The best part of this book was the slow-growing romance between Eamon and Alaric. Fans of cozy fantasy will enjoy the village of magical creatures, the sweetness of Eamon's relationship with Lily, and the warmth of life inside Eamon's cottage once the three of them are living there together. That sweetness, however, contrasted awkwardly with the high stakes plot that served as a frame story. Overall, I don't think novel this was entirely successful, but as a light read, many readers will likely enjoy it.

This isn't the type of book I normally read. However, I wanted to expand and was intrigued by the cover and blurb. I typically read romance, wide open door romance ;-). This "cozy fanatsy" still has the romance element, but more like MM LOVE. I really enjoyed the book.

I listened to the audiobook. Thomas Busby did an amazing job bringing the story to life. I listened at 1.5x, and it was perfect. I had no trouble distinguishing between characters. Not only did he do a spectacular job acting out the main characters, Eamon and Prince Alaric, but he really gave the story that whimsical feel with the "monster village" characters. I started the book late Thursday night and finished the next day. At one point, I looked, and there were 4 hours left. It seemed like maybe an hour had passed, but I looked again, and only 33 minutes remained!

The blurb does a great job describing the storyline. I promise there IS lots of banter and tea drinking-between MCs, as well as other characters.

Both Eamon and Prince Alaric are selfless and self-sacrificing. Eamon hides behind a gruff exterior. He is a scowly, grumpy ogre. However, his actions and the love and admiration of those whose lives he has touched allow us, and Prince Allaric, to see past his shields. Prince Alaric is charismatic and exudes the sunshine or "sunbeam" vibe. However, underneath that, he has a very guilt-prone personality. Their relationship is very turbulent to start, but as they start to see beyond eachothers shields, things get better between them.

Lily, Eamon's (kind of adopted) forrest sprite daughter, is a riot and so precious. Eamon has that single dad thing going for him, too.

There are some dark/sad parts, but it only makes the ending so much brighter!

I received an ALC through NetGalley. This is an honest review.

Very wholesome and precious fantasy, with both MM romance and found family, that definitely deserves the cozy label.

I also enjoyed the audio narration a lot. Minor struggles with sometimes not knowing which character's POV I'm listening to but always quickly resolved thanks to context.

The Poison Paradox by Hadley Field ★★★★☆

A very sweet monster-ish romance following the two main characters Prince Alaric and a mage named Eamon. Alaric enlists the help of Eamon to make a potion that will save his brothers life. Eamon has his own problems to deal with, what with being an Ogre and all, and adopting a tree nymph named Lily. The relationship that these two characters develop is definitely grumpy vs. nothing-can-get-me-down, but the character development wasn’t too deep. It wasn’t a deal breaker for me, though.

I appreciated the LGBTQIA+ representation, the cozy fantasy vibes and the magical world that is described in the book. I think if you enjoy Travis Baldree, you may enjoy this!

Thank you to NetGalley, Hadley Field and the publisher for providing the audio ARC of this book.

#netgalley #thepoisonparadox #hadleyfield #felixgreen #cozyfantasybooks # LGBTQIA+representation

★★★★☆ — A sweet monster romance and an even sweeter tale of found family

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an audio ARC of The Poison Paradox by Hadley Field and Felix Green, narrated by Thomas Busby.

If I were rating the audiobook on its own, it would be a solid 5 stars. Thomas Busby was incredible. His ability to shift voices and bring the characters to life genuinely elevated the story, I absolutely loved his narration, and I think it really enhanced my enjoyment overall.

As for the story itself, it was pretty good! Not my usual kind of read, since I don’t often pick up Achillean romances (I tend to gravitate more towards woman-focused, especially sapphic stories), but this was such a lovely surprise. I have a well-known weak spot for “grumpy man adopts a kid” plots, and this book delivered on that. While Alaric and Eamon’s romance was sweet and tender, what really touched me was how much they loved Lily, Eamon’s adopted tree nymph daughter. Their love for her, and for the small, outcast village Eamon is the unofficial leader of, gave the book a strong, sincere sense of found family that never felt forced.

Eamon himself was great. A grumpy, prickly bastard on the surface, always ready to grumble and say something unpleasant, but underneath, so compassionate and kindhearted. I really enjoyed how the story slowly showed us more and more of him. I enjoyed Alaric too!

If I had any minor gripes, they were mostly personal preference. I’m not particularly fond of books that linger too much on how attractive characters find each other, it tends to make me cringe a little. Things like, “I couldn’t help but stare at his huge, muscular chest,” just don’t do much for me. That said, it wasn’t excessive here and didn’t significantly affect my enjoyment. I also noticed a few small repetitions, like words or phrases used close together, which might’ve stood out more in the audio format than they would have in print. But again, nothing too distracting.

All in all, I enjoyed this much more than I expected. It was a very sweet monster romance (? kind of, ogres are monsters, right?), and an even sweeter tale of found family and choice.

Thank you to NetGalley, Hadley Field, and Felix Green for this ARC, which I received in exchange for an honest review.

I feel like this book deserves more attention. If you enjoy cozy fantasy, fresh takes on magic (for cozy fantasy, anyway), not overdone fantasy races, herbal tea, and the found family trope, you will definitely appreciate this story.

I would say the story feels quite relaxed, although the stakes weren't very low, at least not for the main characters, which was actually great as it makes for a well-balanced narrative where things are happening for a reason. (I love me some good tea, but a drop of necromancy with side effects is always fun!)

It was a very fun and light read. I loved the characters, the world, and the pacing of the book. I especially adored the main character, as one of my favorite D&D characters is a bard who plays their instrument very badly but very enthusiastically. We need more representation for characters who are mediocre at things, but it doesn't stop them!

Audiobook released June 30, 2025

I would call this a cozy fantasy book, not always something I would pick up but thanks to Netgalley, I gave it a go.

Alaric and Eamon are trying to make a potion to save Prince Alarics brother and throughout, they find conflict throughout the kingdom, some good side characters, and some character development. Alaric and Eamon were both well written and had good chemistry.
I think the plot could have been a bit quicker but overall, it felt like exactly what it was, a cozy, easy fantasy (without too much world building, which you know I hate).

The audiobook was well narrated and the characters were distinct throughout.

This was a really adorable story. I loved the beginning especially, and the lead up to how Eamon turned into an ogre. “Cozy-ish fantasy” is a perfect way to describe this story. The found family vibes among the lovable band of outcasts was sweet. Alaric’s lute prowess was hilarious.

I will say that the middle half of the book where Eamon and Alaric are collecting potion ingredients sort of drags on. I was like, when do we see if Alaric turns into an ogre or not - can we get to that part already? And then when he did turn into an ogre, I was like… oh, this book is just gay Shrek. But then he turned back into a human and I was like… nevermind I guess?

I loved Lily’s character, she was written with so much adorable spunky attitude. I did like her character development when she acknowledges that Eamon is her family, and she actually doesn’t really care about meeting her biological sisters. I did want to see what her reaction was when she learns that Eamon turned into an ogre because of her (it was giving Joel and Ellie from “The Last of Us” vibes).

Really adorable, cozy-ish read. Many thanks to the author and publisher for the opportunity to have read an advanced copy this book for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This is the perfect cozy, fantasy, romance. All of the characters were fun, intriguing, and made you want to know who they were and the authors showed us just enough of each character to want to see their days. The setting was fun but not so far fetched it was hard to picture and the main characters shined in there settings.
The narrator did a great job and his voice acting made it feel like you were watching an animated film. His character voices felt like a Jim Henson style fantasy which added to the fantasy element for me.

This is an adorable cozy fantasy romance. It is VERY cozy. It is close to Shrek - a grumpy ogre romance with a royal. The story opens with a tale of self-sacrifice when a mage sacrifices his life (in a way) to save a young wood sprite. He then adopts said wood sprite and raises her as his own. Fun fact: the sprite goes up to become a baker and aspires to win a baking competition. So cute. They are discovered by a wayward prince who is seeking the retired mage and potion ingredients to save the life of his brother. The prince, having been banished by his father, becomes absorbed into the little village of these misfit magic folk. Filled with magic, found family, and finding love in all the right places, this one is a warm hug.

The narrator did a great job on this one! His timbre was the perfect blend of snarky and warm.

While I'm don't regularly read cozy fantasy stories, I thought this might be the gentle break I need between larger, heavy books. I do think this book has promise, and although not *entirely* cozy (there are some pretty dark themes in here, albeit treated with gentle hands), I think reading a physical or e-copy would have made it better.

The audiobook narration, however, has some sound issues:
There's some quiet buzzing in the background that you only really notice in between chapters when it goes quiet.
My main issue is: *why* would you have only one narrator for a dual POV story, told in 1st person, that follows two men?
Thomas Busby is doing his best out here and has some lovely vocal qualities, but besides the (overly silly and sometimes hard to understand) voices he does for side characters, it's incredibly difficult to follow whose POV he's reading. A story told in 3rd person would have worked better for an MM romance like this. It didn't help that his voice while narrating Eamon's inside thoughts sounded nothing like his speaking voice (but it did sound like Prince Alaric's). We also dropped so many of the dialog/speech tags, which convoluted these scenes further.

All that to be said, I think this is a cute story for readers of the genre, but is best "eyeball-read" in lieu of the audio version.

Big thanks to NetGalley, Hadley Field, and the publisher for providing me with this audiobook ARC (so excited to be able to listen to more audiobooks from NG).