A interesting retelling of Sleeping Beauty. Mira trains hard to be a a keeper of the wards, a special guard. She fights to defend the princess but is captured by the Rave, the second-in-command to the enemy queen.

I love Mira and Raven. Bael is wonderfull too. Terrific characters. The plot is interesting. A fast read for me.

Thanks to the publisher for the arc.

I was immediately drawn to the Sleeping Beauty retelling and tarot card aspect of this book. However, it just really fell flat for me. There was so much telling, instead of showing and I just couldn’t get engaged with the story.

A great debut from author Erin Archer. The story is interesting and full of the elements of fantasy romance that we all know and love. Mira is a great main character, she is witty and determined and her and Bael were a great duo.

I did find that the world building fell a bit flat for me, it was really well done and detailed at the start but later on there wasn't too much detail about where the characters were going and the various kingdoms. This may be intentional as this is only book 1 in a series.
My favorite scene was when Mira picked a flower from the theater. That part was so well written and gave the best dystopian with cursed magic vibes.

I look forward to Erin's future novels <3