There were so many good things about this book. I am always a fan of being brought back into the world of Fae and seeing how each author spins their interpretation and creativity of the faerie world. It’s the only time I enjoy the modern world being mixed into my fantasy books. The magic system Pearson weaved was intriguing to me and I enjoyed the slow revelation of certain magic pieces. I felt connected to all of the characters and loved watch friendships develop and seeing Bristol find her place in the faerie world. I loved how she held her own and wasn’t afraid to do what needs to be done.

Regarding the narrator, I think she did a great job of making each character distinguishable and unique.

That being said, the amount of spicy scenes just distracted and detracted from the story for me. I was hoping for a little more slow-burn romance, especially considering this is only the first book. Spice is not my thing, so I was very disappointed with the amount in the story, not to mention the choice to have the book end on a sex scene rather than a cliffhanger. That, along with the fact that I felt the ending didn’t leave me with the feeling of “I need to know what happens next” regarding unresolved plot points, I don’t know if I will read the sequel…

*Thank you McMillan Audio and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review*

The Courting of Bristol Keats was a nice surprise! I wasn’t sure what to expect going onto this one, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I loved the characters, the world, and the magic. Bring on book 2.

I truly like and respect Mary Pearson’s take on writing in a way that fits her story. It’s usually unique and different than your average read. Her Remnant Chronicle series was amazing and this one fit her style—but more adult. :)

My thoughts…it was difficult for me to truly get into this one, personally. It very well could have been my mood and if I read it another time, I might just love it. But the first time around, I thought it was okay. It was nice to have such short chapters but there were times I was totally lost in my audiobook I had to backtrack and listen to the chapter again because I missed something important—or even to know whose POV I was listening to.

All in all, it was a good book. :)

After loving Pearson’s The Remnant Chronicles series, I was sorely disappointed with her adult debut. It was a predictable story and fairy world with originality or charm. The romance felt forced, and I just couldn’t invest in Bristol enough to care.

The Courting of Bristol Keats is a dark twisty fantasy with a heavily complicated romance. I was very into it from the beginning; the concepts early on are intriguing. A mysterious aunt she doesn't know ever existed offers to resolve her financial problems if she only shows up to meet? Obviously a trap. Love that start. Around 60% though, it really lost me. The idea of a romance with her dad's best friend is uncomfortable at best no matter the odd time thing, and the tick situation gave me massive ick. This had 5 star potential for me, but it falls far short. It also feels its length at over 550 pages. 3.5 stars
I listened to the audiobook, and I love Brittany Pressley's narration. Very well done.
Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this ALC!

Romantasy • Fae • Fantasy Series
Pub Date • 12 November 2024

🗝️ Thank you to @macmillan.audio and @flatiron_books for the free digital book and ALC. 🎧

As a testament of sorts, I did finish ahead of my buddy read schedule. Enjoyable but I left this book wanting more.

Bristol Keats is a 22 year old human who, following the suspicious deaths her parents, ends up entering a bargain with some fae and lands herself in their world, Elfame.

There’s a lot going on in this book. There are Bristol’s two sisters, her aunt, the townsfolk and mayor, the different fae clans and villains, the inner circle of the king, the knights, and healers who are all named and given speaking roles. Then the “recruits” who are vying to be selected for a special fae task. Can’t forget the King and love interest Tyghan, not to mention Bristol’s maybe not-dead father... All this to say there are a lot of characters and events happening - and in the end, the side plots did not add much, other than padding a lengthy book.

The ending also knocked this down a peg for me because it ends literally in the middle of a sex scene with no plot lines resolved. In an almost 600 page book I expect to have some resolution.

🎧 bumped up a star for the audiobook. Brittany Pressley did a great job managing multiple POVs and brought each character a unique voice. This made tracking the many characters more enjoyable. She kept me invested through the slower middle section. The bonus interview with the author and narrator at the end was the cherry on top.

I love portal fantasies and this book turned out to be an immersive portal romantasy that for the most part really worked.

My thoughts:

🧚‍♂️I was captivated and invested in the characters. Our main gal is strong and sassy and I enjoyed her journey of self-discovery. I wanted more about the side characters, though - some of them were pretty intriguing and I'd have liked to see them more fully developed.

🚪I enjoyed imagining this fae world. The world building is satisfying - not overly complicated and there were some aspects of the magic system that worked well to create interesting plot twists.

🎨But then... that abrupt ending. No spoilers here, but suffice it to say, it's a long book that you work through and then it just drops off on kind of a cheesy note. It really needed one more chapter to satisfyingly set up the "cliffhanger" for the next book. This is possibly just a "me" problem though, as folks who are bigger romance fans might not see it the same way.

📖I'll reach for the next book, as I want to see how this resolves and I am hoping it will be an opportunity to flesh out more of these interesting characters and the hard choices they will face ahead. I really hope the next conclusion will be more satisfying.

🎙The audiobook is fantastic! Brittany Pressley is able to switch voices and tone for the characters which makes it so much easier to follow. I really enjoy her narration.

Fans of portal fantasy, romantasy, fae worlds, magic lessons, stories of family secrets, and a little bit of spice should consider picking this one up. Cool that it was a Book of the Month add-on last month!

Thank you to the Macmillan Audio Influencer Program for my copy in exchange for my honest review.

I had high hopes for this one after hearing only great things about Pearson's previous books, but this read was a real letdown for me. It started off promising, but soon turned into an SJM x Holly Black ripoff. The FMC was uninteresting, the romance was annoying, the plot was sluggish, and the ending was anticlimactic,

I wouldn't have been able to finish this if it wasn't an audiobook. It had no business being 16.5 hours/560 pages long.

🌿Adult Fantasy🌿

Interesting: ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

🎧This story has all your typical fantasy tropes of popular books today. The portal adventures always intrigues me. It has an interesting story and good writing as well as excellent audiobook narration. However, the pace of the book is slow and unfortunately, in my opinion anyway, it is not a “clean” adult book.I will say that the mystery of Bristol Keats heritage as well as the secrecy involved is a great aspect and what kept my interest going. Overall pretty decent book but Mary Pearson’s YA novels are much better!

Author: Mary E. Pearson
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Audio: Macmillan Audio

🔔Content notes: heavy language (shi*, fuc*, asshol*), loss, violence, lqbtq representation, mentions lovers/coupling, innuendo, explicit scenes that begin around fifty percent through novel

This audiobook was a pleasant surprise. The narrator brought to life the many characters of Mary E. Pearson.s novel The Courting of Bristol Keats. The storyline was inventive and had a few twists and turns that were intriguing and kept my attention. I’m looking forward to the second book in this duology.

I am a huge fan of Mary E. Pearson’s Remnant Chronicles and Dance of Thieves duology, so when I learned about her debut in the adult fantasy romance genre, I had to jump at the chance to get an arc copy. I’m extremely thankful to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to listen to an advanced listening copy of Bristol Keats narrated by the ever-so talented Brittany Pressley.

Since this is an audiobook review, I want to first acknowledge Pressley’s narrative performance. This is not my first audiobook with Brittany Pressley as the narrator. I often enjoy an audiobook with Pressley’s name attached so I was excited to listen to this one. I think Pressley’s performance was engaging and she seamlessly wove through a variety of characters, each with their own unique personalities and accents. Brittany Pressley is without a doubt a pro.

I did find that I struggled with this book by only having the audiobook. This isn’t a reflection on the performance, but this book will jump to many different POVs—Bristol, Tyghan, and random side characters—that I often had to reorient myself on whose perspective I was experiencing the story through. I got lost a lot and didn’t know what was going on. I would definitely recommend that if someone has the audiobook for Bristol Keats, to also accompany it with the physical or ebook and follow along. I think if I had that, I would have followed the story better and had a better experience in that regard.

That being said, there were still elements of this story that fell flat. The main characters, the romance, and the plot were all very….vanilla. It felt like many other fantasy romance books that already exist and there wasn’t anything unique about this one that really made it stand out to me.

There were some really interesting factors with the world building and even some side characters. However, so much of this story is dedicated to Bristol and Tyghan and their relationship, and I just didn’t care about anything that had to do with them. And that’s really unfortunate given that they are the primary characters.

And then, the ending… I’m not even sure what to make of that. It was just an odd way to end a book. It felt like the chapter wasn’t even done? Or there’s a missing chapter? Actually, there were several instances in this book where a scene would end abruptly and then it would be the next chapter with a different persons POV in a totally new scene, and I would be like, “Wait, what? Did the book skip?” But, no. That’s not what happened.

I really really wanted to enjoy this because of my prior affection for the author. But unfortunately it was a miss.

Performance Rating: 4/5
Story Rating: 2.75/5

This book was the perfect escape this last week. Dripping with whimsical faerie lore, this portal fantasy felt immersive and real. It felt familiar and safe in a way that I needed.

Brittany Pressley delivers a stunning performance. Her narration was spot on with many unique character voices. Each character’s personality felt distinct. I also really enjoyed the author-narrator interview at the end of the book.

I highly recommend the audio for this book. It is a bit on the longer side, and the writing is lyrical (which I love!). I think the audio helped keep me going. The chapters are short, and I was able to finish this rather quickly.

Thank you Macmillan Audio for the ALC of The Courting of Bristol Keats. I really wanted to like this one a lot! Mary E. Pearson is a special author to me as she's part of the reason I've started to read fantasy. With that being said, I do wonder if it's just the narrator or that Pearson's books are just better as physical or ebooks for me than an audio book.

Thank you MacMillan Audio for the ALC!

The more I think about this book, the more annoyed I get.

On paper it has everything I love: epic fantasy, romance with a morally gray king who is a secret softie, FMC who wants to protect her sisters, magic, training scenes, and rich worldbuilding.

But this book was not it. It was messy and rambling. If it hadn't been for the excellent narration by Brittany Pressley, I probably would have DNF'ed it.

There are no completions of any of the story arcs. Everything is left hanging but not even in an omg what a cliffhanger type of way. Instead the book ends IN THE MIDDLE OF A BEDROOM SCENE FROM A SIDE CHARACTER'S PERSPECTIVE.

The Courting of Bristole Keats by Mary E. Pearson

3 stars

This was an okay read, but I honestly had expected this to probably be a 4 or 5 star read, so I was a little let down unfortunately.

I liked the fantasy elements, and even the main character and her plight. The story also overall was interesting and enjoyable. It is beautifully written, but just lacking in some areas.

This book felt a little too long-winded unfortunately. I found it to be quite a bit slow in the middle sections and while I don't normally care about page numbers or chapters, this book had 110+ chapters and only 500 pages makes it feel a bit heavy handed. Also, this just didn't feel like anything super unique. It wasn't awful by any means - but it just didn't feel like anything faerie wise that I haven't read before, and while the characters were interesting and well written, this just was lacking a bigger luster to fully draw me into the world.

This was also a slow-burn romance - and it felt a little too slow for me, and not only that, but I just was expecting a little bit more out of an adult book and this one felt a little more YA than adult.

The audiobook was great though! The narrator was good and helped me progress through the story better, but again, it just was a bit long in the middle and I found myself hoping it would move a bit faster or get more interesting.

So, all in all, definitely not the worst book I've read by any means, but not my favorite either. Worth a read if you love fantasy, fae, romantasy, etc.

I am curious enough to see where the story is going and I will be reading the next book, if there is one, I just hope it wraps up and moves a bit quicker than this one did.

Thank you to NetGalley for and Macmillan audio for the audiobook ARC copy provided to me for this fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

The Courting of Bristol Keats, by Mary E. Pearson was the first book that I read by this author. I am glad that I took a chance with this book. The author, with great skill, developed the characters, and creating a vivid scene for the reader. This was a long, yet enjoyable story that provided plenty of twist and turns to keep the reader captivated. After loosing her parents, Bristol was working at the pizza parlor to earn a living to take care of herself and her sisters. Financial hardship is a touch position for anyone, especially someone so young. When she linked with a distant relative of her fathers-- an aunt, via the promise of financial assistance, that she introduced to the fae king-- Tyghan. Bristol promises to help him save the word. Bristol learns that everything she knew is not as it seemed.
You must read this book!!! You will not be disappointed. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher.

What a hard book to review 😬

On the one hand, we have the beginning of a new fae fantasy series that could end up being one of my favorites. The set up is really intriguing. Bristol is a contemporary human, just trying to make ends meet. She’s living with her sisters, barely scraping by until one day when she’s propositioned(ish) by fae, finds out a whole slew of magic and other worlds are in-fact, real, and oh yeah- her recently-dead dad may actually be alive and in the fae world. So naturally, she agrees to cross over into the fae realm and help them find this mysterious door (that apparently only she can find?), in exchange for help finding her dad. And the fae to make the deal? Obviously we are talking about a fae king (Tyghan- said TEAgan, right?! Idk) who’s super chiseled, smoldering-hot, but a wounded warrior type. What could go wrong? Definitely no secrets being kept there…..🍿 I eat this stuff up! Let’s goooooo

Unfortunately, like many other reviewers, I struggle bussed by way through the greater part of the book. I didn’t fully understand why Bristol really needed to go to school?! Like in order to survive and thrive in Elphame (yes yes, I got the Cruel Prince thing, but it’s also super common in traditional fae folklore- look it up), Bristol must also go to Hogwarts? That’s the vibe I got. Good old school of magic. Hearing about her teachers and what they learned in class- which btw off page exposition, I know, is an annoyance for some so be aware it’s A LOT- felt disjointed. Much like my sentence structure. And yet, we push through. So, aside from a lot of time training, we also get a few POVs that, while not explicitly annoying, aren’t all necessary maybe? I give the author full benefit of the doubt, hoping that when we read the next book or two, we will all be really happy with the amount of book we had to push through to get there. Because, woof. It felt like a lot. BUT, I didn’t hate it. I still enjoyed it and I still want more.

The romance- meh. I wish the slow burn had continued for better pay off in future books, however, I’m banking on major conflict or a love triangle or something good to be a driving force in the next book. Having said that, the romance was bad- it just wasn’t amazing. It’s solid, no butterflies but still compelled me to root for them. There’s some relatively tame spice which also maybe felt too soon considering the pacing of the story vs the pacing of the romance. But again, if we have a middle book separation or breakup type conflict in the future, it will all be warranted. 🙏🏻

The moral of my story is…….
There’s a next book….right? Because we all agree the ending was 🫣🫠

Thank you to NetGalley and to Macmillan Audio for this arc audiobook, in encouragement of my unbiased review.

To start, I loved the narrator for this book! She did a phenomenal job with different voices and storytelling. As for the story itself, I loved it. I enjoyed the characters and the world building. It definitely ends on a cliffhanger so I cannot wait until the next book. I will be buying this for my bookshelf and recommend it highly.

I had the privilege of ARC reading this and also getting the ALC. I immediately fell in love with the story while I was reading the book but then also listening to the audio, the story was taken to new level that made me love it even more. The narration was fantastic and kept me engaged the whole way through!

It's another faerie magic and romance story. Parents die, FMC is reconnected with long lost family, finds out there are faeries, goes to faerie world. Add in miscommunication, enemies to lovers (on two plot lines) political power hungry fae, and some of that chosen one type of feel. Add in some slow burn and spice, and you will get "The Courting of Bristol Keats."

I saw many people relating this to Cruel Prince. Unfortunately I have not read that series yet, though it's on my TBR. There was one character that reminded me a lot of Liam from FW. Once that was established, it was hard for me not to think that they might have an untimely ending.

If the book did not end in the way that it did, it would be four stars. But to say that I did not enjoy the ending without giving spoilers, it's three stars. Like why? We couldn't just have a normal cliffhanger like any another book leading to a the next? Maybe the final will be different?

Despite the ending, I enjoyed the book overall. I would recommend it to others if faeries and slow burn romance is your thing. Will I be on board for book 2? Yeah, sure. Why not?

Thank you Netgalley, Macmillan Audio and the author for this opportunity in exchange for an honest review.