It’s always a pleasure to venture into The Cursed Queens world created by E.E. Hornburg so I was thrilled when she asked me to take part in the release tour for the newest addition, The Forest’s Keeper. This is book three and releases March 21st, 2023; tomorrow at the time of this post. If you would like to know more about the first two books, The Night’s Chosen and The Shadow’s Heir, I have reviewed them both. Without further ado, let’s get into this spoiler free review!

I like to give a heat level rating for all books with romance. If you’re curious about my rating system, you can check it out here.

Synopsis:

Rose never imagined sitting on a throne, but with her sister Eira still in the mountains warding off a curse, she’s stuck playing ruler.

All she wants is to track down the former queen Amelia and get Eira her crown back, so she can have a sword in hand again and explore the blossoming relationship with her best friend, Cal.

When a mysterious wolf shape-shifter tracks her down and reveals there’s trouble in the magical Eral Forest, Rose is confident the former queen Amelia is behind it. Armed with a set of ancient and enchanted weapons, she and Cal travel with him the wolf to seek out the sorceress and set things right.

But while on their quest, Rose and Cal are captured by a clan of ogres, determined to settle a years old grudge against Rose’s family. Discovering there’s more than sorceresses and ogres lurking in Eral who want revenge, their relationship is pushed to the limit.

The fate of Eral lies in Rose’s hands, will she be able to gain her freedom or forever be cursed by destiny?

My Thoughts:

• Rating- 
• Heat Level- 🔥🔥

I absolutely love “Little Red Riding Hood” so I was very excited to see how E.E. Hornburg would take that story and turn it into a New Adult fantasy. Like with the first two books in this series, she managed to do it in the best way possible. Eral is a perfect fairytale world so all of these creatures, like ogres, pixies and shape shifting wolves fit seamlessly within it. I’m really enjoying how with each book, new creatures and lore are added into the story.

Along with the world, I really loved the characters, as always. I did rate this book at four stars instead of five, though, because I wasn’t super into Rose and Cal. They were well written and fleshed out, but I just didn’t feel the spark between them like I did with Eira and Caderyn or Myra and Alvis. I’m sure that’s simply a me thing, though. I did absolutely adore that Rose is a main character with a disability. That is not common in the fantasy genre and I think it makes this book really special.

I also really enjoyed all the parts with Rafe or Amelia. What can I say? I’m always here for a morally gray, or absolutely evil, character. Things with these two ended on a cliff hanger so I’m pretty antsy to see what happens in the next book.

Final Thoughts:

If you’re looking for a fantasy series with plenty of adventure, magic and spice, you won’t regret reading The Cursed Queens. Are you adding these books to your TBR? I’d love to know! Thanks for reading and have a great day!