Rating: 4.5🌈
Grave Misfortune is Nazri Noor’s novel in the fantastic fantasy series, Fortune Favors the Fae. This is a multi-author series about a mysterious ancient Fae coin that travels from world to world, interfering with the lives and destinies of those it encounters. It’s a fascinating theme and Noor puts it and the coin to rigorous use in his highly entertaining novel.
In Noor’s storyline, there’s a small town called Barrowdeep that is besieged by ghouls. Its the perfect setting for this enemies to lovers romance. And the author has created a number of memorable characters that inhabit it to make this place real, its horrors to the remaining citizens haunting and scary, and the heartfelt rawness of those who have survived believable.
Already there is Leoric, a battle hardened, war weary soldier whose laid down his weapons for a new job as the town’s grave keeper in return for a new home. Leoric is an impressive man, a powerful character on the town’s side, whose history is as slowly revealed as is his match here.
That would be the traveling lone elf, Orphium of the Dawning Court. With his magical wagon that needs no animal to pull it, he careens from town to village, where aided by his charm and magical tricks, he wagers its people out of trinkets that also carry their precious memories, unknowingly won by him without their consent.
That’s the Orphium we meet as his wagon wheels itself into Barrowdeep. Self centered, self serving is perhaps a better term, and not prepared for the reception he receives.
Noor does an excellent job of transitioning the character of Orphium from a dislikable being to someone the reader understands and invests in emotionally. Orphium’s an isolated desperate elf constantly trying to deny the consequences of his actions, stealing precious memories from those who unknowingly surrendered them to him over a game of chance. Through the events, the escalating violence of the ghoulish invasion, and yes, that Fae coin, the relationship between Leoric and Orphium, and Orphium and the townsfolk starts to evolve.
I love all the many elements that Noor creates in this world and story and felt some didn’t get the development they deserved. But the author notes that this is the first book in a new series, so I imagine that those things will get better explanations further down the road.
I’m absolutely looking forward to seeing where this goes. Grave Misfortune (Fortune Favors the Fae Book 8) by Nazri Noor is another must read book in this fantastic collection. It’s a definite recommendation!
Cover art by Natasha Snow. I love the covers. Fabulous.
Fortune Favors the Fae – 15 books:
✓ A Fae Coin Transported Me Into Another World and Now I’m the Gay Holy Maiden by AJ Sherwood #1❤️
✓ The Wolf’s (Un)Lucky Fae by Michele Notaro #2 ❤️
✓ Bound to the Wild Fae by Tavia Lark #3 June 13❤️
✓ The Sorcerer’s Thief by Lee Colgin #4 ❤️🔷
✓ The Fae Menagerie by Edie Montreaux #5
✓ Never Darling by Sam Burns #6
✓ Prince of Poison by Alice Winters #7 ❤️
✓ Grave Misfortune by Nazri Noor #8 ❤️
◦ Fae for Pay by Meaghan Maslow #9 – July 23,2024
◦ Kisses at the Crossroad by Morgan Lysand #10 – August 1,2024
◦ Smoke and Mirrors by Kai Butler #11 – August 8, 2024
◦ Siren in the Rain by Chloe Archer #12 – Aug 15,2024
◦ I Destroyed the Elf Prince’s Harem by Jocelynn Drake #13 – Aug 22,2024
◦ A Fae Called Wylder by Michelle Frost #14 – Aug 29,2024
◦ Lucky or Knot by Eliot Grayson #15 – September 5,2024
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Blurb
Darkness sleeps beneath Barrowdeep.
War-weary mercenary Leoric has traded his sword for a shovel, burying the undead blight that plagues the little town of Barrowdeep. Now he fights for the living instead of against them.
Fae trickster Orphium travels from town to town, stealing human trinkets and memories through games of chance. He’s desperate to fill the hollow in his heart, but the hunger never goes away.
Barrowdeep is ripe for the picking, except the nosy local gravedigger keeps interfering. But when Leoric unearths an ancient fae artifact, Orphium knows he’ll stop at nothing to possess the powerful coin.
And the undead will stop at nothing to possess him.
Orphium and Leoric must fight the undead together before tensions and their shadowy pasts rise to the surface — and before an even darker evil awakens beneath Barrowdeep.
Grave Misfortune is a part of the multi-author series, Fortune Favors the Fae. From spicy to sweet, zany romps to epic adventures, there’s something for everyone in this mystical series. Discover destiny and true love and follow the coin on its fickle journey to the next world and a new magical adventure.
• Publication date: July 18, 2024
• Language: English
• Print length: 218 pages
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 