Title: Curse Breaker

Author: Audrey Grey

Pub. Date: August 12, 2019

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

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All magic has a price.

Haven survived the Devourers, but she isn’t any closer to breaking the curse. Meanwhile, her forbidden magic rages brighter and more dangerous every day.

To control her powers and stand a chance against the Shade Queen, Haven made a bargain with two enemy immortals. Now her waking hours are spent fighting alongside the Sun Lord, but her dreams belong to the Shade Lord.

Only the closer she ventures into the wicked Shadow Kingdom the more her magic shows itself—and the more she struggles with whom to trust. The golden but wounded Sun Lord or the darkly charismatic Shade Lord.

Both are off-limits.

And both have the ability to save her . . . or destroy her.

With the Shade Queen closing in and Bell’s time nearly up, Haven will sacrifice everything to break the curse—but will it be enough to stop the mortal realm from falling into darkness forever?

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This will be a spoiler free review.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It had everything, magic, secrets, steamy moments, friendship, heartache, loss and triumph. But for some reason I don’t feel that same intense desire to read the next one.

I’m definitely going to, without a doubt, I do need to know what happens next.

Plus, I want more Archeron, Haven and Stolas.

But something about this book has left me struggling to write this review.

I think I know what my main issue is, but it’s also a couple of little things.

And I just want to reiterate, again, that I did enjoy this book. I think it holds up comparatively to the first one, and the progression of the plot makes sense, and something much larger is bound to happen. I love this world that Grey has created, and I love the nod to Norse Mythology and the Gods. I love how I never have to struggle to picture and imagine the world she’s created. It just comes to life in my mind. I still love the cast of characters and their chemistry with each other. I love the sass, snark and sexual tension between Archeron, Haven and Stolas.

But with that being said, I’m also highly freaking annoyed at the sexual tension between Archeron, Haven and Solas. I’m also annoyed that I still don’t know much about Stolas. All part of the intrigue, I guess. Personally, I’m more interested in Stolas as a love interest, but I don’t know. I think he’s got better chemistry with Haven, understands her on a deeper level. Archeron feels more surface, like a first great love. The kind that burns hot and bright and ends in a wreck. Now, I could be totally wrong, and maybe he and Haven make it out to the other side. I don’t doubt their feelings for each other, but I think one of them harbors stronger feelings than the other. I know it’s basically two books of sexual tension between Archeron and Haven, but this book felt kind of lacking in it, despite the few steamier moments – I’ll touch on pacing in a moment. I don’t know, I guess I wish it had taken a little longer, more build up. What Archeron ends up doing, whether that was really his goal all along, almost feels like a girl belting “I love you” to her crush for the first time and her crush doesn’t even know she has feelings. Meaning, I think it felt rushed.

Also, I was kind of annoyed at Bell’s whole relationship in this book. It was very Beauty and the Beast, and the way it ended kind of pissed me off. Why did I have to care and then that happened. I get why, but I feel strung along. I mean, and maybe it has yet to be seen, but it kind of feels like it didn’t really add anything to the story, it was just a plot device.

Let me backtrack just a bit, I think my biggest issue is the pacing.

It just felt off in this book. Too much happened, too quickly. I was legit able to breeze through this book in like, 3.5 hours. The stakes were high, and yet, the group accomplished everything so quickly. I don’t want to say easily, since Haven risked her life for each time – which is another thing that kind of annoyed me, but I digress. A lot does happen in this book, and while I appreciate the quick read, I do kind of wish it had been a little longer, so the pace could have been a little slower. I wish it had been a little bit more difficult for the group to get the things they needed. While it wasn’t easy, and they had to face a lot, they managed to completely each task fairly promptly, though never unscathed.

I went ahead and read the synopsis for book 3, and I’m excited. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get it, seeing as how Amazon isn’t shipping books in any sort of expediate manner due to everything going on, but as soon as I can, I’ll be buying and diving into King Maker and I couldn’t be more excited.

If you’re looking for an exciting fantasy series and you enjoy Sarah J. Maas, then you should definitely check out the Kingdom of Runes series – books 1 through 3 are currently out, so binge read away!