Forewarned by Chantal Fernando – A Book Review

Spoiler-Free Overview

Astrid is a commoner with a surprising amount of magic. She’s a healer and a seer, but she refuses to tell anyone about the latter. They’d use it against her. Imprison her as a servant of the king. Which is why when she finds out she’s mated to the Shadow Prince, Rave, she tries to run away. It doesn’t last long though, before she’s forced to stay in the castle and leave her old life and friends behind.

Liz’s Thoughts and Feelings

I think the most I can give this book is 1.5 stars. I would have DNF’ed, but the book was so short that I pushed through.

The concept of this book feels like a rip off of J. Bree’s The Bonds that Tie series but in a high fantasy setting. Rave is just North. Tell me he’s not. And Astrid acts a lot like Oli. She’s supposed to be 25 but comes across like she’s 18. She’s constantly acting like a dumb, entitled, jealous child.

The writing is so juvenile. Exposition and world-building are delivered in unpleasant chunks. It’s supposed to be high fantasy, but there’s a lot of modern language and dialogue. Which can work if done correctly, but this just reads as lazy.

Big plot points are started and then just dropped. The relationships between Astrid and the other princes could have been interesting, but just came off as boring.

There’s zero romance in this. And for saying it’s a spicy book, the spice is poorly written. No tension or build up.

Rave and Astrid’s relationship is one red flag after another. He’s always pissed that she has a male friend, even though Astrid and August grew up together. Rave and Astrid are constantly lying and manipulating each other. Which could create great conflict and resolution, but instead they just shrug and go ‘okay’.

The action scenes are so boring they may as well not exist.

Overall, this book is lazy and a rip-off of another author’s characters and ideas.