Book Review: The Ballad of Never After

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Fantasy

Sub-Genre: Romance

Wow! Everyone really wasn’t wrong about that ending…The author had foreshadowed throughout the book the ending wasn’t going to be a happy end, but I expected myself to get sad. Instead, I was so furious (not because I disliked the ending, but I was mad at a certain character). No, but seriously I had to take a minute to process and the last 15-20% of the book my mouth was hanging open the whole time. Every time I thought it couldn’t get worse…it did. Definitely better than the first book.

Continue reading for more details.

💗💘🖤✨💔🪄🔮👑🥀✒️

Synopsis:

Not every love is meant to be.

After Jacks, the Prince of Hearts, betrays her, Evangeline Fox swears she'll never trust him again. Now that she’s discovered her own magic, Evangeline believes she can use it to restore the chance at happily ever after that Jacks stole away.

But when a new terrifying curse is revealed, Evangeline finds herself entering into a tenuous partnership with the Prince of Hearts again. Only this time, the rules have changed. Jacks isn’t the only force Evangeline needs to be wary of. In fact, he might be the only one she can trust, despite her desire to despise him.

Instead of a love spell wreaking havoc on Evangeline’s life, a murderous spell has been cast. To break it, Evangeline and Jacks will have to do battle with old friends, new foes, and a magic that plays with heads and hearts. Evangeline has always trusted her heart, but this time she’s not sure she can...

💗💘🖤✨💔🪄🔮👑🥀✒️

Review:

Evangeline’s belief in love and possibilities of there being different endings for stories is what’s keeping her going throughout this book. Her heart betrays her by falling for Jacks, but they are like star-crossed lovers. Unable to be together. Her abundance of love is what drives her to do the things she does, no matter who the person is she is doing it for. It’s also what keeps her stubborn and determined. I love how she channels her love to be the force that keeps her going and believing. Though, she continues to make dumb decisions that repeatedly lead her into problems that could’ve been avoided if she learned to be a little less careless. I felt a little bit less sympathy for her due to this reason, but nonetheless this girl deserves the world at this point.

“It didn't matter if he stayed forever cursed. All that mattered was that he stayed, that he chose her instead of fear.”

Jacks’ character is so much more complex than what meets the eye. We really get to see that in this book through exploring his past a lot more and the decisions he makes, especially towards the last half of the book. We really are able to see what has shaped him and caused him to be so scared of embracing and accepting his feelings. He’s more fragile than how he carries himself. All of this allowed me to see him from a different perspective than how I saw him in the first book, and made his character all that real for me. We could also see more cracks in his facade, showing how much he truly cares for Evangeline, whether he likes it or not.

“In the morning you can forget it. You can go back to pretending you dont like me, and I can pretend I don't care. But for tonight, let me pretend you're mine”

The creativity the author brings into this book with the four stones which are used to unlock the Valor Arch is one of my favorite parts of this book. I loved how each stone serves different purposes and it was interesting to see the effects it had on the characters who possessed the stone. The history of the North is quite a tragic one, and a lot of surprising things were revealed about different characters because of it. The new curses placed in this book kept things moving forward and brought new situations that I would’ve never expected happening due to it.

I also love the way Stephanie writes stories. She brings them to life with her word choice and turn of phrases to really allow the reader to feel what Evangeline is feeling and feel as if they are part of the story.

“She used to think love was like a house. Once it was built, a person got to live in it forever. But now she wondered if love was more like a war with new foes constantly appearing and battles creeping up.”

The plot was like a rollercoaster in this book. It started off with a bang but then slowed some when Evangeline was stuck researching about the stones but then really picked up pace again, especially in the last part of the book. The way everything unfolded had me going through the five stages of grief every few pages. I’ve never read anything like the things that happened in the end and the way the author wrote it was perfect! Then even more happened afterwards and I was torn apart once again.

Overall,

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