I loved the idea of a modern woman entering into a mystical fantasy world inspired by tarot cards. Unfortunately, the storytelling, characters, and writing weren’t fully developed for me, leaving me not able to connect and invest emotionally in the story. But if you’re looking for a lighter fantasy with steamy romance, check this read out!

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.*

I didn’t jive with this book. The FMC wasn’t my cup of tea which is disappointing because I was looking forward to this one.

DNF @ 19%

I just couldnt get into this one. It felt very ya but with smut (I assume, I didn’t get that far but based on the part I did read it seems likely). Hannah wasn’t very likeable, she seemed very “woe is me” and just complained the whole time.
The pacing was also kind of weird. If felt both fast and slow, like there’s were moving very quickly but nothing was actually happening. I wanted more information about the world and the conflict but the book just glossed over everything.

Thank you to NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Bloom Books for the ARC!

Ok, this was so good. I loved that Hannah just fell out of her normal life into this crazy realm, and she just rolled with it. She's stubborn, sassy, and such a fun character to watch.

Kane is the brooding Prince whose been exiled and is working to save his kingdom in any way he can. Once the two of them start working together, they may have a hope of accomplishing what they need to.

Guided by The Empress, Hannah and Kane do their best to navigate court intrigue, tension in the palace, and their own emerging feelings for one another. Will they be able to find themselves, each other, and a solution for the kingdom that keeps everyone alive?

I struggled with this book. I read this ARC back in November and it's taken me this long (January) to be able to put my thoughts into words because I really really wanted to like it. The concept was very intriguing to me and the idea of a romantasy set in a world revolving around Tarot seemed unique and really fun. Unfortunately, the execution of this idea was just not well done. The whole story was very much just the author telling what happened and how people were feeling, rather than really building a world for the audience, which really doesn't work, in a romantasy especially. The love story wasn't very well built up and ended up being kind of an insta love/lust, even though it didn't feel like what the author intended from the story. The FMC was also kind of annoying/immature, and the plot barely related to Tarot in any real way aside from using the names of some of the cards and suits.

That being said, the plot was pretty fun and I did enjoy the story of it. I think with a strong editor this could have been fleshed out better and something really fun could have been made, but as it stands, the writing and development still needed more work in my opinion. I would love to see improvement on some of these things in the rest of the series, and would actually read the next book to see if any of these things have been improved upon.

That being said, if you're looking for a fun storyline, and find standard romantasy books too tedious; but, instead just want to know what happens with some smut thrown in, this is the story for you!

Rating: 2.5⭐ (Rounded up)

I so badly wanted to love this book. The world-building was beautiful and I was a big fan of Kirstin’s as a teen but, unfortunately, this book didn’t do it for me. It had such a great concept but the execution left me wanton. I found Hannah’s character to be unlikable, especially with her Insta-Lust. I don’t know... if I’m thrusted into a new realm, stabbed for being a “witch” then wake up in the small cottage with the same man I saw after falling through a portal to a medieval realm, I wouldn't be swooning but she seemed to have no issue. I found the plot extremely predictable. There’s so much that went unexplained or barely addressed and then other things that were heavily over-explained.

The whole scene at the end had me going “Wait... what? That’s it?”

I've been thinking a lot about how to talk about The Empress. I liked reading it, but I felt it could have been even better.

The idea behind the tarot cards was intriguing, but it wasn’t fully explored and didn’t really seem to matter much in the story. The characters felt pretty one-dimensional and didn't grow in a believable way. While the banter between them was enjoyable, it wasn't enough to make me believe they could fall in love in just a few days. They had no substantial conversations to inspire more than lust. I appreciated the friendships in the book. She makes friends and focuses on growing them and herself. More attention was put to them than the MMC. The focus on strategy, relationships, and how people see each other was a refreshing change from the usual stories about strength and bravery. However, the plot felt a bit disjointed. The main character claims she can blend in, but her modern language felt jarring.

Honestly, I think this is a decent start for a new author, which was confusing because the author is actually established. I might recommend it if you're a fan of this author, but I wouldn’t say it’s a must-read for everyone. I’m still open to reading the next book, hoping that the story and characters will grow more, as the humour and friendships were definitely enjoyable.

I'm sorry for how brutal I'm about to get.
I really, truly wanted to like this one. The blurb made it sound like a romantic adventure full of intrigue and magic. Unfortunately, the story is derivative and boring. It reads like the first draft of some fanfiction that needs good editing. The big moments are rushed while the connecting plotlines all feel incomplete and all the reveals are obvious long before they arrive.
Kane is an excellent mysterious leading man until you realize that the mystery never gets resolved. He has few lines beyond talking pretty to Hannah or trying to explain why he's keeping secrets. It feels like there is zero character growth for him.
Hannah does have character growth, but I found her predictability boring. Her story follows a set plotline that I've read before, which makes it difficult to get excited or worried about what's happening to her.
Overall, I might have just come into it with too high expectations that made it a chore to get through once they were dashed, but I did not enjoy this book.

I absolutely loved the prequel novel to the Towerfall series, so I was really excited to read The Empress! I love the concept for this series so much! All of the books will be based on the tarot, and The Empress takes place in the Kingdom of Pentacles.

Hannah was existing not living her life. She lost a promotion at work and discovers her boyfriend is unfaithful. She ends up being transported to Towerfall where she meets Kane. Kane agrees to help Hannah get back home in exchange for her help saving his kingdom.

Coming to Towerfall forced Hannah out of her shell and helped her become the person that she’s always wanted to be. Kane was dark broody and had so many secrets. I love the attraction and banter between Hannah and Kane. She tried so hard not to fall for him. I also really loved the friendship between Hannah and her hilarious friend Marion.

The series itself has a really cool vibe. It feels like a mix of romtantasy but also a bit historical. Towerfall has magick, but lacks most modern amenities especially related to technology.

While Hannah and Kane do get their HEA at the end of this book, I’m excited to explore more of the other Kingdoms!

The Empress by Kristen Cast is very much a romance story set in a fantasy setting. I absolutely love the opening of this story with the sex magic practitioner, and I kind of got a sense of where we were going for the rest of the book at that point. I do think that the romance was a bit insta-lust, which is not my favorite, however, it was ultimately a good time. I definitely would recommend this to romance readers and to folks looking for a spicy fantasy to read, thank you so much to sourcebooks for granting me access to an advanced reader copy of the Empress.

Kristin Cast’s The Empress combines time-traveling escapades, charming characters, and flirty banter in a fantasy romance that delivers humor and heat. While it leans on a few familiar tropes, the book’s rich characters and moments of magic keep it engaging from start to finish.

Hero Worship
* The humor of Hannah adjusting to a new time period felt fresh and realistic, especially with locals reacting to her phone flashlight as "magic" and branding her a witch.
* Kane’s steamy and flirty banter with Hannah added spice, making their interactions both entertaining and electric.
* Side characters like McDougall and Marion brought depth and warmth, complementing the story’s lighter and heavier moments.
* Plenty of playful and quirky moments, like Shadow the horse’s novice “mud-walking” comment, added charm.

Practice Makes Perfect
* The opening few chapters, especially the part with Chad, felt a tad predictable and less impactful as a result.
* Hannah’s persistent self-doubt often crossed into frustrating territory, making her internal struggles feel repetitive and less relatable.
* A bit more development of the world-building and historical details could have elevated the story, especially given the time-travel premise.

In the end, The Empress enchants with its humor, heart, and sizzling chemistry, offering a fun escape for fans of flirty romance and historical fantasy.

A big thanks to NetGalley, BloomBooks, and Kristin Cast for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I had never read anything by this author, and didn’t know much about her at all. All that I really did know was that she recently put out a book co-written with one of my favorite romantasy authors. So I had my standards set pretty high, and got set straight early on. There were many things that I did like about the book, but there were also some things I didn’t love.

To start with, the positives and negatives of this book came in pairs. So rather than discussing the positives and negatives separately, I’m going to not separate them out. There were some Outlander vibes, especially in the beginning.

This book takes place in two settings—one in the modern-day urban setting, and the other in the tarot-inspired world of Towerfall. The story starts out in Chicago, where we discover that Hannah works for a marketing company and has some significant issues. She’s broke, despite working at a thriving company where her coworkers in the same position seem to have enough money to go out, while Hannah is just barely squeaking by, has no car, and relies on unreliable public transportation to get around, even in the freezing winter temps. I found myself wondering if she’s bad at budgeting, yet still empathizing with her. The setting of Towerfall is a whole different issue. Once she gets transported to this mysterious, dangerous, and magickal world, she seems to think it will be an opportunity for her to reinvent herself. Yet all of her flaws come to the surface really quickly, and it is a great example of how moving locations doesn’t change who you are as Hannah really struggles to work through her issues.

I was most looking forward to seeing world building relying on inspiration from tarot cards, and was probably most disappointed by this aspect of the story. While the characters represent both the Kingdom of Cups and the Kingdom of Pentacles, there isn’t a heavy emphasis on tarot as I was hoping for. Instead, there were a handful of nods towards tarot cards and their meanings, rather than a fully-realized world. Despite our character spending the majority of the story in Towerfall, the world building came slowly. Readers learn only what Hannah learns while she’s there, yet she doesn’t seem very focused on anything outside of getting back to her world, where nothing is waiting for her except work. And as we learn quickly, her work isn’t going very well.

Another thing I struggled with was Hannah herself. At first, I could empathize with where she is in life, because we’ve all felt stuck at some point. But rather than creating a fully-fleshed out character, her personality felt as though it was made up of sexual urges and constant negative self-talk, which got old fast. She puts herself down at every opportunity, always talking about her ‘frizzy hair,’ ‘slight curves,’ and how she consistently makes the decisions that blow up in her face. Yet she gets in her own way every chance she gets and doesn’t show a lot of change over the story. Spoiler alert: the only way she’s able to feign confidence is after an extreme makeover. Kane never felt fully realized to me—I’m a very visual reader, yet I struggled to even picture Kane, outside of his golden skin, black hair, and oozing sexuality. Unfortunately, we don’t get a lot of personality from him.

The banter between Kane and Hannah was one of the high notes in the book, as they have some really great interactions. Fake dating/marriage is one of my favorite tropes, but Cast fell short on the relationship development—our characters go from fighting insta-lust to just going with it, and it didn’t feel natural or believable, since they never bother to get to know each other beyond the basics, so I wasn’t fully behind the pairing. As far as the spice, this is a high-heat story with wonderfully written scenes of our characters hooking up. I can’t exactly call them scenes of intimacy because it’s just physical, but somehow they’ve both gotten feelings involved. Instead, Hannah’s insecurities and unresolved issues just keep popping up, with no real resolution of these things. I get that this is a first book in a series and will be setting up a lot of the story for further books, but this read like YA more than anything. I learned afterwards that the author has written other books in the YA range, yet the adult characters often behaved like teenagers, with the same amount of thought before their actions.

“Maybe the Hannah in Towerfall is closer to who I really am. Or at least who I want to be.”

Overall, this book wound up being an okay read, but nothing special for me. All of the basic factors that I adore were in this book—portal fantasy, elements of tarot, and fake dating, but it never overcame the shortcomings that made it hard for me to really like this book. I much prefer seeing growth over the course of a story, watching characters change and improve themselves, and getting to know women who are strong, smart, and confident, while this book really didn’t offer any aspects of that. I think that the book will most likely appeal to readers who are already fans of Kristin Cast, those who like YA fantasy, people who enjoy slower-paced fantasy, and don’t mind a scene involving a pomegranate being used in a way that it isn’t meant to be used.

“Do something unexpected… Don’t let who you think you’re supposed to be stop you from being who you’re meant to be. Surprise yourself!”

This story was a fun trip through worlds, following Hannah as she falls through a portal from our world to a world of magick that looks like a Renaissance Faire come to life. On a spiritual journey to find her path in life, Hannah has her tarot cards read - the weird interaction with the reader starts a chain reaction of events that pitches Hannah into an adventure to another realm that she is destined to save, despite her insistence that fate made a mistake. She is saved by the broody Kane, the man compelled to protect her as she navigates the weird new world.

I loved Kane - he seriously gives sexy strong protector vibes, and his use of “good girl” was… well yeah we all know how effective those two words are haha. I had a few issues with Hannah and her complete inability until the very end to comprehend the real situation she was in. I know the feeling of not being good enough, and I’ve never been pitched into another realm, but surely at some point survival kicks in (especially for someone that lives in survival mode in her real life). That being said, I could relate to her RL predicament and the way she reacted to Kane was hilariously relatable. She was enjoyable to read and I loved her interactions with Marion and how she immersed herself into the world by the end, loving her new, exciting life.

As a whole, I loved the story, the adventure and the tarot references. I’d 100% read a follow on - whoever that follows. I loved the world and characters built by Kristin.

Thank you Kristin for giving me the opportunity to read and review your gorgeous story.

I expected to enjoy this better because I loved the House of Night. It just fell short for me. Though, it could be a perfect fit for readers who crave a spellbinding, high-heat romance with a strong fantasy element, particularly those who enjoy magical worlds, enemies-to-lovers tropes, and morally complex, swoon-worthy heroes.

In The Empress, the first installment of Kristin Cast's new tarot-inspired fantasy series, readers are thrust into a captivating realm that blends romance, danger, and magic. Cast, a bestselling author known for her immersive storytelling, introduces us to a dark and alluring world where the Arcana—figures from tarot decks—are not mere symbols but living, breathing entities with the power to shape destinies.

The chemistry between the two characters is electric, as they grapple with their forced partnership amidst palpable tension and growing attraction. The stakes are high; failure to convince the Kingdom of Pentacles of their marriage could spell doom for both of them. Cast expertly weaves themes of trust, survival, and the complexities of love in a world where nothing is as it seems.

The pacing is brisk, drawing readers into a whirlwind of events that keep the heart racing. The enchanting yet treacherous world of Towerfall is richly depicted, making it easy to get lost in its spellbinding beauty and lurking dangers. From the moment the protagonist is thrust into this new reality, readers are kept on the edge of their seats, eager to uncover the mysteries that lie within.

The Empress is a tantalizing start to a new series that blends high-stakes romance with fantasy in a way that is both seductive and thrilling. Kristin Cast has crafted a tale that will resonate with fans of whimsical yet intense narratives. For those who enjoy a blend of fantasy and romance, this book promises to leave you eagerly awaiting the next chapter in Towerfall.

I was looking forward to this book based on the blurb. Unfortunately, it fell short of my expectations and I struggled to finish it.

What initially drew me to the book was it was a romantasy based on Tarot however, aside from the card that brings the Hannah, the main character to Towerfall, the magic system isn't really explained and has absolutely nothing to do with Tarot.

The world building was nothing to speak of. The political intrigue wasn't delved into. There was no real, discernible motivations explained for the characters. Hannah, the FMC is wholly unlikeable. She has severe self-doubt and zero self-confidence and instead of being endearing, or a vehicle for character growth, she remains sort of a husk of a person. Any tangible details we derive about her are contradicted throughout the story.

This isn't a book I would recommend or purchase, unfortunately.

I do appreciate the opportunity to read this. Thank you NetGalley, Bloom Books and Kristin Cast!

3.5 rounded up to 4

Hannah's life isn't what she thought it would be. She's living in a tiny studio apartment, barely making ends meet. She just lost a promotion at work when her rival swooped in and wowed the client. And it turns out her boyfriend didn't think they were exclusive. Just when she's feeling her worst, Hannah finds herself transported to another realm by a tarot card and greeted with cries of "witch!" Saved by the brooding knight Kane, she finds herself agreeing to help him gain access to the castle, hoping that she can find the tarot card and go home. All she has to do is pretend to be his wife.

Read if you like:
-Magical Travel across Realms
-Fish out of Water
-Brooding Hero
-Swoon-worthy nicknames
-Pretending to be married
-Elain Archeron (ACOTAR)

If you like Elain Archeron and/or ship Elriel, then The Empress has the vibes you are looking for. Hannah is a fish out of water who played a supporting role in her own life before she met Kane. And Kane is a dark, brooding, dangerous warrior with a horse named Shadow (whom he talks to). He calls Hannah 'Fawn.' Need I go on?

I really enjoyed Hannah's journey to finding her backbone and deciding where she wants to be. The book was a little long, but I was willing to overlook that. And it was more spice than romance. I would have liked to see Kane woo her a bit more. But other than that, I would recommend this book to anyone looking for something a little different. It was a good mix of contemporary and fantasy romance.

If you like books where the fmc is thrown into a fantasy world then this is for you. The main character Hannah’s life isn’t going the way she would hope so after reading a self-help book she decides to go to a tarot card reading and while there she is given a card that eventually transports her to another world where she learns that she has been sent there to save the kingdom. She ends up in a fake marriage with a warrior in this new world as a way to get into the palace.

When reading the description for this book I was so excited I love romantasy books and the the concept of the tarot cards sounded really interesting but it kind of fell short for me. I didn’t really feel connected to the characters or their relationship. I also felt that Hannah’s actions were too impulsive causing her to make the worst decisions. One thing that I did enjoy in the book was the descriptions of the fantasy world especially the castle and its different rooms.

Thank you Sourcebooks Bloom and Netgalley for an ARC of this book.

Hannah’s lack of confidence in her own self leads to her downfall in her career and romantic life. An attempt to change her path sends her to an alternate realm with familiar faces and lots of intrigue

✨𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔼𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕤 - 𝕋𝕠𝕨𝕖𝕣𝕗𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝟙 - ℝ𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕨✨

Author: Kristin Cast

Couple: Hannah & Kane

Tropes:
✨Romantasy
✨“Little Fawn”
✨Fake marriage
✨Broody MMC
✨He ties her up
✨Tarot Card inspired

Review: Kristin Cast gives us a new romantsy to swoon about in 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔼𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕤 and if you have read anything by her in the past then you are NOT ready for this new realm of magic and fantasy brought to life! This book was on the lighter side of book from Kristin in my opinion and focuses on Tarot Cards and the influence they have in a parallel universe filled with magic, mayhem and mischief. Kristin captivated me with the world she set up in this book and the story she told in this first step into Towerfall.

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔼𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕤 is a “city girl” meets the past while also being thrown into a new world story that had me giggling from the first meet-lust/hate that Kane and Hannah share. Kristin was able to balance the influence the Tarot Cards had within the parallel world Hannah finds herself in perfectly with the tension and angst she had Kane shared but also somehow managed to also keep the mystery and intensity of the magical system alive. I really enjoyed her spin on Tarot and the different cards - in relation to each character - especially as we get deeper into this first book and begin to learn secrets and hidden messages.

While this is more of an adult romance compared to her past series, 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔼𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕤 is not overboard in the spice level - which I appreciated since the magic and the plot captured my attention the most! Hannah and Kane are almost a study in opposites and the fake marriage they embark on had me cackling all the way through - even if they fell a little fast for me. The way they learned to push each other was 5 stars in my opinion and I really enjoyed how Hannah grew into her own and FINALLY began accepting her Fate and her Destined Path by the end. 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔼𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕤 was a wonderful change of past from classic romatasy books and seeing the MFC - Hannah - begin to come into her own by the end has me anxious for more!

Rating: 5/5; 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔼𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕤 had me second guessing and shouting my theories from the rooftops as Hannah finally finds her found in this first book of the series!

Thank you Kristin for the eARC!