Thank you to Ever King for the ARC! As always all opinions are my own.
RELEASE DATE: January 26th, 2026
Oh I’ve missed this world so much! I’ve ARC read for the first two as well, and I dont know how i would have waited for this to come out because the plot, the world, the characters?
I’ve not read before this way of splitting an overarching fantasy plot over several couples and interweaving them so much outside of contempory but it works so well – I NEED Tobias and Octavia’s book now! But I also cant wait for Kaspians, and I KNOW Edmund and Liliths is going to be so good so honestly I’m just waiting with baited breath for the next announcement of the new love story I’m going to be getting!
Each of the stories have felt so different, despite sharing the dark academia background, and while book two is still my favourite (Lila and Bastian are perfection!) this one takes us into the world of the witches, which i suspect we are going to see more of in liliths book too!
World – 4/5 – I love the little Greek myth references and wordbuilding details so much!
Romance – 4/5 – it’s not my favourite combination of tropes but the chemistry between them was amazing and I loved when she met his family! If this had been longer I think I would have loved them more because I would have seen more of their relationship.
Characters – 4/5 – I love it when all the characters are going to have their own books because it means we get a really complex cast and well I’ve already said in the main review how much I want the next love stories!
Plot – 3.5/5 – the plot wasn’t quite as strong in this one as the first two, I think it was more of a development of Kiara, Lila and Bellatrix interacting as Starcrossed Warriors than the dark twisty plots we’ve seen in the previous two books!
Romance Rating: Explicit – 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ multiple sex scenes throughout, they are spicy and a little step further than vanilla so it definitely has ratcheted up several notches from the closed door first one.
Violence Rating: Level 4
Content Warnings: sexual assault/physical assault by a previous boyfriend
Perfection. This is funny but also deep, this is complex but always understandable and fast paced, this is the dragons golden egg of fantasy and i adored it!
To begin with we have this really interesting set up where Evie is the assistant to the villain and the villain is essentially a corporation except his company goals are less revenue and more heads dangling from the ceiling in the foyer. It’s such a breath of fresh air to read a fantasy book that doesn’t center around being a hero, Evie is a willing assaceory to a villain but she is doing it because she needs the money which is such a good villain arc motivator. The question isnt asked directly in the book but i really do think that some amazing analysis could be done of this book connecting with the real world and the realties of supporting evil for money if you work in a big corporation despite doing it for good reasons. I really love how this book isnt just a boss/assistant romance set in a shifty fantasy steryotypical world this is thought through and actually works on a deeper level than just you know that the steryotypical pseudo European fantasy world looks like despite having relatively few settings outside the Villains office.
Evie herself is a ray of sunshine and i loved her. In a world of kick ass FMCs who sass back constantly and have the maturity of a unripe tomato she was so nice to read about because she was sensible and funny and interesting as a character beyond the plot. All of the characters (Kingsley included you little adorable frog prince!) were so interesting and easy to grasp i feel like i could fall right into their world.
The romance had me giggling and it was just so so good that I already have the second book that i cant wait to get started on!
World – 4.5/5 – this is not the heavy duty epic fantasy worldbuilding but i loved the world and atmosphere so much I cannot dock points because this is a five star read and I don’t always need to be able to write a disatation on economics of a fantasy world after reading it!
Characters – 5/5 – yes, yes yes! Even the office rulemaker has depth and i loved it.
Romance – 5/5 – trystan has joined the list of February’s literary valentines and he works so well with Evie their combo is *chefs kiss*
Plot – 5/5 – that cliff hanger? I’m sorry but when did i sign up to have the next week exclusively blocked off for aprentice and acomplicing a villain??
Romance Rating: Sweet – described kissing, make out scenes but goes no further than kissing on or off page.
Violence Rating: Level 4
Content Warnings: Evie does have a past of sexual harassment at work
It’s so interesting to see the devolopment of Rebecca Ross’s writing style, i can see traces of the lyrical fantastical worldbuilding in this book that is similar to Divine Rivals, but it is still written in a much more modern YA style that is common in fantasy. One of my favourite things about Divine Rivals was that it was written like it was written in the 1940s with the language and vibes despite being a fantasy war novel.
On its own it stands up as a fantasy novel but it doesnt have the spark of complete uniqueness that Divine Rivals did and i felt like I had read this story many times before in different fonts. I did enjoy the dual countries and the history behind that, this was one of the really strong points of this book that the worldbuilding was so strong but i felt like when we left the passion house we lost that timeless wonder and went into a very typical fantasy coming of age plot.
Over all it was a fun read and I really enjoyed the girls interactions with each other – it does pass the Bechdel test! – which was a highlight of this series for me because female friendship is something that often is not represented in fantasy ya because the focus is on the love interest or the war or their own power rather than friendship.
World – 4/5 – most solid part of this book and i enjoyed that the main character was a historian, it made her knowledge of politics realistic and interesting, she knew what the political landscape she was stepping into was which i appreciated .
Plot – 3/5 – it was very predictable, and followed all the genre conventions but it did work and at no point did it annoy me.
Romance – 1/5 – this did annoy me. This isnt a spoiler because we get this from the very first chapters but she is in love with her teacher. This is a student/teacher romance subplot which was so icky and i really didnt enjoy. He felt odd and shifty to me and i felt like the main character liked his intelligence and dedication as a teacher and that got mixed up in romantic feelings. I just. I hate age gap, i hate teacher x student and i really dont like it when the romance feels unneeded so this wasnt it for me I’m sorry.
Characters – 3/5 – none of the characters were groundbreaking, i felt a loose attachment to the main character and had an active hatred of one of the girls whom essentially had the mc self-sabotage an important conversation because she wanted to be favoured. I did understand that girl though and honestly her book would be really interesting, considering the different perspective between the main character who thinks they are awful at their subject and the girl who is watching them take their opportunities and be favoured over her.
Romance Rating: Soft – just kisses no description
Violence Rating: Level 3 – standard fantasy violence, a battle at the end, check out my blog post on Violence Ratings that is pinned for more specifics!
Content Warnings: student/teacher relationship, suggestion of possible rape to the mc’s mother, death of mother.
This is a short story collection that includes some stories from the Scholomance and the Temenarie series. While you dont have to have read the Temenarie series to read its short stories (no spoilers there) the scolomance shorties do essentially spoil the huge ending of book two and the ending of book three (which I haven’t read yet but could have guessed). Either way, it’s full of so many stories that even if you skip the scolomance ones then you’ll still have a lot of Naomi Novik to luxuriate in.
Araminta, or, The Wreck of the Amphidrake ⭐️⭐️⭐️ This one was first and honestly not my favourite of the collection. It’s a fun short story set in the regency period with a female main lead who has a talisman that helps her survive when her ship is attacked by pirates because it turns her into a man. I enjoyed it at the time, but it wasn’t very memorable for me however its a good start to the collection because its a familiar premise with Noviks sharp wit and prose before she truely shows what she can do with some of the later ones which are some of the most original fantasy I’ve read in a long time!
After Hours I did skip this one once I realised there were spoilers for the third book in it but I’m planning on returning after I’ve read the golden enclaves book.
Vici ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Lots of people dont like this one from reviews but i loved it! It was mark Antony with dragons and the founding of the dragon corps. It was short sweet and had literally everything I like in it. My only complaint is that it was too short for me to really give it those full five stars because we only saw a few pages of this but it was so good!
Dragons & Decorum ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a pride and prejudice retelling with dragons set in the Temenarie world and I loved it! The wit of the dragons, the connection between Elizabeth and Darcy and the fact that Naomi Novik can so closely mirror the chemistry and cleverness of the first in a short story is amazing.
Commonplaces ⭐️⭐️⭐️ This was essentially fan fiction of a character from Sherlock and while it was interesting and engaging enough because i had not read the book that this one was based on I think i missed some of the callbacks that people who have read the book may have enjoyed.
Buried Deep ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This story was so sad. It was the retelling of Ariadne and the Minotaur but focusing on their brother sister relationship and the pain of having someone you love torn away from you. The pain of the characters truely came through and i could feel every time Ariadne stomped the pattern across her brothers labyrinth to remind him she was still here for him in my heart. It’s almost making me cry even now it was so beautiful and i wish that Naomi Novik would write more Greek myths.
Seven Years from Home ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This was the one that for me felt like a novel. It was beautiful and complex featuring a soldier sent to colonise a nation but grows to learn that she in fact respects their way of life but she is still loyal to her Confederacy. The magic system in this book is so so strong I’m taken aback by it, the exploration of how you can seperate morality and reason and the way that such a short time somewhere can leave a lasting impression on you was so beautifully explored. Another one that almost made me cry by the end, it’s rare i read something as perfect as this.
The Long Way Around ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I hope she does like she hinted make this into a novel this is a sea journey that explores strange lands through the perspective of some of the best shipbuilders in the land. Tress was capable and logical and i loved her pragmatism against her brothers romantic and optimistic ways. We have a doomed romance between secondary characters in this, strange buildings and a possibility to change the course of their world’s shipping lanes. I cant wait to see if we are going to get more in this world!
Spinning Silver ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I’ve read the book of this and i enjoyed it so the shorter version that was the original was fun to read! I loved the way that it delved into her economic sense. It’s so rare for a heroine to be smart and actually have some business sense in a YA book that i was in love from the beginning. I love cruel practical heroines and this one was perfection.
Lord Dunsany’s Teapot ⭐️⭐️⭐️ So so short but fun to read – despite being about a magical artifact in the world wars! Definitely worth a read it has some gorgeous imagery and hope and humanity to it!
I cant remember much about the rest of them, i think there were a few more but they weren’t long enough that I found them memorable personally. Still there were none that i disliked and would have rated lower than three stars which is super impressive considering some of them were literally only about twenty pages.
Romance and Violence Ratings are both very low for all, Seven years from home is the only one that had some described death and pain. Romance wise all the kisses are G rated and no description.
Pub Date: 21st of April 2026 Publisher: Bindery Books Genre: Fantasy, retelling, Age Category:
As I was reading this book, I was thinking that it almost was historical fiction in feel except set in a fantasy world. And I think that that is a really good way of describing the luxurious world but always realistic political landscape in this book – so many fantasy books ignore what you actually have to do to rule a country, and so I loved that this didn’t shy away from the fact that sometimes an arranged marriage is the only option for the countries future even if it isn’t the best for yours. Of course when I read the authors acknowledgments at the end which discussed how this was actually a fantasy retelling of the story of Rani Abbakka Chowta, an amazing queen whom like so many others has been diminished in history books but this I feel was a worthy tribute because honestly it has no faults. Every piece of language is beautiful and lyrical and all the emotions feel so real. I will admit to staying up late for this book and I’m so happy that I started November with this book because it’s a five star of five stars!
The “othering” of the colonisers is one of my favourite things I’ve read this year, just twisting the narrative to show a different perspective which is what all fantasy should do.
The arranged marriage relationship was so strong because the man she marries isnt her happily ever after but he isnt the worst human imaginable which are usually the two ways that the arranged marriage storyline goes so I LOVED that!
I can’t wait until this comes out because I need someone else to gush over all the little beautiful heartwrenching things in this book!
World – 5/5 – yess! I love Mantana and the birds so much, and the way that she interacts with them as a child and then as an adult. The world itself is so vibrant and seems to come off the page with food and smells and textures.
Plot – 5/5 – I loved it.
Characters – 4.5/5 – I’ve already talked about Mantana the green lion so let me talk about the others! They were all really individual strong characters which I loved but I wish that we had got a taste of Thevon and his childhood a bit more but I think that will come in the next book because the cliff hanger is a two hundred feet one!
Romance – 4/5 – we don’t get much at all, but its very promising so I cant wait!
Romance Rating: Sweet – kissing and making out are described and mentioned. We know that they sleep together but it is less than a paragraph in past tense and euphemistic on page.
Violence Rating: Level 4 – nothing unusual in fantasy but there are sustained bloody fights which go on for more than a chapter which I loved but might be a bit much for some people.
Pub Date: 12th of February, 2026 Publisher: Avon Genre: Cosy Fantasy, Romance Age Category: Adult
I have loved every page of the previous two books and so this one was a no brainer for me instant ARC request and first on my reading list once it was approved. This was extraordinarily good as all of her books are and once again it proves that romance books can be five stars for me just as much as epic fantasy and historical fantasy because honestly it was like she had read my mind and written the perfect book. Let me dive into it.
To begin with Emmeline and Luke have this raw chemistry that is so present in every line and gesture towards each other. It means that even something as simple as handing her a thermos of tea has so much emotional charge and feeling behind it and the whole book was devoured by me in one sitting because I couldn’t go to sleep before I had inhaled every word of this gorgeous gorgeous book.
Their history and rivalry is offset against moments where they genuinely connect and we get this slow growth throughout the book towards each other which is so beautiful to see. Often with enemies to lovers or rivals to lovers which this is, they go from rivals to lovers, its instant and overnight and usually just because they find the other physically attractive. However the way this is crafted makes it a love story that will last not just a lust story that will fizzle out when the pages close like a lot of romance books I read and yes. Just read it. This book is everything that the romance genre should be and it swirls in some gorgeously humerous baby dragon moments too (and also a few references back to the last couples if you’ve read the first two books!)
The character of Emmeline is eldest daughter incarnate, and I love that it isnt hammered home that point but slowly shown and developed through her actions. I may have got a tear in my eye when Luke noticed her efforts and helped her – okay I definitely did – because everything about this book was emotionally perfect and romantic and yet somehow builds upon the world that was established in the first two books. I loved seeing the Chimeras side of the valley and I’ve just got all my fingers and toes crossed that we get another book because this is AMAZING!
World – 5/5 – is it a hardcore epic world no but is it perfect and settled and everything that I need to to be yes.
Characters – 5/5 – literal perfection. I’m going to create a list of the top books I’ve read this year and this is going to be on it because PERFECTION!
Romance – 100000/5 – it’s so good that I cant describe it in any other way than perfectly imperfect and swoony!
Plot – 4.5/5 – I knew what was going to happen, it’s a romance book, they follow a three act structure but the way it happened? The way it was developed? If tropes were always represented like this I wouldn’t get bored of them!
Romance Rating: Suggestive Swoony B – we get some steamy making out and a very slow fade to black/less than a page sex scene with euphemistic language.
Violence Rating: Level 1 – its romance.
Content Warnings: mention of a girl getting her drink spiked at a party years ago and what could have happened if she hadnt been found in time. The man who drugged her drink interacts with some of the characters at one point but no justice is found.
I am personally researching every name and possible option I can do for my name inside the Book of Remembrance but if anyone else is looking for ideas then I thought I’d offer all the possible Ancient Language words that you could encorporate inside your name from across the dictionary pages of the books.
These are the words we get from the first book:
Ancient Language
Aiedeail – the morning star
Arget – silver
Argetlam – silver hand (lore here, this is what Eragon’s hand is called because of his gedwey ignasisa that he received the first time he touched Saphira. Might be a good name for a dragonrider combination)
Breoal – family, house
Brisingr – Fire
Edoc’sil – unconquerable
Garjzla – light
Gedwey ignasisa – shining palm
Iet – my (informal)
Pomnuria – my (formal)
Seithr – witch
Shur’tugal – dragonrider
Wydra – fate
Yawe – a bond of trust
I’ve taken out any I don’t think are relevant to names and also phrases.
Dwarf Language
Ingietum – metal workers, smiths. (Could be used as a surname!)
Knurl – stone, rock.
Knurla – dwarf
Otho – faith
Sheilven – cowards
Urgal Language
Ushnark – father
You could combine a mixture of these – here are a few of the ideas I’m considering!
your real name + mums name and then daughter. Eg: Eleanor Fernsdaughter.
A title + your name. Eg: Dragonrider Anna Carthright.
Just your name (good for bragging rights)
Trying to Eragonify your name yourself! While only the dragonrider tier will actually get their names as alaegaeian names if you really want to delve deep into the linguistics of the realm then why not make your name something closer to a Spine dweller?
If you have ever read another blogpost of mine you know that I am a diehard Eragon stan and have been since I was nine. I have reread the series over and over and may or may not have a signed copy of the witch and the worm which is my very prized possession and so when I saw that Wraithmarked was doing a kickstarter for new Eragon content of course I had to take the opportunity to intertwine myself even deeper into Alaegasia.
The Book of Remembrance allows you to put your own name (or one of an OC or DnD character) into the lists of the dead from seven of the major battles that happen over the course of Alaegaeia’s history. And I am a little stuck on which name to pick because of course I want my own name, but then I also want something more Alaegaeian as well.
As any one would do I went on Reddit and began researching on sub threads what people were doing and the collective genius has offered up some of my favourite ideas.
your real name + mums name and then daughter. Eg: Eleanor Fernsdaughter.
A title + your name. Eg: Dragonrider Anna Carthright.
Just your name (good for bragging rights)
Trying to Eragonify your name yourself! While only the dragonrider tier will actually get their names as alaegaeian names if you really want to delve deep into the linguistics of the realm then why not make your name something closer to a Spine dweller?
NB: must be under 50 characters, but this gives you LOTS of space so you can still play with it!
Here are the links to Reddit if you want to read some ideas yourself!
Why is age gap EVERYWHERE? I cannot open a fantasy book – even if it is a high fantasy, and the romance is the tiniest of subplots that takes up less than 1% of the book! – and not end up with an age gap. Some books have an equality between their main characters in their romance but it seems so common even in popular books especially if they are non human.
NB: Some spoilers (light or as many as you could find on a blurb) will be present in this post for Poison Study, Order of Blood and Ruin, Lightlark, Throne of Glass.
I am going to break down human age gaps first then move on to paranormal and fantasy races etc.
One of my most recent reads, Poison Study by Maria V Snyder had an age gap. A huge one, 19 and 33. I have read it a few times before when I was younger but it always is something I wince at. It just seems so odd, and exaggerates the power dynamics between them – I have written another post on Equality and Power which talks about power dymanics outside of Age Gap – when honestly it isn’t fully nessacary. Yes, Valek was supposed to help the Commander to power and that had to be early enough that Yelena was in the country and the orphanage, but I really wish something had been done to age up Yelena or nudge Valek down out of his thirties because that is a gigantic age gap.
I am not blaming this book specifically, another book I absolutely adored and read over and over (title retracted because of spoilers) has an age gap which gets worse during the series. In the beginning it is sixteen and twenty, which was pushing it a bit, but I was willling to let that go. Then he gets trapped in a time warp in space and ages to twenty five, and she is still only eighteen. We have gone from four years (with her a minor and him an adult) to seven years with her barely an adult.
This trend of FMCS always being exactly eighteen is weird too, its like they decide to make them the age that they can say they are adults even if they essentially are not especially in comparison to the looonng lives of their love interests.
I really loved a series by KM Shea which had an age gap that somehow circumnavigated all of the power dynamics that usually come with it in a really wholesome lovely way. In that Jade is twenty six, she has an established career, she has an apartment, she has a very supportive family whom she could return to if she wanted. She is not the lonely vulnerable eighteen year old that so many vampire novels are populated with and so when Connor the vampire (who’s age is old but never quite stated and it’s a spoiler so I wont say) comes along they have a relationship first as friends and then lovers that doesn’t fall into the toxic almost fatherly but sexual relationship which I find so odd in many fantasy books.
We’re on non-human relationships now so lets consider some more!
Lightlark (I’ve only read the first one!) has two love interests both of whom are old. Much older than our eighteen year old heroine Ida (again eighteen! And I honestly am not even annoyed at the author at this point, it is so so common its an industry problem and societal more than a personal thing as the trope is so easy to fall into.) They are fae like elementals and live for a long time and it works with the lore and the worldbuilding. But I refuse to believe that it isn’t possible to a) age up Ida a little bit. B) pop a few more rulers in the timeline so that Oro and Grim are younger or c) do both! I would love a heroine who is several centuries old (if you have any recs drop them in the comments!) but it is so so rare.
A series I love and haven’t finished, the Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas (I’m trying to pick out popular examples but its so frequent I could do more) features a thousands of years age gap between Caeleana and Rowan. Lets not start on the power dymanics of her relying on him to control her magic or that he treats her so badly at the start, but the age gap itself is huge. I believe she is nineteen at this point, possibly even eighteen or twenty but either way she is a long long way from several thousand.
The Trope of the older mysterious man is so so common that I cant even hate the books that they are in (I adore some of these with my whole obsessive bookish heart) but I really think that it needs to stop. The occasional old fae is fine, but it is just so common and none of them acknowledge the difficulties of this like that they are from different generations and often cultures, with different expectations.
I digress to go read but what are your thoughts on this incredibly popular trope that is rampant in so many fantasy books?
I have so many thoughts about this one because it is such a difficult read to review. This is the third time I have read this book and it manages to surprise and horrify me even though I know what is going to happen.
I think I’m going to start with the romance, because this is the most difficult part to pin down, especially with no spoilers. We do have romance close to the end (I rated it Sweet) but I really struggled with the age gap, 19 and 33, and I think that might be why I cannot give it a full five stars. Fantasy so often has these HUGE age gaps and sometimes when it is within human lifespan parameters it is trickier for me to except than when the MMC is like five hundred plus years. If we ignore the age gap, and the power dynamics, I do really enjoy how the enemies-to-lovers trope is drawn out so they are properly enemies first.
The world is military fantasy based. The Commander has taken over from the old king, divided up the kingdom underneath Generals and everyone is assigned to a specific duty. I would have loved some more exploration of that, but the touches we did get showed the effects upon the people of the palace. It is really clear how Yelena sees the world especially after her very traumatic experiences, and the subsequent betrayals mean that we see through her a world that is grimly political and mostly emotional less.
Characters – 4/5 – I enjoy them a lot!
Romance – 3/5 – Sweet – I have already said something so I will let it be.
World – 4/5 – solid fantasy world
Plot – 4/5.- there are no twist around moments that make you gasp out loud because it is a slow reveal. Part of the beauty of the plot is that the protagonist almost knows what is going to happen and what she is going to find but just cant admit it to herself yet.
Romance Rating: Sweet
Violence Rating: Level 6
Content Warnings: SEVERE – rape, (past, vividly remembered and practically on page), physical abuse, child abuse, torture, sexual assault (from a different man, this is on page, she is clothed but causes PTSD from the last time)
Damsel in Delight 