Enchanting the Fae Prince (Kingdoms of Lore #2)

Rating: 2 1/2 ♥’s
Published: April 29, 2021
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 251

Description: An outcast maiden. A fae prince. A match bound by fate.
When outcast cobbler Rhianne braves the enchanted wood to find her fated love, absolutely everything that could go wrong does. The Matchweaver witch’s magical loom reveals Rhianne is fated for the most powerful fae prince in history. Sounds great to Rhianne, but the Matchweaver has big plans for the prince, and they don’t involve a lowly cobbler. The Matchweaver rages at the match, and her fit angers the ancients who crafted it. The ancients present a magical wand to Rhianne, setting the young woman on the path to raise a new Matchweaver.
The Matchweaver sets a deadly darkness to spread across the kingdom, and Rhianne has days to raise the new Matchweaver or everyone in Lore will die.
Although horrified at the darkness unspooling across the land, Prince Werian is rather delighted at the turn of events. He was meant for adventure such as this and doesn’t mind dodging dangerous spells. What he isn’t prepared for is the sacrifice he’ll have to make to save the kingdom.
This quest isn’t what Rhianne and Werian believed it to be, and if they don’t figure out how to rescue themselves and Lore, it won’t only be a legendary love lost, the entire kingdom will disappear into the void.
Loosely inspired by the old tales of Robin Hood

This was the book that I picked for my August Robin Hood retelling. I was excited to read it because it sounded like a run take on it, sadly it just didn’t really hit the mark for me. There were a few things that just didn’t work for me. One of the main things was I felt it wasn’t edited great. There were contradicting pieces through the story that I feel if it had been gone through would have been caught. In one instance Prince Werian talks about how when Rhianne’s wand is taken he can understand her being upset since she has had magic at her fingertips her whole life…except she hasn’t she got it like 2 days before. Then in another chapter, Prince Werian tells a story of a kidnapped witch, but he tells it twice in the chapter and the story is different each time he tells it. I know maybe not everyone catches those things or cares, but it is something that annoys me when I read a book.

That being said I did think the idea of the book was a good one. I liked that it was a Robin Hood retelling, but that it was slight and you got more of a new story with it woven into it. The book moved at a fast pace, and the romance took off right away which didn’t feel quite real, but it worked in a way with the story since they were fated through the mageloom. I thought that Rhianne & Werian had a fairly good connection, they had some fun banter, but I could have used more. They worked well together on their mission and I am glad they ended up together. The supporting characters were not really there that much, they provided a little to the story, but they were definitely not a big part of it and you didn’t learn much about them.

Overall it just wasn’t my favorite retelling I have done this year. I do think it had good potential and a few tweaks would have made it better. I am not sure if I will check out the first in the series or not.

Book Challenges: