3.5 ⭐

I'll be forgiving about the many mistypes, grammar errors, and dialect "misspellings" for the sole purpose of this being an ARC.

And for the FMC for being a dumbass. No development whatsoever in her part, but hey, at least the world was immersive enough to drown out her action after action that elicited cringe and frustration from the very depths of my soul.

Maybe if we made the MMC the main character it would have been less irritating? Petition to write a sequel in His perspective (and delete the FMC entirely haha). Still, it was a good read.

Wizard's Masquerade
(Huskarl Duology Book 1) of this
by Jay Pellegrin

An extremely well written book that has everything and we’ll keep you entertained from beginning to end. Wizards mystery plots to kill the king and a slow burn romance as well . It will also keep you toes as not everyone is as they seem. A book that will hold your interest from start to finish.

This was a fun, easy enough read. I liked the concept. The male lead character had a certain degree of charm but I wanted a bit more from the female main character, and him too... The world of magic and demons and duels and royalty was fun! But I wanted a bit more from the plot twists and I felt like it could have been condensed a bit...
#WizardsMasquerade #NetGalley

Will definitely be picking up book 2, I was definitely intrigued by the MMC even though the FMC seemed like she was just along for the ride more than anything else

!!! THIS REVIEW FULL OF SPOILERS !!! BEWARE !!!

DNFed at 12%. I wanted to like this book, it sounded interesting and had an engaging premise, but, man, was the actual read incredibly disappointing.

First of all, Leyna is a dumbass. Not a single braincell in that pretty head of hers. I rarely find main characters as uniquely unintelligent as her outside of poor wattpad fanfics.

Her opening scene is that she girlbossed too hard and got turned around in a maze, and failed part of the practical exam, then engaged in combat with her rival, but his spell went errant and knocked her off a tower and broke her jaw, and she still somehow scored second place in the practical exam and is said to be one of the best in class when it comes to fighting. Bitch, WHERE????

Then she followed up that misadventure with studying for her most important graduation exams and said that if you fail, you repeat a year. Instead of being like “welp, studied enough, time to sleep” she went and joined her classmates in relaxation time (fair), they started drinking (I’m pretty sure she didn’t, so what’s her excuse for being dumb), and then decided they’ll go pull a prank. They snuck into headmaster’s office and while the rest were pulling the prank, she snooped and ended up being called to an ancient demon summoning book that she very wisely started reading from. Her rival—who mind you almost killed her not a day earlier, remember that opening scene—interrupts her, as one does cause he also isn’t smart and idk why he thought it’s a good idea to interrupt someone summoning a demon 🙄

So the demon is summoned, and it tries to eat her, eventually the headmaster defeats the demon, but not before it mangles her leg so badly, she might not be able to walk. (Her LI is probably that healer guy who fixed her broken jaw and mostly fixed her leg, too bad he’s not good enough healer to fix her dumbass brain.) So she wakes up 8 days later. Leg? Mangled and potentially not functional. Exams? Missed. Year? Has to be repeated. Her? Idk why not expelled for summoning a demon.

So like???? Why not just stay in character and not go on a stupid prank adventure and not miss your exams, when previous paragraphs said you, in fact, don’t engage a lot in student life outside of studying. She didn’t even drink to justify the lack of braincells in decision making.

Anyway, 0/10, would not recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC copy of this book, in exchange for this honest review.

This book had everything I loved. Wizards, fantasy, and all things romance. It's very well written and kept me turning the pages, though I did find the beginning a bit slow. Grumpy sunshine is one oof my favourite tropes and this book did not disappoint.

Looking forward to the second book!

Leyna is training to be a wizard. After the night of the last test her friends and her decide.to play a prank on the headmistress which leads leyna to be hurt really bad.
After she barely manages to pass school she must take a circus to the king. Here she meets a jester that is a lot more than he seems.
It's a 500 page book and it's kinda dull to me

I have recently been getting into fantasy romances and this one was such a good time. It definitely has such a magical aspect mixed with mystery and is so fun.

Really enjoyed this.
Fantasy romance with elements of mystery and magic. An interesting world, the jester was such a fun character. Looking forward to the second book!

Overall I really enjoyed this book. I did get an ARC that hadn't been through the final editing so 8 am assuming those issues will be fixed before the final release. It was fast paced and I enjoyed most of the characters. Initially the main character wasn't always likeable but that was the point and you got to watch her grow. There were a few plot holes that I am hoping are resolved in the second book, but I enjoyed this and will be reading the second one when it comes out.

(🌶️🌶️/5)

I do love a good fantasy romance and I really wanted to love this one a lot more than I did.

The world this is set in is incredibly intriguing but I don’t think the world building did it justice and while I loved Jester (who made the entire book worth it) I didn’t get on with the female lead. I just found her quite unpleasant or at least her attitude and I only made it through the book because of Jester and how hooked in by the world I was.

There’s some great twists and turns to the story, but unfortunately I also feel like it dragged in a couple of places.

I loved the idea of this book but I felt like the pacing for the entire novel was “off”. I’m not sure how else to explain it. It took me a long time to actually get into the book because the beginning was very slow. I also felt like the important parts were rushed and the unimportant stuff dragged on.

I was too stuck in the fact that the pacing was off that it was hard for me to want to keep reading. Again, the potential was there but the follow through was a bit lacking.

The main character Leyna was annoying, the story was too predictable, and the world building and magic system created plot holes.

I truly don't know how I feel about this book...On one hand I was fully hooked on it and stayed up into the wee wee hours of the night to read it. But on the other hand I was frustrated.

While yes it was an ARC edition, there were a lot of errors with missing quotation marks, or misplaced marks; spaces were missing between words, and some other inconsistencies. Another frustration was the language. The book read like a mix between high fantasy, urban fantasy, and contemporary. One character would have dialect speaking "fer" instead of "for" and other similar words. And then all of a sudden the appearance of "shit" and "fuck." Where did it even come from? I was so confused. All of these little frustrations took me out of the story and it took a hot minute to fall back in.

I did enjoy the intrigue and the idea of story, but it dragged on too long, was a little predictable, etc. Will I read the second one? Probably not.

Oooh this was a swoon worthy book and I loved every minute of it! You need to read this book if you love to read great fanasty romances!

"What was the feeling she was chasing? Was it happiness? Whatever it was, it was elusive, but close enough that she could almost taste it."

2.5 Stars!

I enjoyed the premise of the book, however I think how the story developed and flow ultimately did not meet expectations.

I found it quite difficult to connect to the main female character, I found that I was hoping for a major character development to come sooner rather than later. I enjoyed the presence and addition of the main male character as it brought more playfulness and development to the scenes.
Ultimately, I was looking for the main female lead to have more impact on the story rather than looking for other characters to fill in or move the story along.

I did enjoy the description of scenes in attempts to flesh out the world, however I felt that certain sections could have been shorten and more focused on a deeper, more detailed description on aspects of the story that truly mattered to the plot itself. I did find that the flow of the story felt quite interrupted and didn't continue through chapters as nicely as I would have liked as a reader.

Thank you to Netgalley for an eARC, I am voluntarily leaving a review.

This story started with a bang! Hella good choice of introducing the Jester in chapter 9. I always love a fashionably late entrance of such an important characther because it gives me time to cget to know the MC, Leyna, and her friends before the romantic intrigue starts off. Also, the Jester is such an intricate character, making you start doubting everything over and over again. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Leyna is a lovable characther who, for sure has made some questionable decisions, altough the ones at the end give me hope for a possible redemption arc and have me very excited about book 2.
The Jester is an amazingly written character, with hot teasing, and a lot of intrigue and mystery surrounding him. The Magic system is great, the plot mystery is well done, the characters are interesting as hell, the romance!! The romance aspect of this story had me blushing and wanting to go back and reread some scenes.

Overall, it's an amazing romantasy who-done-it story, with attention-capturing plotline and huge promises for the next book and I'd be open to reading it.

Thank you Netgalley for letting me read and review this book. Wizard's Masquerade is a fantasy romance that was okay. Maybe fantasy romance just isn't for me. I can see why other's would enjoy this book, but I just didn't. Overall the premise is intriguing, but it did not stay engaging throughout. The characters were okay; most of them were a little too basic and boring for me. I think with some more edits the book could have been more intriguing and interesting.

It's been a while since I've had to set a book aside for a moment just to recover from the way my little fangirl heart was singing. 'Wizard's Masquerade' had me pausing multiple times for that reason and I enjoyed every second. I enjoyed the characters and their dynamics. The plot was enjoyably predictable, but not without a few twists and turns along the way.

Were there things I'd change? For sure. Sometimes the writing was repetitive or circular. Some characters (especially lower tier antagonists) needed a bit more depth. But these things did not stop me from enjoying this book at all. For me, this was a five star read because I would gladly reread it over and over again.

This was a really fun read! This world with magic where it comes from the demon realm, it was so interesting, and I loved the politics, and I had a pretty great time reading this book! I really enjoyed this mystery, and watching things unfold!

I enjoyed the first portion more then the rest of the book, to be honest. Leyna at court, she wasn't the most pleasant character to read about. She had some prejudices, and she was a bit spoiled. But she did learn and grow, which was great!

But there were plenty of things that I loved. Like her banter with the jester, he was smart and secretive and had some really great lines! And there was the mystery going on with these attacks and what was going on there, that was so interesting to read!

Honestly, I would love it if this became a series. This world was so interesting to read, and to only have one book (albeit a long book) to explore it, there's so much that could happen on from here! And I would love to see it!

I had a great time reading this book, and I'd read more by Jay Pellegrin in the future!

I’m sorry to say that this just didn’t do it for me. I wanted so badly to love it. I happen to have a weird thing for books with Jesters in them. How can I not after reading Heartless by Marissa Meyer?!?! So this really had a leg up to start. But I think the romance was too little too late.

The characters were interesting enough, but I felt that they just fell a little flat for me. So when there was finally some romance, I just wasn’t that interested. And actually, the romance had a lot of awkward timing, what will all the death and court drama going on. The plot was okay, but I was most definitely not drawn in and it seemed long to me.

So unfortunately, I did not love this one. And I can’t really recommend it either. It was just okay and I could have done without reading it. Maybe it’s just me though!!! And I’ll bet the second one will be probably very good!

Thanks to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the opportunity to read this for my honest and unbiased opinion.