Quick Synopsis – As the only member of the royal family without a magical ability, Revna is seen as an embarrassing mistake by her kingdom. Revna turns down her arranged marriage and commits to competing for the throne only to be kidnapped by the mysterious and terrifyingly powerful Hellbringer, the general of her country’s greatest enemy. He has the ability to rend souls with the flick of his wrist and is every inch as intimidating as the war stories say he is. But Revna wonders if there may be some humanity left in him—especially when he reveals there are other parties who want her on the throne for their own secret reasons.

Song In My Head While Reading – Bad Blood – Taylor Swift

Publication Date – March 11, 2025

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Content Notes – This is an adult fantasy romance with explicit sex scenes. There is also violence, classism, blood, kidnapping, xenophobia, and parental abuse. There is also several mentions of ritual sacrifice of people particularly babies.

Spicy Rating – 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Overall Rating – ⭐⭐⭐.5 out of 5

Review – Thank you for giving me a romance fantasy without a massive icky age gap and where the main female character isn’t automatically overpowered AF. Instead, we have a world with the godtouched and the godforsaken. I actually thought calling the nonmagical people godforsaken was very funny. I know it probably wasn’t meant to be especially given the horrible abuse and prejudice they face. Revna is the only godforsaken in her family, and it isn’t any family, it’s the royal family. As the godforsaken Princess she endures abuse by most of her family.

Her father has been at war with a neighboring nation and to help win the war he has promised Revna off in an arranged marriage. She defies her family and rejects the marriage proposal to fight in the Bloodshed Trials and try to become Queen. From her she gets kidnapped by the fearsome Hellbringer, a godtouched man who can steal your life by looking at you. Insert training and enemies to lovers montage. Was this a little too trope filled for me? Yes, but I still liked it. I also really liked the magical system. The main story was also something that felt a little stale, a “powerless” princess and an overpowered male who come together to bring down her tyrannical family isn’t exactly a new story.

I did like the queer side characters and how normalized queerness was. Some of the dialogue both spoken and internal was really clunky and out of place. There’s a point where Revna is talking to Hellbringer about past lovers and it’s just so uncomfortable. Like no natural flow to the conversation.

The is a fun romance fantasy, it isn’t like super groundbreaking, but if you enjoy the genre you’ll enjoy this book.

Thanks to Netgalley and Berkely Publishing Group – Ace for the advanced reader’s copy. All opinions are my own.