Tag: fairy tale fantasy

Review: Deals & Dream Spells (The Charmed Leaf Legacy Book 2) by Rachel Morgan 

Rating: 4✨

Deals & Dream Spells, the second book in The Charmed Leaf Legacy series by Rachel Morgan, is very good, but doesn’t quite have the depth of character development and completion of plot that the marvelous introductory story has. 

Here in Deals & Dream Spells, Morgan has feuding magical families, two main characters each dealing with various types of personal problems, and one overall story of a dream park waiting to be revived. 

However, the issues of these characters are very different, and emotionally unbalanced. While Evryn Rowanwood is hiding his “scandalous pen name” and  sarcastic society novels from his loving family, his enemy/partner in bond/fake engagement, Mariselle Brightcrest has far more serious issues to contend with.

Her family is frankly abusive, from terrifying parents to horrible, cruel sister, exactly how awful they are is a fact Mariselle has been avoiding for years. Even her grandmother hasn’t wanted to confront the truth about them and their treatment of Mariselle. 

So to protect herself, she’s gone along with her sister and mother in their cruelty and abuse of others, to her detriment.

Especially when she and Evryn have to convince his family of their “love” and engagement. No one wants her in this situation and their family, especially considering Mariselle’s shameful treatment of Iris Starspun in the first book.

The development of Evryn and Mariselle’s relationship is very emotional, often funny and well written. It’s easy to imagine them finding themselves together in the end. 

But the story doesn’t really go into depth when addressing their individual issues and pulling together a coherent narrative end to each person’s problem. Evryn’s drops out of the story, and Mariselle’s years of abuse and damage is left to one unsatisfying scene, which really doesn’t resolve much of anything. 

It’s a Happy for the Moment ending unlike the first book. 

Very puzzling because there is much to admire and really love here. 

There’s a third book releasing soon and I’ll be there to see waits on the agenda for this family and the magical regency world.

The Charmed Leaf Legacy series:

  • Tempests & Tea Leaves #1
  • Deals & Dream Spells #2
  • Love & Letter Charms #3 – Oct 24,2025

Buy link

 Book 2 of 3: The Charmed Leaf Legacy 

Blurb:

Regency romance meets cozy fantasy in this entertaining tale of rivals to lovers, a fake engagement, spit-your-tea-out banter, and endless magical shenanigans.

Step 1: Accidentally bind yourself to your sworn rival.
Step 2: Fake an engagement so no one knows about the accidental binding.
Step 3: Try to outdo each other with increasingly ridiculous magical pranks.
Step 4: Definitely don’t fall in love.

When notorious rivals Evryn Rowanwood and Mariselle Brightcrest accidentally bind themselves to a decades-old enchanted contract laying out the restoration of the failed magical attraction known as Dreamland, they must transform from bitter enemies to reluctant allies, staging the Season’s most shocking romance while secretly working together to resurrect the magical legacy that once tore their families apart.

Let the banter-laced warfare, magically assisted sabotage, and dangerously simmering slowburn commence!

Review:  How to Find a Nameless Fae by A J Lancaster 

Rating: 4.5⭐️✨

“On her fortieth birthday, Princess Gisele of Isshia realised she was going to have to save herself.”

This is how I wish all fairy tales started. And the Princess saved herself! Awesome!

How to Find a Nameless Fae by A J Lancaster is an imaginative retelling of  the Rumplestiltskin fairytale, this story is beautifully written and richly filled with fantasy characters that leap from the classic fairytale world and twist themselves into versions, dare I say it, are ones I find more compelling and more long lasting than the original. 

Princess Gisele was the baby bargained for as the price for turning the ability to spin straw into gold by her mother. A complication was that she was never claimed by the evil sorcerer and her life has been one of decades cursed by waiting and loneliness and moments of misery. 

So she decides, after one disastrous experience, to take matters into her own hands.  She’s going to find the sorcerer, break the curse, and make her own way. At a middle age with creaking knees and broken magic.

Gisele is a fantastic character and so relatable. And the growth she slowly experiences and the development of her own personality and magic is richly satisfying and deserved. 

But the “evil sorcerer” who isn’t what’s expected, nor is his sentient house and fabulous cat, add the wonder, empathy and compassion to her story and their relationship with this fantasy universe is absolutely stunning. 

A little drawn out at times, How to Find a Nameless Fae by A J Lancaster is so well written and that ending is so good that I want more fairytales from this author. 

Highly recommended! A really great book. 

Cover design © Holly Dunn

Buy link

Amazon.comhttps://www.amazon.comHow to Find a Nameless Fae eBook : Lancaster, AJ: Kindle Store

Blurb 

What happens when a first-born bargain goes wrong?

Princess Gisele has spent her life preparing for an evil fae sorcerer to claim her. That was the bargain her mother was tricked into: one royal first-born in exchange for spinning straw into gold.

But it’s been decades, and he still hasn’t shown up.

The unfulfilled fairytale-debt, however, is refusing to lie quietly. When its chaotic magic reaches unbearable levels, Gisele takes matters into her own hands. Terrifying fae sorcerer or not, she’ll hunt him down and force him to stop ruining her life.

But instead of an evil mastermind, she finds the scholarly, nameless lord of a magical house. He wants nothing to do with the angry knife-wielding spinster on his doorstep. 

Unfortunately, the fairytale-debt has other ideas.

Now magically bound to her lifelong nemesis, the only way to break the magic between them is to work together to find the nameless fae’s lost name. Assuming they don’t strangle each other first.

HOW TO FIND A NAMELESS FAE is a cozy fantasy romance retelling of Rumplestiltskin with spice, featuring a middle-aged heroine, a buttoned-up hero, and an interfering sentient house.

  • Publisher: Camberion Press
  • Publication date: June 26, 2025
  • Language: English
  • Print length: 390 pages