I really really really tried to like this book, but it was so difficult. 2 stars is honestly generous in my opinion. The world building was quite frankly just non existent. I genuinely was so confused about the court systems, the magic systems, the laws, and I didn’t even know who was human and sylph in Aelia’s and Caiden’s relationship until like 20% in😂 There was absolutely no easy explanations, you were just suddenly in a new location or court, or you were just reading about completely new information as if it was already explained (it never was). There were a lot of typos, and repetition which I can look past since I did receive an arc copy, so I do hope that it goes through another editing process. There were times when a character would start speaking and they were supposed to be in a completely different location, not apart of this scene whatsoever. I feel like all of the characters were very base level. I never found myself caring about any of them, you don’t really get to delve deep into why these characters are the way that they are, especially Aelia. I really am not sure if I’ll come back for the rest of the books in the series, hopefully the kinks are worked out.

Three and a half
This book starts with Aelia saying goodbye to the man she loves as she’s about to enter an arranged marriage. She then meets Gideon and he’s welcoming and charming. Turn the page and we are shot five years into the future and Aelia is a mercenary, apparently a traitor and has clearly been brutalised by her estranged husband. I say clearly because sadly it’s not really exactly clear what happened and we just get odd throw away lines for most of the story which leaves the reader feeling somewhat cheated if honest.
I thought the pace was a little jumpy and so much happens from numerous horrendously violent attack’s to lots of travelling about to various kingdoms. Plus the magical creatures were absolutely never ending with elves, trolls, goblins, a basilisk, a reaper ( who just didn’t particularly fit ) other creatures too numerous to mention and to top it all a unicorn ! Obviously from the synopsis it’s easy to spot what I can only call the ACOTAR trope as the initial love interest seems to get kicked into touch and even now I’m not sure how I feel about that.
This has been a very difficult review to write because I actually enjoyed the story particularly the last half of it . I think perhaps the author was so full of ideas that she unintentionally just put too much into this and sometimes less is more. I’d definitely read a sequel but would hope for more world building, less chasing around constantly and of course show or even tell , not leaving the reader to flounder about and try and imagine for example how Aelia betrayed her Kingdom. There are some interesting supporting characters and of course the epilogue means there’s still trials and danger to face.
This voluntary take is of a copy I requested from Netgalley and my thoughts and comments are honest and I believe fair

This was a fun and face paced read, but it really felt average to me in every way. There was nothing I really had an issue with, however nothing really stood out to me. It seemed sort of to be a collection of things that I've seen before in other romantasy novels.

Despite me not really finding anything groundbreaking about this book, I had a good time, and felt myself rooting for the characters and enjoying the world we were put in, despite me wishing there was a little bit more worldbuilding. It just didn't have anything in it to differentiate itself in a market that at this point is really saturated other than the fact that the main character was an established adult instead of a teenager.

I did find it very full of action, and the plot never felt like it dragged ever, I just felt myself wanting more from pretty much every aspect of the story and world.

This was...fine. It had a LOT of potential, but a lot of things just fell flat for me.

There is virtually no worldbuilding for this book--you are thrown directly into the story, then given a time jump. With that time jump comes no explanation as to what happened or how we got to the point that we did. It *kind of* gets explained as you go through the story, but not in any meaningful way. Being that there's no world building, this is paced VERY quickly and similarly to YA titles--before the 50% mark, our FMC almost dies literally 5 times. I counted. But there's so much action constantly happening, that we don't get any character or relationship development. We're told who our characters love, told that they love each other, told that they have thoughts and feelings, but aren't really SHOWN anything. It makes the second half of the book feel VERY insta love to me.

All of the characters have a lot of potential to become more than just 2D background characters, but no one really does. I was most disappointed with the villain of the story--we're literally told he's bad and awful, but we don't actually see him DO anything bad or evil until almost the end of the book. If you want me to root for our MCs, I need to believe they have something to root against. And it just wasn't fully there for me.

HOWEVER, I DID love Aelia a lot--she's in her 30s, she's flawed, she's irrational, and she's healing from a lot of trauma. I think we got a great characterization of how she's coping with her trauma and what it did to her/how she's working on healing. Even though we don't get much info about the trauma itself. I can see how a lot of folks won't like her, but she definitely feels like a version of Aelin in Throne of Glass if she hadn't landed where she did, when she did.

This was a super-fast read because it's action packed, and the parts of the story/world that are there are interesting and entertaining. I just wish this had been divided into maybe two books and more time was taken to develop characters, the world, and relationships to make me more invested in the outcomes.

This is definitely for someone who likes YA Fantasy but wants a more "adult" feel, and doesn't want a lot of world building. Unfortunately, I'm just not that person so this wasn't my favorite read.

I really enjoyed the story however the plot moved a little too quickly for me and I found that when I came back to reading I was confused about what was going on and had to reread passages again.

4 out of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. The first half was perhaps quite slow to get going, but once the action kicked in it was a fast-paced and gripping story. I love a good fantasy romance book, and this most certainly did not disappoint. I would highly recommend.

When I read the first 10% of this book, I couldn't stop praising this book, but my opinion has completely changed. The reason for my sudden dislike is the same reason why most people seem to enjoy it - the female main character. She is portrayed as morally grey, but I just see her more as morally confused character..

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me review this copy of “A Curse of Breath and Blood”

𝘈𝘳𝘤 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸.

2.5 stars rounded down.

Originally the description for this novel stood out to me with the promises of a thrilling 𝒂𝒅𝒖𝒍𝒕 fantasy romance plot, found family & tension at every turn. However within the first few chapters alone, I realized this novel wouldn’t hit the mark for me (personally).

Off the bat the story begins with a prologue followed by a time-skip, I honestly feel like this story would’ve gone a lot better had we gotten a few chapters explaining the events during that time-skip. I can appreciate the choice Foster made to begin with a prologue, it just didn’t feel right to me as the rest of the time we are backtracking trying to put together what happened in a not so worth it way. A lot of the dialogue in the first 25% is followed by a narrated explanation of what we could’ve easily learned in a longer, more fleshed out chapter.

I also believe the stakes themselves in this novel would’ve felt a lot more hard hitting had we had time with the characters to learn their backstories & to just flesh them out & the world more before we jumped straight into action.

Overall the novel did have some good moments, however the lack of proper storytelling & world building didn’t give me much of a reason to feel any of the stakes in this novel & didn’t read as an adult fantasy, more so a YA novel.

A Curse of Breath and Blood is a fantasy romance about Aelia who at the beginning of this book is in a bad way as she tries to block out the past by taking on jobs as a mercenary. She reunites with a former lover who needs her help to take down her husband who is the reason she is currently in a bad way. A Curse of Breath and Blood had me hooked from the beginning and I really enjoyed reading it.

I liked reading about Aelia and liked her journey as a character. Aelia is a very different person from who she is in the prologue and who she is in chapter one. She is more of a shell of herself in chapter one as she has been hardened due to the trauma she has experienced. She is drinking heavily and addicted to 'dust' to block out her past memories. I thought her growth as a character was interesting and her ability to look through people's minds is very intriguing.

Aelia's relationship with Caiden did hook me into the story as I really wanted to know more about their history together. Although I liked reading about their relationship together I did like Aelia's chemistry with Tharan more and I'm excited to read more about him in future books.

Overall I enjoyed A Curse of Breath and Blood and I liked reading about Aelia and found her powers to be interesting. I also liked the relationships within this book and I liked the plot and found the book to be a fast paced read.

(I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley to review)

I will start off by saying I liked this book but didn’t love it. Some things I liked about it the FMC being older 30+ I did enjoy it’s something you don’t see often especially in a fantasy/romantasy book. I did like the character development and growth of Aelia through the story.

At times the story lacked world building and some points were a bit confusing. Also at times it felt like there were some context missing from the story as we started to be introduced to more characters.

Overall I liked this book but there could be some revisions and editing that could make it just a bit better.

“I love you Aelia. I loved you even when I hated you, and I will keep a space in my heart for you until the end of time”

Here’s the synopsis, my review will be below it🩷:

A queen turned mercenary. A long-lost love. An ancient evil reborn.

With her home kingdom destroyed and her family considered dead, Aelia Springborn makes a living, using her abilities to break minds for anyone with enough coin. Content to live a life in the shadows, her world is turned upside down when her former lover, Caiden Stormweaver, tracks her down at the edge of the world with a proposition she can’t refuse.... help him thwart her former husband, King Gideon, from obtaining the deadly army of the Alder King.

Review 🌸:
Let me start off by saying I have never related to a FMC before like I did with Aelia. Poor girl can’t catch a break. She a mature FMC (30yo) who is destroyed till she’s just the shell of the person she used to be. She deals with trauma from betrayal, loss & heartbreak & if that’s not relatable I don’t know what is.

I love love love how her relationship with both MMC’s is so different (i’m definitely team Tharan in case you’re wondering 😅). Caiden is her first love, the one she was forced to abandon. Tharan sees her for who she is & accepts her fully. She is stuck in a love triangle with these two amazing men who just want her to be safe & happy after everything shes been through.

The world building & character development was simply amazing. I felt like I was a little fly on the wall watching everything go on through my own eyes.

Safe to say this book is the perfect example of everything I love about fantasy. Magic, sylph, elves, mermaids, centaurs & even UNICORNS are in this book.
Just in case my ramble of a review wasnt enough… I’ll just leave these here for you 😉

🌸 Mature FMC
🌸 Love Triangle
🌸 One bed (eeeeek, I know 😍)
🌸 Morally grey MMC (x2 🩷)
🌸 “Who did this to you”

✨🌸This amazing book comes out September 17 🌸 ✨ it is a must have on your shelf 🩷🫶🏻

THANK YOU so much for giving me the opportunity to review this book early 🩷 @authorkwfoster ✨

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley. I really enjoy romantasy books, and was looking forward to this one. I liked the idea of mind bending and thought it was a cool power. So...down to the nitty gritty...things I had issues with

-the world building is just not there. You kind of are all of a sudden just existing at places or in something.
-to build on that-the sudden facts also occur where all of a sudden the book states something and I went back and could not find anything related and hadn't missed anything
-Some characters had more depth than others and I feel like a book needs a good balance of plot and character development. We see what our FMC is experiencing, but even with Multiple POV the rest of the characters except maybe Tharan remain surface level. We don't even delve deeper into Aelia's scar and what she experienced while with Gideon.
-the jump at the end to the big emotions was a bit left field for me. The relationship needed more development to drop that.


The beginning of the book was a bit slow for me, but I'd say as the last third o the book started picking up. I enjoyed it. I will prob read the next one to see if the writer works out the kinks in this one. 2.5-rounding up.

I received a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
4⭐️
2 🌶️
💜Second chance romance
💜Love triangle (no cheating)
💜Addiction/Recovery
•Aelia Springborn was once a Queen. Now she’s a mercenary, battling ghosts of her past and numbing herself with a magical drug known as “dust.” When one of those ghosts, her first love Caiden, returns in the flesh, the two must work together to save the life of Aelia’s younger sister.

•KW Foster broke my heart with this one. It was beautifully heartbreaking. Aelia is a lovable character even with her flaws and her morally grey tendencies. Throughout book one, she starts to deal with her deep rooted trauma and is working through it. I was proud of her despite her being a fictional character. 😂 I also love a good love triangle, but I’m not sure what team I’m on. I think I just want all three parties to be happy because they’ve all been through enough. 😂 The epilogue had me tore it. I don’t know what to expect after that! I’m nervous in the best way! 😂
•I did find myself wanting more information on the politics and relationships between the slyphs, humans, and elves. However, after I finished reading, I found that the author has supplemental information on her website!
•Solid 4 Stars! I highly recommend reading A Curse of Breath and Blood! It’s available for preorder now and releasing 9/17/2024 💜 I can’t wait to see what’s next in this series!

I absolutely loved this book! I normally don't like when the POV changes but K.W. made it work! I love that Aelia is a 30+ FMC that isn't perfect. She struggles with loss, addiction, abuse, and is raw, gritty, and relatable. She literally kicks ass and takes names! The relationships between characters is addicting and leaves you wanting more. I cannot believe this is the author's debut! Knocked it outta the park for me. This book made me feel all the feels and my heart is aching for more!!!

This book was kind of meh for me.
The storytelling was all over the place, and there wasn’t much depth in terms of the characters and their individual relationships. The plot was fast paced, but not in a ‘keep-you-hooked’ way, and this made it quite confusing and frustrating to read. Even the emotions of characters in certain scenes, such as where Aelia encounters Gideon again, were very underwhelming! It just didn’t make sense, especially after the torture that Aelia had previously experienced at his hands.
There were some likeable characters, such as Tharan, and I feel like this story could be really good if there was just more depth in general. The world building needs to be more expansive, the politics and world systems could do with better explanations to avoid confusion and scenes need to be thought out more clearly rather than just jumping from one thing to the next, in order to help the book flow for the reader.
The book could also be proofread again as I did encounter quite a few grammatical errors which made it rather difficult to read by about 40% of the way through.
This book definitely has lots of potential, and I am genuinely sad that it did not live up to my expectations.

Thank you to #netgalley for providing me with the ARC of this book!

I really enjoyed reading this book. The story itself was fantastic. But the world building at time did feel a bit chaotic and left me having to reread sections. But overall, I did enjoy it.

This was okay, I liked the plot but it was quite predictable and the characters/ world-building we're quite one dimensional so I would of liked learning more about them and their inner workings. The book read very easy and not complex at all so I almost finished it within one sitting. I honestly wish it gave more because I liked the premise of a 30 year old FMC which seems like a lot of people too. The love triangle was messy and dramatic and kept me thoroughly entertained.

Breezed through this book not because I was too engrossed but because the writing was simple and the plot was SO predictable. Nevertheless, I am curious who Aelia will pick (love triangle) in the next book!

The story moves at a pace that is too fast even to make reasonable sense. One moment we are running on the docks. Next we’re indoors and it’s raining fireballs. A character yells run and we all..run?? Ngl the plot and inner circle dynamics do remind me of ToG now and then but of a much subpar writing.

A special shout out: fmc is 30 which I LOVE! Overall, the book wasn’t bad per se but it’s lacking in character development, backstory on all their relationships/gods/villains and any explanation on those feels like it’s winged along the way.

Thanks for the arc via NetGalley!

Aelia Springborn is a telepathic Queen turned mercenary who has escaped from the influence of an abusive, power hungry King and Husband. With the help of her former lover, old friends, and a new love interest, Aelia battles through political upheaval, addiction, trauma, and a magical deal she is bound to honor.

I received this Romantasy Arc in exchange for an honest review and it did not disappoint! I highly recommend reading “A History of Moriana and the World of the Mind Breaker Series” from the authors website for the best reading experience. My biggest questions while reading this Arc were about the political background, the gods, and the cultural/race differences between the Sylph, Elves, and Humans. Each one of those questions is answered in that excerpt and I expect the book will lead with this prior to the story starting once released in September.

Aelia is a relatable FMC who is struggling through a healing journey from a toxic past filled with abuse, trauma, and addiction. Mental health is a recurring topic throughout the book and the representation was raw, real, and impactful. The love triangle keeps you guessing and both MMC’s are extremely likeable, although I think I may be leaning toward Team Tharan. The politics and world building were super interesting and I found myself wanting to know more about the dynamics between the sylph, elves, and humans. I would love to see the different courts and characters explored more in future books. The epilogue is a major cliffhanger and I can say without a doubt I am invested!

This book has a lot of promise. I wished we dove deeper into character development though. It all read very shallow and I never fully grasped the characters and their identities. I loved how Aeila was 30. That was definitely refreshing. The romance was sort of all over the place; but that’s okay. It was messy but filled with lust, longing and drama.