3.5 rounded down. There was a lot I enjoyed in this book- the magic system was unique, the world was interesting, the found family built was fun. I did not care for the narrator of the audiobook. I feel like this book dragged quite a bit in the middle, like a fair bit could have been cut to speed it up especially in the running/travel portion which dragged down the pacing. The ending was very well done though. I’d be intrigued to continue the series

Ich weiß ehrlich gesagt nicht, wie ich dieses Buch bewerten soll, da ich es aufgrund relativ kurzer Ausleihdauer (ohne Verlängerung) nicht lesen konnte.

When Things are Set Right is an epic fantasy with all the usual trappings. While I enjoyed the characters and their journeys, I couldn't help but want a little more out of the novel. Aeryn, an elf, is a pariah in her own society after becoming pregnant out of wedlock. Worse still, her daughter dies in infancy, leaving Aeryn with nothing but painful memories every time she returns to her family home. She sees an easy way out when she stumbles upon an escaped slave with mysterious tattoos and an even more mysterious past. Slave hunters are close on their tail and willing to do anything to get Aeryn's friend back. And then there's the ghost of her past, which will follow her until she has the courage to face it. The plot of the novel is fairly standard, but fun. The worldbuilding felt a bit like a roleplaying campaign and again, I wanted a bit more. I do think the author did a good job of establishing us in place and time, which is certainly an important aspect for worldbuilding. it's a solid epic fantasy that will probably appeal to a lot of people. I just personally hoped for a little bit more.

Thank you Netgalley for this eARC!

This is an amazing story about friendship, family and death

But it's also steeped in relationship and world building. So much fantasy, not for a beginner

And it has dragons!!!

An amazing book about friendship, family and overcoming death.

The story writing is superb, as well as the character growth and world building.

And even better, it has dragons!!!

I'm always a sucker for anything to do with dragons, quests, and an unlikely group of adventurers and this has all three. This book was an easy fun read, especially with certain characters offering comedic relief in all the right moments. The Female and Male MC were full of spunk and personality and I enjoyed that their relationship stayed platonic and didn't turn romantic. If it does turn romantic later on in the series I'd be happy with it as their friendship has been established and the series won't revolve around their "love". The magic system was interesting, those born with tattooed runes on their body had the capability to use and channel magic. The villains of the story were perfect, one villain as the focus of the book but the other villain as the focus of the series. I'd definitely recommend if you enjoy quests and an unlikely band of heroes. I'll be keeping up with this series and can see this book becoming one of my favorite reads of the year.

The village was a great setting for a story that just flew off the page with each subplot of the narrative. Great job!

This is such a solid read. The writing is is the type of good where you forget you're reading. I love fantasy but sometimes it can feel trope heavy or cheesy. This was not that at all. The characters and their struggles felt real. I'm excited to see where the story goes in the second book.

This is a great start to a trilogy for anyone interested in Dungeons and Dragons (yes, there are dragons) and for anyone interested in middle earth, LOTR vibes. That's what I imagined in this journey with our two main characters, Aeryn and Grim. Their relationship was witty in dialogue and authentic in action. The pacing might have started a little slow, but it picks up early enough in the book to keep the reader interested and invested.

I think what was missing was some urgency in the characters. We know Grim is trying to find his family, but he's not in much of a hurry. We get the idea that Aeryn is not ready to stay with her family and felt in more of a rush to get away. It also felt like major plot points were stumbled upon too easily. Make it harder for the characters to get what they want and there will be tension and conflict.

Off to a good start! Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an advanced copy.

"'Grim, people only pay by the hour if they've hired a prostitute,' Wolfe said. Grim was quiet for a beat. 'Oh.'"

Do you ever read a book that you find wholesome for no reason whatsoever?
When Things Are Set Right is a fantasy adventure book that I did not expect to enjoy as much as I did. I'd seen it compared to Lord of the Rings, so I was prepared for long-winded explanations that would confuse me, but instead, I was treated with a short, fast-paced adventure with a found family I actually really liked.
The story focuses on a wood-elf named Aeryn helping an escaped slave called Grim to find his way home. It sounds simple, but the story had quite a few twists and turns and a despicable villain whom I have zero sympathy for.
I think the highlight of this book for me was the relationship dynamics between the characters. It was refreshing to read something where romance is not front and center. The characters were realistic and the way they treated each other just made my heart happy.
If you're intimidated by classic epic fantasy, When Things Are Set Right is a perfect introduction to the genre, and it's only 200 pages!
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the free e-ARC!
3.5/5

If a books synopsis mentions dragons 9 out of 10 times I will be adding the book to my TBR. That is how I discovered this book, and I'm not mad about it. I'm interested to see where this series will go and as of now i plan on rereading book 1 and picking up the next book in the series

Thank you to House of Q LLC and Jordan St. James for an arc copy of When Things Are Set Right to review!

Pitch me a classic fantasy story with a quest, elves, dragons, and cultural influences from Norse/ Viking culture, it’s a fairly safe bet that it’s a book I want to read. I won’t lie though, the cover of When Things Are Set Right got me before the blurb.

Readers are going to have mixed reactions to this book. I think if you love Lord of the Rings, you’ll enjoy it for the old traditional fantasy novel structure. If you like the big block-buster types of modern fantasy that go to extremes for complicated characters, and plots, and find a plot twist angle to throw at you out of the blue, you might be a little underwhelmed by this story. However, I would encourage you not to judge this book by the standards of other fantasy books, and joy it for its charms.
Jordan St. James's writing style is subtle, character-driven and hinges on a promise of an epic fantasy world to come through the plot of When Things Are Set Right. The plot of this book is about discovery and the characters’ quest scraps away at the unknowns exposed by the meeting of the two protagonists Aeryn and Grim. Some of the character motivations and goals are very simplistic, but I feel this is part of the establishment of the world-building and narrative of the series. This is a book of secrets being exposed to the characters as their journey yields more clues and questions. As readers, we are learning with them about the history of their world as the book grows.

I’m not sure if there are some building blocks for a future romance subplot within When Things Are Set Right. Slightly would appeal to me – but I enjoyed the focus on the companionship between the characters' relationships without complications of attraction or sexual tension. Again, I felt a strong link back to the traditional fantasy novels of the last century like Chronicles of Narnia or Lord of the Rings. I found these elements refreshing to read as I feel as a concept, its subtle art form is easily lost in epic fantasy weighed down with big egos, epic romances, and plots crammed to the teeth with complicated magic, politics, and bloodshed.

Sometimes simple and subtle can be a refreshing state, even if you can guess the plot twists a mile off. I did find myself thinking many times of my four favourite hobbits and seeing their traits in Aeryn, Grim, and the tag-along companions they find on their journey.

This was a fun book to read, it gave me D&D vibes but also if you are a gamer it gave me Skyrim vibes with them doing side quest alongside their main quests.
I enjoyed how we have different species such elves and humans in the story giving it that fantastical setting element.
It was a fun read, definitely intriguing, however it did take me a little to get into. But overall a good book 😊

The book was good, it did have an interesting premise and the pace was right.

Still, what I lacked was the connection to the characters, I wished it were different because the story, especially the beginning was so intense, but somehow it never happened.

There was no romance, but I didn't mind it. I loved the companionship between two main characters, although sometimes I wished there was more of a buildup.

I would read following books, but this first one didn't turn me into an avid fan.

You will like this novel if: you like classic epic fantasy or a D&D ish adventure, or if you want to see an epic fantasy badass lady with flaws and humanity.
You will not like this novel if: you're looking for a twist on the usual tropes or something other than epic fantasy.

When Things are Set Right is an epic fantasy with all the usual trappings. While I enjoyed the characters and their journeys, I couldn't help but want a little more out of the novel - not just something that checked all the boxes, but something that went above and beyond them.

Aeryn, an elf from a temperate forest region, is a pariah in her own society after becoming pregnant out of wedlock. Worse still, her daughter dies in infancy, leaving Aeryn with nothing but painful memories every time she returns to her family home. She sees an easy way out when she stumbles upon an escaped slave with mysterious tattoos and an even more mysterious past - help her new companion find his lost family, and she doesn't have to face hers. But running away isn't easy. Slave hunters are close on their tail and willing to do anything to get Aeryn's friend back. And then there's the ghost of her past, which will follow her until she has the courage to face it.

The plot of the novel is fairly standard, but fun - Aeryn and her companion, Grim, are looking for his family and beyond that, a group of people that share the tattoo-like markings on his hands. Grim is a wanted man, having started a slave revolt and escaped from the mines where he spent most of his life. As the slavers close in on them and their leader is revealed, Aeryn and Grim get more desperate and join forces with a secret society dedicated to the protection of Grim's kind. The pacing here is good, and Aeryn and Grim never get a break. Nothing in the plot shocked me, but you don't need a shocking plot to have a good story. It was a solid structure on which to build character and prose.

But I do wish the characters had surprised me more. Aeryn was well developed, and I felt her backstory did a lot of heavy lifting in terms of the story overall. Grim was fine, but just fine. As a main character, I would have liked him to have a bit more to him. They made good traveling companions and I appreciated that there was no romance between them (which worked really well in the context of Aeryn's backstory), but Grim is the secondary main character, with a lot of the novel from his point of view, and I'm not sure what to say about him aside from he's a thoughtful tank. And also maybe a chosen one. Like the plot, it felt as though the characters were solid but only Aeryn really broke away from the paint-by-numbers formula for epic fantasy.

The prose was also fine; I suspect that readers' preferences will turn them on or off to the prose.

The worldbuilding felt a bit like a roleplaying campaign and again, I wanted a bit more. I do think the author did a good job of establishing us in place and time, which is certainly an important aspect for worldbuilding. However, I couldn't say much about how this setting is different from a lot of other worldbuilding settings. We've got elves, but I can't tell you much about what makes these elves unique. We've got dragons, but we don't see enough of them to get an idea of what makes them unique, either. It felt a bit like a blend of a high fantasy and low fantasy world - but when you look at some of the great low fantasy worlds (like Joe Abercrombie), you get such a visceral feel for the place. And when you look at high fantasy worlds, what often sticks out is the magic, or the creatures, or settings too fantastical to exist on this earth. And I didn't really get either of those feelings with this novel.

It's not a bad book by any means - it's a solid epic fantasy that will probably appeal to a lot of people. I just personally hoped for a little bit more.

Title: When Things Are Set Right
Author: Jordan St James
Publisher: House of QLLC
Publishing Date: November 24, 2022
Pages: 439
Genre: Fantasy, YA
Rating: ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

A very enjoyable read with subjects of justice, redemption and finding your place.
Aeryn is introduced with a very sensitive background and instantly you feel for her and wish for the best for her future. I felt a “rise from the ashes” plot from her character. As well with Grim, who also has a tragic backstory that really makes the reader feel for him and root for him.
Setting up both of these characters to make the reader want them to thrive and succeed was really well done and a great way to set up a series.
I think the story (backstories) is a little dark for just a YA book, but ti did feel necessary to the plot. I would recommend this book to adults who like YA books rather than actualy YA readers.
Overall really enjoyed the book and definitely looking forward to the sequels.

Thank you to NetGalley and House of QLLC for sending this book for review consideration! All opinions are my own.

🌟 🌟 🌟
3 stars

A powerful start to the book. A palpable feeling if urgency and need and despair followed by resolution and a thing to hyper focus on so that you don't think too hard on the possible loss coming.
I was shocked by the bravery of the author willing to touch on a subject a book where the protagonist has lost a baby. It's such a raw, rare painful thing to read but also necessary I believe for many reasons.

The book was gripping in it's writing and it's subject matter. There was heartbreak and it resonated in me, tge reader.
Now, I'm a sucker for a book about an elf, but I'm an even bigger one when it's so good, it has me hooked from the get go.

She self exiles herself from her town and only visits when she needs to like for more arrowheads etc. On her way back from one of these trips she finds people in her camp site abd listens in to their plans which suffice to say they aren't friendlies and so she is on the defensive right away, luckily, as she is on a kill or be killed situation and kills forbthe first time. In running from the scene she finds a man slumped with an arrow sticking out abd decides to help him, learning he was a slave since a child of 8 years old.

A light book about a couple on a mission, an adventure, with fun characters along the way. It's a good read, it held me hooked throughout but I dud feel it read young in many places. More YA than more and that's great too but so long as you know that going in, you'll enjoy it.
In terms of romance, more a tale of companionship than anything else.
Good twist at the end.

Touches on;
Slavery
Death of a child
Self exile
Adventure
Dragons
A mission
Elves and humans

Thanks so much to NetGalley for the ARC!

3.25/5 stars

This was a really interesting, high fantasy novel! It had strong characters, was gritty where it needed to be, and there are dragons which....who doesn't love dragons?

I think the execution just wasn't quite up to the idea - it was good, but not excellent. The pacing felt slow, and the characters' motivations seemed to come to easily at times....crazy idea I never would have thought of but it moves the plot forward, sign me up!

I'm definitely curious what happens in the next book and will likely pick it up, but it's not at the top of my TBR. Overall, it's a solid addition to the classic, super high fantasy genre but the writing lacks the maturity to be a rockstar.

This book was a lot of fun with a very strong female protagonist.
I thank the publisher for the ARC and throughly enjoyed this one.

Review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

When I tell you I devoured this book by Jordan St. James. I read it through the night and when I didn’t have time to read it, I thought out about. The character development, the animal companion 😭, the gentle immersion into fantasy. This one is so unique. I cannot wait to get my hands on the second installment of this trilogy that comes out in June!

Dive into a realm of enchantment and adventure with “When Things Are Set Right.” By Jordan St. James. Lose yourself amidst magical creatures, brave heroes, and epic quests. Let your imagination soar as you journey through the pages of this captivating fantasy tale.

Thank you to @houseofqllc for gifting me the e-version of this book. Thank you for allowing me to experience Aeryn’s journey through healing (for someone who has lost a baby this was not only something very close to my heart but also so special watching her grow)
#EscapeToFantasyWorlds #BookwormsUnite