that the choice she’ll have to make will come with a great sacrifice that will determine the fate of, not only Legion, but her entire kingdom.
“When you see the beast within, let him in to let him go. Only then will he bring the change you seek.”
The romance between Legion and Elise is really lovely. They are attracted to each other from the beginning, but they shouldn’t be, and they don’t want to be, but as they get to know each other, it gets harder and harder not to act on their growing attraction.
The worldbuilding is promising, but I feel like I didn’t get the full picture, and I struggled to combine the information given into an actual place in my mind. For this book, it feels like everything is happening in their backyard, because everything is apparently within walking distance no matter how far you’ve traveled (that’s what it felt like).
I’m very intrigued by the other realms, the different kinds of fury (magic) and the people who have fury, including the Fae. I can’t really grasp it yet, but I hope the next books will get more into that.
I’m viewing this book as an introduction to what’s to come, and I’m very much looking forward to it. Did I expect the things that happened? Yes, I did, but did I care? No, I still enjoyed the book very much.
Twisted Romance Lovers 
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