i read an entire fantasy forced marriage series so you dont have to | booktok rant/review

The dirty talk was so... Under no circumstances are you to ever  lay eyes on me! It's so funny how everyone [ __ ] hates the elf king. Hello hello hi  hello everyone - my name is Cari, welcome to my channel or welcome back. Today, you guys probably  read the title, I'm going to be reading all of the - what's it called again - married to magic  books. If you guys watched my what I read in August, you guys know that I pretty much  devoured the series called the Air Awakens. I literally read three

of the books in 24 hours  and it severely damaged my eyes and brain and I ended up having like low-key vertigo for the rest  of the day...And it is by an author named Elise Kova. What's interesting about her books  is first of all she - okay sorry I've had a mosquito in my house for like days, this is an immortal  mosquito, it's probably some fairy prince -my redheaded fantasy protagonist story is finally  beginning. But anyway I thought I just saw him... he lives to see another day. She first o

f all has  a ton of books okay - she has the air awakens series with five books, it's like vortex chronicles which  is another series that's related to air awakens and that has six books in it, the loom saga which  has four books in it, the trial of sorcerers which isn't finished yet but it's gonna have three books...  I mean she's got, she writes a lot okay and I think that she writes in a very easily digestible way. I  would definitely recommend if you are just kind of if you were just kind of

hungry for a  fantasy but - I'm so- I know you can't hear it but my neighbor is singing. Anyway she, if you're  hungry for a fantasy and you've kind of run out of books you don't know where to turn next, I think  that even though she does play very heavily on tropes and she's quite obvious about it, like I  don't think her work is groundbreaking in any way shape or form but her writing is definitely - like  I said I read those first three books, ate them up so quickly. It gets the job done. I g

ot a little  tired as I mentioned at the end of the air awakens series. I thought the last two books weren't that  good but at the end of the day it scratched the itch that I wanted it to. I read that series  a week or so after I had read a Deal with the Elf King and this was a book that I had just seen  a ton over bookstagram basically, a lot of people doing like the deal with the elf king aesthetic  reels and stuff like that. I was getting fomo and I wanted to know what the hell it was about a

nd I  knew it was gonna be, you know, an enemies to lovers thing. I didn't love it simply because like I said  she's very open about what trope she is playing on and in the case of a deal with the elf king,  which is the first book in the series - they're all standalones but they're within this kind of  family - it was just so incredibly obvious that it was an enemies to lovers but that you know the  elf wasn't really the bad guy and he's like really trying to save her and you know, you know the

story.  I didn't love it simply because it was so not subtle you know? But that being said, if you love  that trope and if you are looking for a book that follows that trope - she writes these for you. The  married to magic books are all gonna be that. So I decided I'm interested - you know that  I love a good enemies to lovers story so I didn't love a deal with the elf king which  is the first one (I'll tell you about in it in a second) and then there is a Dance with the  Fae Prince and a Duel

with the Vampire Lord. The ratings are quite interesting. I'm looking  at goodreads - I pretty much never pay attention to ratings, I usually don't even check them in  advance but here's what what we've got going on on goodreads. So a deal with elf king has 60,000 ratings and it's got a 3.77 star rating. The next one has a slightly higher one coming in at  3.93 but it only has 15 almost 16,000 ratings so like a quarter of the people who read a deal with  the elf king read a dance with the fae p

rince. A duel with the vampire is the most high rated and  it is at 4.11 stars but it's only currently at about 3,000 ratings. Granted this came out in 2022  so it's been a lot less time - deal with the elf king came out in 2020. I don't know, could it be  that a duel with the vampire lord is better or is it just that the fans of this series are the  only ones that have continued the series and thus they're the only ones at this point rating the  books? I don't know and I'm gonna find out. And I

'm, you know, going into this now knowing her style -  a deal with the elf king was the first book I ever read by her - going into it knowing her style,  I'm prepared for it to be a little heavy-handed and that's - I'm gonna be okay with that, I'm not  gonna knock her for it okay? And what else did I want to say? Oh most important thing about her  work is that her work is all on kindle unlimited! Personally, as someone who reads a lot and I  don't like to buy books - I get everything from the li

brary - I thought that it ended up working  out for me in terms of how much I've used it so kindle unlimited, if you have it, check these books  out. You aren't going to be losing anything from it. I'm going to start telling you what these  books are about and give you my feelings on them. I'm just going to give you what I remember  from deal with the elf king. I'm not going to reread it so let me tell you what goodreads  says this book is about because lord knows my memory. This is a quote from

the book. "The elves  come for two things: war and wives. In both cases, they come for death." I gotta say, she starts  off the book with some pretty epic lines and then - no hate, no hate okay? I absolutely  applaud her for writing as much as she does, as quickly as she does. You can't keep up that level  of intensity for an entire book, I understand so I'm just gonna shut my mouth. "3000 years ago, humans were hunted by powerful races with wild magic, until there was a peace treaty formed. So

now for  centuries the elves have taken a young woman from this particular village to be the human queen  and I know what you're thinking - is it this one elf king that's immortal right? Taking all these  wives? No. Okay, that's what I was worried about. The elves do die. And the way that you're chosen  is if you start showing signs of magic so our main girl has been living her life and she hasn't  been showing any signs of magic so she's like whoo I'm safe! Our main girl's name is Luella and s

he  has been studying her entire life in herbology and so she's the town's only healer and there's some  kind of like fever or poison or something going on in her town where it's very essential that  they have her as a healer saving people so when - spoiler not spoiler - she gets whisked off into the  fairy elf realm, she's very upset because people are literally dying because she's not there right? She is taken to a land filled with wild magic and is forced to be the new queen to a cold yet  bl

isteringly handsome elf king...Ooh I love this. Once there, she learns about a dying world that  only she can save. The magic land of midscape pulls on one corner of her heart, her home and the people  tug on the other. But what will truly break her is a passion she never wanted." Whoa this is my first  read-through of this, wow okay. It's inspired by the tales of Hades and Persephone as well as Beauty  and the Beast with a happily ever after ending. It's perfect for fantasy romance fans looking

for  just the right amount of steam for their next slow burn and swoon-worthy couple. So there's that. I  will say like literally my only problem with the book was simply that the trope was very obvious, but other than that like I did not mind it. I think I said this in my review earlier but  it's like if you want to kill time this book will hold your attention and do the job that you  are asking it to do. I didn't think the writing was bad, I thought the story was like normally paced,  I thou

ght the world building for a standalone I'm always impressed by people who can write  fantasy standalones. Overall I thought she did a good job I just thought like whoa this  is like a villain character - the elf king is like a person I had read before. He is  a powerful fantasy man written by a woman  - what are you going to do? This is an incredibly  long intro to my video but I am going to start right now...The dance with the fae prince and I'm  not going to look at the synopsis or anything l

ike that before I start it because that's how I  roll, crazy like that and yeah so we're going to start a dance with the fae prince. All I can see  is "she knew her hand in marriage would be sold dot dot" It's a forced marriage  enemies to lovers series. Okay wish me luck. Okay hi guys I'm back actually  real quick. Upon opening this - also it's finally like cool enough, it's kind of like autumny time  that I can let my candles. First things first - the map for this world, there you go, it looks

like  a video game map. And I had no idea that this all took place in the same kingdom of Midscape so I  wonder if we'll have any crossover. I don't know but yeah I thought first of all I thought that was  funny and then her dedication page is for "everyone who stays up late reading books about kissing."  I just appreciate an author that understands their audience and writes for them. I think that  that's great so I'm already, I'm feeling welcome. I can't wait to begin. See you when I have an 

update okay? Greetings everyone so hi. I am only on page 39, chapter 3, and so far I actually like  this setup, the way that she's telling the story better than how I remember I felt with  reading duel with the elf king. This has a bit of mystery to it, I think I am going to  get into spoilers so I've decided this video will be a spoilery one so this if you don't  want to know anything this is your goodbye bye! This one I feel like she might be trying to  make it like a Cinderella kind of thing

because she has evil stepsisters and her mother and  father have passed away and she's being like sold off you know? And she was kind of like the  servant of the house and you know anyway... But other than that, it doesn't, so far it  doesn't match up with Cinderella at all but I appreciate that I have no idea what's happening.  Like with the elf king I kind of immediately knew there was like a curse and somehow she was the key  to solving it but something bad would happen to her and so the elf

king is trying to sacrifice  himself so that she doesn't get hurt, you know... I like got that from like the very first second  but this I have no clue. There is the woods that she's not supposed to go into because there's  evil fae stuff and then whoever she married (the fae prince, I mean...) is busy and doesn't want to  see her. He just wanted this book that her mother had so we know there's something important  about the book but we just met the prince and basically he wouldn't come down to

see her  he was like "live in my house, I don't want to see you, I'm very busy" and she was like "uh we just  got married?" She didn't meet this guy like his his butler signed the papers right? She's like  "excuse me we just got married, can I at least like see your face my dude?" And so he comes down to  her study and she notices that all the chairs are like facing away from each other and she's  like that's strange and then he comes in and he's just like "don't turn around" and she's like "wha

t?" and he's like "I said don't turn around!" His butler had given her all of the rules of the house and  he's like "there's a final rule that you must know - under no circumstances are you to ever  lay eyes on me!" He's like I heard that you wanted to meet me and, you know, I will  oblige, only if you swear to never look at me. So I had to put the book down at that.  So I have no idea where this is going but so far like I like the language that she's  using a lot more than the elf king and like

I said I'm just intrigued. I'm 40 pages in and I don't  know what's going on so that's my update see ya! Okay an update I'm on page 129 and I so far  I'm still liking it. I think the main character is like annoying in a way that she has to be a little  annoying in order to get the plot to move forward but like she's not super getting on my nerves.  We just learned the main guy's name and at first they were introducing another character and so  I thought his name was Hol. Like h-o-l. Which is a

character's name but I was like are we  gonna have a romantic lead and his name is Hol? But it's not don't worry. Overall I think  it's interesting, I think - the dialogue's a little weak because there was a point where  she literally was like "no I must be dreaming!" and I'm like nobody says that out loud but I'm  enjoying it and they hate the elf prince so... Hello we are checking in from page 202, no notes  basically since the last time I checked in except that I think that the romance is jus

t a  little strange. Maybe it's that the our main girl has been very sheltered and also like yeah she  is technically married to this guy so she's kind of hoping that she falls in love with him but  like I know that they've had more time together off the page that we haven't been a part of  so maybe that's it as well but it just kind of seems like suddenly she's like having a lot  of really strong daydreams about him and there's many points in this book she has already said like ~the need to tou

ch him~ you know? like they're drawn together. He's got this gravitational pull, kind of  came out of nowhere it feels like. The yearning bit isn't fully pulling me in but that's okay. I  think I think that the fae prince is a little whiny brat a lot of the time but I kind of get why  but yeah he's kind of acting like a baby and he's owned up to it - he has said that he acts like a  like a spoiled child. So good that he knows, but anyway I might finish this today so I will catch  up with you nex

t time. The book has been finished. So what I appreciate with this is that even  though this is definitely like a fantasy romance she doesn't put - there's like two or three scenes  steamy scenes right? It's not like the whole book so i appreciate that. But I will say this book the  dance with the fae prince...the dirty talk was so painful for me to read. I would you know I'm  fine with action words even though she chose a plundered? What was the other  one that started with a p? purged? She use

d a couple questionable verbs. I'm  fine - I'm usually fine with like descriptions of actions but when there is like dialogue  and she's talking in like thick paragraphs I just - oh man - the cringe was real. I figured  out I figured out what was gonna happen about halfway through but I appreciated how it ended.  I don't think the romance was super strong but it had characters that I liked. If I remember  correctly, deal with the elf king didn't have many characters but this had more people and 

and there was like a little goofy boy character and yeah I appreciated it so I would actually  say I like fae prince more than elf king? And I also like that a significant amount of the plot  surrounds her childhood horse Misty that she loves. I think I liked the romance a little bit more in  the elf prince or the elf king but I liked the just in general like plot and other characters  more in this book. What's funny is they were talking so much [ __ ] about the elf king in here  which was very

funny and I remember in the elf king they really didn't like the fae and then  they also mentioned that allegedly there's vampires but no one's seen them for centuries.  And the next book in this series is about the vampires so I will start that maybe tonight. Catch  you then when we have - what is it - duel with the vampire lord. So it's deal, dance, and duel. Duet, oh  the next one is duet. So you guys with the vampires. Hi guys right before I jump into the vampires, I wanted to read what the

goodreads summary is. Here we go, now that I know what the story is  about. She knew her hand in marriage would be sold, she had no idea of fae prince was the buyer. Katria swore she'd never fall in love Oh oh okay that wasn't yeah hold on. She swore  she'd never fall in love. She'd seen what love means through the cruelty of her family but her  new husband makes not falling in love difficult as their attraction begins to grow. So too does  the oddities within her new life - strange rules, scre

ams in the night, attacks by fae, then she  witnesses a ritual not meant for human eyes and she finds herself spirited away to the  land of Midscape. A dance with a fae prince is a complete standalone novel inspired by the tales  of Psyche and Eros, as well as Cinderella - okay - with a happily ever after ending it is perfect  for fantasy...we said that already okay. So yeah that is one thing that actually really bothered  me about this book is just that her whole deal is she doesn't want to lov

e because she  was abused by her stepmother. Her father like she just, the love that she has seen in  her life because her mother died very young, the love that she has seen - she doesn't want  any part of it. And so when they are very clearly falling in love she's like "no feelings no feelings"  and it's just not super believable. Anyway so that's the official summary but on to vampires  okay see you tomorrow. Hi there just an update I'm only on chapter two but look at this first line...  But a

lso this one is much more obviously connected with the world than the elf king was because  the Applegate trading company is the name of our main girl from fae prince! That's her father's  company. He went to the distant north to get silver and he died so I hope this place  doesn't rely too heavily on the silver because... What we've got going on is there is a village  that every single month on the full moon they get attacked by vampires and our main girl  is the like main person who makes silv

er stuff so she's very important. Every 500 years,  there is a blood full moon where the vampire lord can come in and apparently the like  full moon vampire [ __ ] it's just a taste of what the vampires can cook up. So they're  assuming tomorrow on the blood moon they're all gonna die. But they're gonna put up a good fight.  But yes that's where we're at and I feel like I'm gonna fall asleep any second now so I don't know  how much more I'm gonna read but I will update you once I learn more. Oh

and our girl because she's a  very important person or something, the master hunter gets to choose who she marries so she's  not allowed to be touched by anyone. Master hunter told her probably next week you're gonna get  married but she still doesn't know to who and yeah... Hello my friends, I am on page  164. I am 30% of the way through and this is not a vampire story. This is absolutely a  zombie story which I find hilarious. What are my thoughts? So I'm having a little bit of a rough  time g

etting into it but honestly it could just be me succumbing to a little bit of a reading  slump, I don't necessarily think it's an issue with the story just more of me reading too many of  these types of books back to back. so I don't want to knock a point off of her for that. Things  that I do like about this story is that this is it's got like a little bit of a different  take on the whole like enemies to lovers and then this kind of it's not forced marriage but like  she has been captured and

like has to stay there to help the vampires break a curse but what I like  about it is there's this added element of she is pretending to be something that she isn't as well.  So they all assume that she's a hunter when she's not, her brother just has like kind of helped  train her sometimes. She makes weapons, that's her thing. All the vampires are like great, we found  a hunter and she's gonna help us break the curse and she's just like yeah, I'm a hunter here to help  you break the curse. so

I appreciate that. The only thing that's kind of bothering me about the  book is just that because it's in first person and it's we're only seeing her point of view, it's  just a little annoying because once again with with the tropes that are in this entire series, you know that there's a misunderstanding, you know that if everybody just told each other  what they know like what is this curse? They keep mentioning the curse but like she doesn't  ask for details about it? It just gets kind of an

noying in that sense but overall  I think that this one is fun. It has a little bit more of a halloweeny feel I think  so I'm kind of getting in the mood and I think today I'm like in the right mindset  where I can if not finish it at least get a good chunk of it. Right now is when we're kind  of jumping in to the action part so yeah I'm interested in what the curse is. I wish she would  ask, wish she would ask. Anyway here we go! Our boy is 3124 years old. So just gonna be real, her writing sty

le,  the steamy scenes - I don't remember it being so bad in the elf king but like it was pretty, as I said, pretty not good with  the fae prince but vampire lord the smut scenes are...first of all they happen early, like this  is before we're even halfway done with the book. And they are just painful to read. I gotta say I'm  sorry for like I don't even think people who like smut would necessarily like  this, like this isn't just me you know, I don't know, but I feel like this book is  so long

- like I don't know why I can't get into it but yeah he just said he's 24 years  old but they were in like the long sleep or whatever for three thousand and one  hundred years so he says he's "around" three thousand one hundred and twenty four years old - but for him it felt like mere moments. Yeah okay anyway I'm gonna keep reading but  I'm - it's taken me like almost two hours to read a hundred and something pages  which is not how I do things so... Close your eyes if you can't handle horribly

written smut because look at what  I'm reading. What do you think I could show you? Stop! So this is absolutely the smuttiest  of the three. I don't like it, like I - so many people said that this was actually  the best one in terms of the plot but now I'm thinking I need to reread the elf king because  the elf king might end up being my favorite of the three? I would say the like the fae one was  fine other than like these long paragraphs of dirty talk that could have been erased but like  as

far as the plot and whatever fine, but this like even the plot is just so convoluted - so far  it's fae prince, elf king, and then vampire lord... bundle it up and toss it away. The series  has been finished, oh my god that took so much out of me to finish that damn  book. So what are my thoughts on vampire lord? I thought that that one was the most truly  enemies to lovers in that even though it was kind of just like a misunderstanding, they genuinely  like hated each other for most of the book

, so if you're into that I would say on a ranking  of enemies to lovers it would be vampire, elf, fairy? But yeah I just think that I don't know  why this one was quite so long - this one was 526 pages versus the other ones were more like in  the 400, 300 range. So I think she tried to add more like world building and lore and like this  curse but it just felt a little bit too long. It was just overall a little confusing, there were  like many layers to the curse and then there were many layers

to like...so overall it definitely  wasn't my favorite, it wasn't very vampire-y. I think the only like vampire vibes you get is  in the smut scenes because she really sexualizes the whole like sharing blood thing but other  than that, it really felt more like they were just a bunch of people fighting zombies and a curse. So  if you were hoping for like very vampire-ish vibes like they can go out in the sun, I mean, and  they don't sparkle you know? So yeah I would say I definitely lean have mor

e on the elf and  fae side. I feel like the fae one is the one that bothered me the least. Again, I'm gonna have to read  the elf king. I have a feeling if I reread it that might be my favorite so in terms of ranking it  I might just go in order of the series - I think it gets worse but what I do really want to read  is the next book which will come out next year and it's the final one I think and  it's about sirens so it's gonna be like a low-key mermaid kind of thing going on and  honestly I'm

down -apparently they sing... Stupid? are you dumb Cari? They're sirens. Yeah no  they were - because in the other books they have all referenced the sirens and how much they would  love to hear the sirens singing duets and whatever but they're sirens, like that's their  thing that they sing I can't believe I just said that. But anyway overall I think  if you are the kind of person that enjoys the forced marriage and enemies to lovers tropes -  I'm not a big, I don't really enjoy the forced ma

rriage trope at all so if you like those two  and you're kind of willing to read any thing that has those tropes these will be fine but I think if  you're more of like you like those tropes but you aren't willing to read like I'm not, I don't want  to call it like it just wasn't great I would say. Her air awakens trilogy or her air awakens series  is much much much much better than these if you're looking for a kind of enemies to lovers magical  thing going on, definitely read at least the first

three of the air awakens series. These  books, it's nice that they're standalones again I really think that these are kind of like  if you are at a loss of what to read next these are interesting options for you, if you  if they tickle your fancy but overall I felt like especially vampire lord for some reason  was really hard for me to get into. So I will still like I said I will still read the fourth  one but yeah again if you read the elf king and you liked it I would recommend trying fae pri

nce  and if you are stuck looking for a fantasy read give the elf king a try. It's so funny how  everyone [ __ ] hates the elf king like like the fae, the vampires - everybody hates the elf  king and I think it's fabulous but yeah I would say don't stray from it this isn't like horrible -  maybe don't put them on the tippity-tippity-top of your tbr if you've got a lot to read so anyway  that was my deep dive into the married to magic series family and yeah sorry I feel  like my reading vlogs are

always so strange because I am very bad at like taking breaks and  sharing my thoughts so this was me like really forcing myself to talk about the books. I hope to  get better as I continue on but yeah thank you for being along on the journey with me and I will  see you guys next time. I have no idea what I'm talking about next time so I can't tell you but  I will see you guys then and thank you always bye!