Personal Rating: 3 Stars Goodreads rating at time of review: 3.77 stars Content Rating: R for violence, drugs, alcohol and sexual content Trigger Warnings: Forced marriage, animal death, drug use/addiction, kidnapping. The elves come for two things: war and wives. In both cases, they come for death. Three-thousand years ago, humans were hunted by powerful races with wild magic until the treaty was formed. Now, for centuries, the elves have taken a young woman from Luella's village to be their Human Queen. To be chosen is seen as a mark of death by the townsfolk. A mark nineteen-year-old Luella is grateful to have escaped as a girl. Instead, she's dedicated her life to studying herbology and becoming the town's only healer. That is, until the Elf King unexpectedly arrives... for her. Everything Luella had thought she'd known about her life, and herself, was a lie. Taken to a land filled with wild magic, Luella is forced to be the new queen to a cold yet blisteringly handsome Elf King. Once there, she learns about a dying world that only she can save. The magical land of Midscape pulls on one corner of her heart, her home and people tug on another... but what will truly break her is a passion she never wanted. (goodreads.com) You might be looking at the cover of this book and raising a judgemental eyebrow in my direction. Particularly if you’ve read my reviews before and you know I don’t like sexual content in my books. And yes, that cover does look rather suggestive, but in my defense, lots of people were saying this book has very little “spice” in it and that it is a YA book. Having now read it, I can safely say that if this is mild on the spicy scale then I should probably stay far, far away from anything people consider steamier than this. One thing that I will say is that, the majorly amorous parts of this book were at least contained to Chapter 31 for the most part (and a few scenes after that weren’t quite as spicy, but still out of my comfort zone) with nothing important to the plot tied up in the descriptions as far as I could tell. So you could just skip Chapter 31 and skim the other parts if you wanted to and not miss any necessary information. Which I appreciate! There’s nothing that annoys me quite like there being a sex scene in a book that also includes vital information for the rest of the plot. If there has to be sex in a book, I prefer it to be possible to opt out of reading it without losing the thread of the part of the story I actually care about. Now that we have that discussion out of the way, let’s talk about the rest of the book, shall we? Overall, I liked it fairly well. The characters were, for the most part, likable, and the plot was intriguing enough to keep me reading through the bits that weren’t for me. The writing style was sort of strange (we’ll get into that in a minute), but easily overlooked. The world building could have been better, but for a book that’s main focus was a love story, I think it achieved its purpose. As I said, the writing was a little odd. There were some words that didn’t seem to fit into the flow of medieval-inspired fantasy land, like “yeah” and “heck” (I really did find it hilarious to read someone in an adult book say “what the heck” though and it definitely gave me the confidence to do the same with my own writing). It also seemed to go back and forth between more formal writing and super casual, which was jarring at some points, but didn’t hinder my enjoyment. There were also a few instances in which the sentence structure seemed a tad off (though who am I to call someone out for that) and I would take a moment mentally rearranging the words to correct it. Again, this didn’t really top me from easily reading the book, it just snagged my attention from time to time. I would like to take a brief moment to applaud the author for using the terms “Your Majesty” and “Your Highness” correctly. Goodness gracious, it was incredibly refreshing to have the king and queen be referred to as “majesty” and the prince as “highness”. Some writers use them interchangeably and it drives me crazy. Let’s talk about characters. Luella, the MC of the story, was actually pretty fun. I liked her more than I thought I would. She was interesting, with her own goals and abilities. She was also, for the most part, smart and reasonable. Plus, she was an herbalist healer and I can’t recall any other main characters that I’ve read with that profession. King Eldas, the titular Elf King, was almost exactly how I expected him to be. He was protective, foreboding, and grudging but with a soft side for Luella. However, I can’t help but find it funny when the reader finds out that he has basically been secluded in a castle his whole life. Generally, when I come across a dark, fierce, brooding love interest, he’s got some life experience under his belt. He’s been to places, done things, acquired scars both mentally and physically. You may never know how many people a Dark Brooding Boy ™ may have killed or maimed because his past is complicated. Eldas’ first time really leaving the castle, it is revealed, is when he goes to pick up Luella at the beginning of the book. This means, since she’s been to an academy, Luella has probably traveled more places than Eldas. She’s probably done more things, met more people, experienced life more. And one of the reasons I find this funny (morbidly funny) is because Eldas, when we first meet him, really wants to use his magic to tear this one guy limb from limb. And then, toward the middle of the book, but still nearer to the beginning, he actually does dismember a dude. And since he’s rarely left the castle up to this point, all I can imagine is that he has never killed anyone before (I can’t remember if he says otherwise in the book or not), but he knows the kind of guy he’s trying to be would definitely kill people. It’s like he’s so committed to his aesthetic that he just dearly wants to murder people to live up to it. We don’t get to read any of his inner dialogue but my headcanon is that it went something like this after he ripped apart a dude: Yes! Finally! Oh my gosh… that’s a lot of blood. I might be sick. No! No Eldas, stand majestically. Hold Luella. She is so impressed with me right now I bet. I just saved her from this guy and then dramatically punished him for his crime. And I managed to say something awesome! Heck yeah, this is fantastic. Okay, okay, I’m just goofing off now. Back to the review.
The side characters were nice. I liked that Luella had friends in the castle and that she spent time with people other than Eldas. I won’t say much because of spoilers, but I liked how things turned out with Prince Harrow too, it wasn’t what I was expecting, but it was certainly refreshing as far as plots involving wild, wicked brothers go. Before I wrap this up, here are a few other bullet points of my thoughts on the book:
While this book and its spice were not a great fit for me, I can totally see how someone looking for a steamy romantic fantasy would enjoy A Deal with the Elf King. I don’t see myself ever picking up the sequels to this book, mostly because they aren’t really sequels, just stand alones in the same universe, but also because I haven’t come across many positive reviews. I’m undecided about whether or not I’ll try anything else by Elise Kova. Originally, I thought I would give her Air Awakens series a go, but now I’m not sure. I’m sure I’ll let you know if I do decide to try it. Thanks for reading this review! If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to mix up a whole bunch of plants into a super elixir that will heal pretty much any wound ever. Until next time! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55285911-a-deal-with-the-elf-king?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=mp7CvaB8B5&rank=1
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