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.

What do you do when upholding the law doesn't match doing the right thing?

That is what Leyna needs to figure out as she begins serving the crown as one of the court's protective Huskarls.

Here's the set up: Leyna has completed her wizarding training and has joined the Royal guards to help protect her king and bring justice to the realm. after tragedy strikes with a demon attack that takes out the king, queen and most of the court Leyna sets off to find who's behind it. Along the way the Court Jester is at every turn teasing her and helping prod the sensibilities of this woman who is so focused on doing the correct thing she might miss out on doing the right thing.

Thoughts: This was a fun debut novel. Leyna wasn't someone who I liked all the time but someone who was growing and learning along the way. I did like the Jester as well as he was trying to be the sun to Leyna's grump. Other characters throughout - namely Grace and Quinn - friends of Leyna and perhaps a foil to herself and the Jester were good to bring more shading to the black and white world Leyna seems to find herself living in.

Something I do want from this world is a "Floofie" which was a lil pet that Leyna was give and just seems to be the perfect companion.

This wasn't a story that had me guessing all along the way as to who was responsible for what. It held standard to a lot of the conventional tropes so I had guessed who was "the bad guy" pretty early on. However that didn't diminish my enjoyment of it as a whole and there were a few little surprises along the way. It does set up for a sequel though I did feel I could read this as a stand alone and be satisfied.

Thank you NetGalley for giving me an ARC in exchange for review!

I feel like this book only gave us the tip of the iceberg. My only con about this is that Leyna does not act like she is 22 years old. She feels more like 16-17. The jester is such a complex character. I hope the next book delves more into his background and how he came to be how he is.

You know that saying of don't judge a book by its cover? Well, the cover of this book is what first caught my attention and the synopsis drew me into taking a chance on this book. The story inside stole the whole show though.

The worldbuilding and the plot was written superbly, and I loved the characters. I also liked that the romance is slow burn. It really fits with the characters and the story.

I will admit, Leyna was hard for me to connect to at first. As the story progressed though, I grew to like her.
Jester though stole my heart from the time he first appeared on the page. If I had to choose a book boyfriend, he would be the one I'd pick. I really, really enjoyed their banter between them, and I hope there is a lot more of it in the next book.

This book was full of adventure and twists and turns that will leave your begging for book 2.

Leyna and her friends found themselves on an adventure filled with perils, deaths, demons, and new beginnings. This adventure had a lot of learning curves for Leyna and her friends, but first, they needed to find themselves. This adventure-filled journey was a chance for the friends to achieve their chosen careers and transcend beyond.

A school setting with a fierce heroine and a mysterious love interest!

I liked the plot and romance. This book involves a magical school and just look at the cover- it's giving me all the winter,cosy vibes! I went into this book was not many expectations, but was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this. It had good pacing and vivid imagery. I also enjoyed the dialogue and side characters. I would recommend!

Leyna has dreamed of becoming a member of the Royal Guard for most of her life. She is almost done her wizard training and hopes to get a position at the castle, protecting the royal family. But just as her dreams come true, a massacre rocks the kingdom and Leyna discovers that blindly following orders may be too much for her - especially when the alternative is so enticing.

I quite enjoyed the world-building in Wizard's Masquerade - the magic principles are unique and interesting and the kingdom was well-developed. I did find the begining of the book slow - it's very hard to like Leyna at the start of the story - she is selfish and self-righteous. Her character development is slow. The side characters were a delight.

Such an addictive book to read! I loved all of the characters and the dynamic between them. The world-building here is fabulous as well. I think the cover implies a straightforward fantasy romance but there's a lot more going on here. I would love to read more about this world.

I received this e-arc from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book starts by immediately putting you into the middle of action as Leyna is taking her maze exam to qualify as a wizard.
We then follow Leyna as she begins work in the Royal Guard and meets Jester.
I really enjoyed the romance in this book between Leyna and Jester - it’s had just the right amount of slow burn and I was happy when Jester turned out to be who I thought he was!
I felt the ending was maybe a little bit rushed and I would have like to see more interaction between Leyna and the other characters as life started to return to normal.
Overall this was a really enjoyable read and I would definitely read the next book to see what happens

2.5/5 stars

it took me almost 2 months to finish this book. it was partially my fault (i'm a big mood reader and i got slightly busier in october), but the book isn't blameless.

first of all, the book could’ve been shorter. a lot of scenes were dragged out and a lot of information kept getting repeated over and over again. a few times throughout the book it felt like we were just going round and round in circles.

speaking of information, there was so much of it that was revealed by using infodumps. it felt like an infodump happened in every other chapter. i understand that they’re sometimes unavoidable, especially for worldbuilding in new fantasy works, but in the case of this book it was just too much. i also didn’t like that the information leyna gets is from other characters just telling her things. this coupled with the lack of action/events in the book made her seem a bit passive and the book pretty monotonous.

leyna the main character was kind of insufferable but also… endearing? she started out arrogant, thinking and acting like she was better than everyone else around her. normally that behavior in a main character would annoy me, but the way she was written made her feel relatable and sometimes lovable. as the story progressed, we got to see more of her, such as her history and how much she cares for her friends and family. and as much as i enjoyed her unbearable-ness, i appreciated her growth, the way she realized her own limitations and acknowledged that she isn’t superior to the people around her. in the beginning she was very idealistic and she viewed certain things through rose-tinted glasses, and i especially loved seeing her slowly grow disillusioned with those things. overall, she was a fun main character to read about, and the author did a great job in making her a three-dimensional character.

i liked the romance. leyna and jester’s banter was fun to read, and leyna discovering a certain thing about jester made the book more interesting. before the jester’s real identity was revealed, i had my suspicions, and i was a bit worried, because i didn’t feel the chemistry between leyna and the person who i (correctly) suspected was jester’s real identity. but fortunately, once the reveal happened, they did grow on me. i will say it was a bit of an instalove, but they were pretty sweet together.

i also liked seeing leyna’s dynamics with other people. i especially loved her friendships with grace and quinn.

unfortunately, the ending felt meh to me. i had guessed certain plot points before they were revealed, but that wasn’t my problem. i liked that i was able to suspect the plot twists, but the actual scene of the reveal itself felt weak. it was yet another round of a character giving long-winded explanations to leyna. the climax scene was decent, but the aftermath… i kind of just stopped caring.

i don’t know if there will be a sequel because it doesn’t say on goodreads, but the book definitely felt like it was setting up for more books. while i’m not the biggest fan of the book, i would read a follow-up to this because i really did like leyna, and there were certain aspects of the magic and the world that hadn’t been expanded on that i found interesting.

thank you to the publisher and netgalley for providing this arc copy.

I don't think I will ever get over how pretty the cover for this book is. Not gonna lie, I totally got that book because of that gorgeous cover. Who in their right mind can resist that? Now that I've said it, let me get to the actual review of the content haha!

When I first started the book I was a little worried because honestly I was not liking the main character that much and the first 30% of the book did not get me hooked at all somehow. It wasn't bad, I just wasn't that deeply involved in the story if it makes sense. And yes, 30% is a lot to not feel intrigued by anything in a story, but I feel like I should give a chance to all stories nonetheless and I'm so glad I stick with this book cause it just suddenly got better and I really had trouble putting it down in the end! Let me say the Jester was just what I needed to be in love with that story. I wish he had been there more often because every time he was there it was just perfect.

The main character was nice but I didn't feel like she had a big growth throughout the story and she was so stuck on her ideas to a point where it got annoying for me. I did find myself not agreeing with her decisions at all which was a little irritating because I just couldn’t understand her sometimes. But then, there was another character that made up for it... hum, hum, JESTER. He was just fascinating, funny, intriguing. Really easy to love him and fall for him honestly!

I did enjoy the whole world and I just want more of it! The magic system in it is quite interesting and I hope to learn even more about it. This book is kind of a historical romance meets fantasy and that is all that I love most mixed together in one book, you can’t go wrong with that!

In the end, I really enjoyed my read and I’m looking forward to knowing the rest of the story.

Thanks to the author and Netgalley for providing an eARC. All opinions are my own.

I was initially drawn to this book because the cover is so unbelievably stunning, but I've now been "reading" it for over a month now and I just think it may be time to give in to the dnf. I'm so sad because I so wanted to like this one too.
There wasn't really anything wrong with the book. I did like most of the characters, and the world was super cool. I loved the magic system and the ideas surrounding it and the years of necessary schooling. It was giving a bit of Harry Potter vibes for that bit. I liked what I saw of the Jester, though I honestly didn't get too far into the interactions with him. I really struggled with a lot of the logic and dialogue in this book. For me the dialogue felt strained and a bit off, because it was in a weird place of not quite being medieval and not quite being modern in a way that didn't flow for me. I also didn't understand quite a few things in their world logic. One of the things I distinctly remember was the main character thinking that "there were very few things that would excuse you from an exam, and nearly dying wasn't one of them," which absolutely baffled me. I just found these things really grating and inconsistent personally, and for some reason I wasn't able to get past it despite liking the other aspects of the book.

I want to start this review off by saying, I did enjoy this book quite a bit. The story is compelling and the characters are interesting. However, there are things that just didn't sit right with me. The first thing is how long the story is because there is just a lot of unnecessary exposition and details that don't really add anything to the story. And they are sometimes put right in the middle of a really good flow of scenes. I really feel like this book could have used some extra editing to cut down on the more winding moments that just drag you out of the scene. I put it down so many times because of that.

I did enjoy the twist at the end a lot and did not see it coming. Though I am hopeful that there is more because it does not end in a HEA for the MC and her love interest.

Sorry, this was not for me.

The world felt like it could be interesting, but lacked any development that proved that it was interesting or unique. Wizard school? Felt slightly derivative sadly.

I don't have many pros for this book but I do have somethings I did not like:

It was entirely too long. This has become a theme with romance books in general. Longer is not better, it does not display craft or talent. So much of this needed to be edited down. It feels like authors think they need to offer these gigantic novels, and add all these events and moments that don't contribute to the story in a satisfying way and just drag. Unfortunately, that happened here. Lots.

Our main character was a bit trite. She didn't feel original or interesting.

Sadly a miss for me!

Leyna’s dreams of becoming a famous huskarl are shattered due to an injury she suffered, but she receives an offer to join the Royal Guard. And her dream turns into a nightmare after the king and the court are attacked. Who can she trust, who is helping her and who is manipulating her?

Wizard's Masquerade is Book 1 of the Huskarl Duology.

Looking forward to the next book.

I received a copy of Wizard’s Masquerade via NetGalley to read and review.


From the opening maze test to the end I enjoyed Wizard's Masquerade. The jester is my favorite character even though most of his secrets were no surprise to me. There will be another book which I look forward to reading.

In a castle (where I can imagine in details), our heroine (Leyna) is almost a wizard, ay the point of graduation. With a mystery to be solved, the male lead comes to action: Jester. Dangerous, but intriguing, a romance develops.
Loved the witty writing, loved the development Leyna and Jester have with their relation, I am totally waiting for the second book.
Thank you for the ARC dear author, and Netgalley.
The title is fitting, not revealing but related with the story, and the cover art is beautiful.. I will get the printed book as soon as I can.

I’m going to start off by saying that I really liked the whole idea of this novel. I was easily swept in and the world building was believable. It starts off as a high 4 star and then moves into a slow 3 about halfway.(I want to mention here that some of my favorite series are like this for me.)And then it picks up to a 5 and ends on a low 4.
There will be a book 2 and I really want to read it. I don’t want to give anything away but I will say I really liked the side characters and loved the hero in the romance. I recommend this if you like fantasy romance.
Thanks BooksGoSocial via NetGalley.

Wizard's Masquerade is Book 1 of the Huskarl Duology

| Medieval Fantasy Romance | Enemies-to-Lovers | Secrets & Deception | Castles & Ballrooms | Magic & Political Intrigue | Slow Burn Romance |

Who knew the jester was dangerous, or that he would try to steal her heart?

After surviving a horrendous injury, twenty-two-year-old wizard Leyna finds her dream of a glorious career in ruins—until she receives an offer to join the Royal Guard.

But Leyna’s dream soon turns into a nightmare when tragic news arrives of an attack on the king and his court during their travels.

As Leyna’s world is turned upside down, she devotes herself to restoring normalcy at Rutherford Castle and uncovering the true culprit of the attacks.

But the castle’s inhabitants hold dangerous secrets, including the mysterious jester, who is both infuriating and charming. As Leyna is drawn deeper into a web of secrets and lies, they become entangled in a treacherous game of trust and betrayal—but can she trust the jester with her heart?

-------

Wow....I don't know that this book is going to be THAT GOOD THO!
Love both the heroine and the hero and all the mystery around them! Highly recommended if you like medieval fantasy books. Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. I will try to read other books by the same author.

This book did have a lot of potential! Opening with the Maze Exam was a great way to get invested in the world and magic, but it went a little downhill from there. I could tell exactly what would happen in the rest of the book by chapter 10, and it just got dull. It made some of the main characters decisions a little frustrating to read through. Overall, there was a great (albeit slightly tired) concept, but it fell a little flat.