A girl with nothing. A prince with everything. Only one can win.
In a world of haves and have nots, where petty crime is punishable by death and magic is forbidden, a deadly contest unfolds in secret. Twelve competitors are mysteriously invited. The winner gets one wish.
For 17-year-old Briar Bishop, this means saving her brother from execution by guillotine, and she’s not going to let anything or anyone get in her way. Especially not Leo Davenbrook, the handsome High Prince, who has grown up with everything she never had and whose very presence threatens her chance at survival. She has no idea a darker battle wages in secret, one that could lead to a fate far worse than the death of her brother.
MY THOUGHTS
I’ve been struggling with a massive reading slump lately. Nothing has given me that overall five star enjoyment factor in a while… until now. I saw this book, The Contest, being recommended in a Facebook group I lurk in (Swoony Fantasy Romance) and decided to give it a go because the premise sounded like my thing.
And it was my thing.
K.E. Ganshert has a very descriptive, imaginative writing style I appreciate (I haven’t read any of her books before). I was invested in the main characters (and their motives/wishes) and felt satisfied with how the story ended.
August 1st 2022 ~ Goodreads A windswept island, dreary and forgotten. A girl with magic in her blood, pushed to the brink of madness.
Cassie Murdoch is haunted by the black-eyed woman that killed her mother. Come find me, she unceasingly whispers to Cassie. Feeling driven to insanity, Cassie is sent away to live with her estranged grandmother. Navigating her new home on Tide Island, Cassie searches for clues to her mother’s old life and why she fled her home never to return. With help from her grandmother’s secretive errand boy, Henry, Cassie unravels a terrible family secret: a curse that spans generations.
Henry and Cassie follow a series of clues left by her ancestors to find that Tide Island is a dangerous place, the link to a mysterious realm called the Otherworld where the black-eyed woman rules. After learning she is descended from a long line of Sea Witches, Cassie is plunged into a world of spells and secret ceremonies.
Desperate to save herself and her newfound friends from her spiraling control, Cassie searches for a way to break her curse. But in the Otherworld enemies are not as they seem, and Cassie must find whom to trust before those she loves most are lost at the hands of the black-eyed woman.
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August 3, 2022 ~ (Not yet on Goodreads)
Be careful what you wish for…
Mistress Norna, wise-woman and midwife, is stunned when she discovers that the infant she has just delivered is a ‘Luck-child,’ one born with a Wishbone and the power to make Wishes come true. She believes the babe could be the perfect tool to restore her own fortunes and those of her homeland. Will she succeed in turning the boy into a weapon to bring down the Kingdom of Dassia or might Jasper find a different future?
When a vicious night terror lords over the waking world and the dream world, his greatest weapon, a winged assassin born of a nightmare, will have her vengeance.
Wren has spent her life doing the bidding of her cruel creator Para Warwick in the dream world known as the Reverie. When she learns of a weapon with the power to destroy him, she jumps at the chance to steal it. Her plan goes awry and she finds herself in the clutches of the rebellion and the rogue Alaric, a nightmare himself with twisted horns and dark magic. When a plea from a strange being known as a dreambreaker reaches them, the two ’mares find themselves thrown together in a desperate mission to save her before time runs out.
Meanwhile in the waking world, Caine Fallon, son of King Warwick and Prince of Wolfhelm, prepares to wed Ila Enevoldson, the young queen from the wild kingdom of Galesborough. But Ila is more than a queen. She is a weaver, a protector of the ancient Boundary that separates the Reverie and the Wake. Three nights before their wedding, Caine catches Ila in the act of opening a portal to the dream world and follows her, landing himself in a universe stranger than he could have imagined—a realm where his father is more monstrous than he ever could have fathomed. Now, the fates of four strangers will become intricately entwined, and the fate of their worlds will be sewn by their choices.
The magical finale of the Emerald Realm… A Retelling of Rapunzel.
It’s been over twenty years since the princess of Sybettal mysteriously vanished from her fallen kingdom. Many assumed the princess was slain alongside her parents, but the king of Ashbourne seems to harbor more information than he’s let on. Living entirely oblivious to the scarring caused by her home kingdom of Ashbourne, the sorceress Elle dreams of exploring the world beyond the walls of her tower. With a magic gift as dangerous as her own, she understands the king’s reasoning for keeping her tucked away. After all, seeing the future can prove to be rather powerful when a war between kingdoms is brewing. As tension builds between Ashbourne and the other kingdoms of the realm, Prince Miron seeks an opportunity to prove himself useful before his father selects his heir. Knowing his father has some sort of insight into the future, Miron explores the king’s forbidden tower to investigate. When his unexpected arrival startles a vision out of Elle, a terrifying future intertwines them both. Can Elle learn the truth behind her past while battling her pre-determined future? Or will Ashbourne’s strength prove to be too much to stand against?
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August 25th 2022 ~ (Not on Goodreads yet)
When forbidden magic arises from an unlikely source, a kingdom will erupt in chaos…
Prince Ash of Melodera lives a pampered, spoiled life, rife with riches, women, and wine. But on his eighteenth birthday, he will discover his birthright – a long forbidden magic from a suppressed heritage he’s never known, forcing him to either submit to the Rite of Heartsease, a spell that will tear his magic away – or flee from everything he’s ever known.
Cinder lives day to day by her wits and her skill with a blade. Orphaned and homeless, she spends each day lying and stealing in order to earn enough money to meet her goal: assassinate the King of Melodera.
When she sees the king’s son stumbling through the woods like a wounded wildebeest, she can barely believe her luck. Striking at his son first will only make her soon-to-be victory sweeter. But the prince comes bearing a stunning secret.
He has music.
And he wants to know what he can do to bring it back.
Soon Cinder and Ash are embroiled in a dangerous game of cat and mouse, staying barely one step ahead of the king’s men sent to destroy Ash before he can let the world know of the gift the forgotten gods have blessed him with.
But Cinder is determined to protect the spoiled prince because he has the one thing her mother died for. And she’s willing to bring a kingdom to its knees to ensure he survives.
Even if it means her heart shatters when it’s all over.
A forgotten princess. A cruel realm. A Mage who might be her salvation.
Sanja is a princess on the run. And when she flees her father’s court to escape an arranged marriage to a tyrant, the one thing she doesn’t expect, is to be killed for her throne.
But magic that shouldn’t exist in her kingdom saves her, and Sanja is thrust into the daunting fairylands where, as a human, she’s prey…
Fighting to survive, Sanja signs herself into the service of the most powerful Mages in the fairylands, determined to master the magic to save her kingdom—and finds herself stuck with a brooding Mage with a knack for keeping secrets.
As Sanja’s feelings for Tristan turn from dread to attraction, she learns that she isn’t the only thing the fairies are after. And Sanja must risk her life and her heart, or she will lose both him and her kingdom forever.
Indie Fantasy Review 