The dirty talk was so... Under no circumstances are you to ever
lay eyes on me! It's so funny how everyone [ __ ] hates the elf king. Hello hello hi
hello everyone - my name is Cari, welcome to my channel or welcome back. Today, you guys probably
read the title, I'm going to be reading all of the - what's it called again - married to magic
books. If you guys watched my what I read in August, you guys know that I pretty much
devoured the series called the Air Awakens. I literally read three of the books in 24 hours
and it severely damaged my eyes and brain and I ended up having like low-key vertigo for the rest
of the day...And it is by an author named Elise Kova. What's interesting about her books
is first of all she - okay sorry I've had a mosquito in my house for like days, this is an immortal
mosquito, it's probably some fairy prince -my redheaded fantasy protagonist story is finally
beginning. But anyway I thought I just saw him... he lives to see another day. She first of all has
a ton of books okay - she has the air awakens series with five books, it's like vortex chronicles which
is another series that's related to air awakens and that has six books in it, the loom saga which
has four books in it, the trial of sorcerers which isn't finished yet but it's gonna have three books...
I mean she's got, she writes a lot okay and I think that she writes in a very easily digestible way. I
would definitely recommend if you are just kind of if you were just kind of hungry for a
fantasy but - I'm so- I know you can't hear it but my neighbor is singing. Anyway she, if you're
hungry for a fantasy and you've kind of run out of books you don't know where to turn next, I think
that even though she does play very heavily on tropes and she's quite obvious about it, like I
don't think her work is groundbreaking in any way shape or form but her writing is definitely - like
I said I read those first three books, ate them up so quickly. It gets the job done. I got a little
tired as I mentioned at the end of the air awakens series. I thought the last two books weren't that
good but at the end of the day it scratched the itch that I wanted it to. I read that series
a week or so after I had read a Deal with the Elf King and this was a book that I had just seen
a ton over bookstagram basically, a lot of people doing like the deal with the elf king aesthetic
reels and stuff like that. I was getting fomo and I wanted to know what the hell it was about and I
knew it was gonna be, you know, an enemies to lovers thing. I didn't love it simply because like I said
she's very open about what trope she is playing on and in the case of a deal with the elf king,
which is the first book in the series - they're all standalones but they're within this kind of
family - it was just so incredibly obvious that it was an enemies to lovers but that you know the
elf wasn't really the bad guy and he's like really trying to save her and you know, you know the story.
I didn't love it simply because it was so not subtle you know? But that being said, if you love
that trope and if you are looking for a book that follows that trope - she writes these for you. The
married to magic books are all gonna be that. So I decided I'm interested - you know that
I love a good enemies to lovers story so I didn't love a deal with the elf king which
is the first one (I'll tell you about in it in a second) and then there is a Dance with the
Fae Prince and a Duel with the Vampire Lord. The ratings are quite interesting. I'm looking
at goodreads - I pretty much never pay attention to ratings, I usually don't even check them in
advance but here's what what we've got going on on goodreads. So a deal with elf king has 60,000 ratings and it's got a 3.77 star rating. The next one has a slightly higher one coming in at
3.93 but it only has 15 almost 16,000 ratings so like a quarter of the people who read a deal with
the elf king read a dance with the fae prince. A duel with the vampire is the most high rated and
it is at 4.11 stars but it's only currently at about 3,000 ratings. Granted this came out in 2022
so it's been a lot less time - deal with the elf king came out in 2020. I don't know, could it be
that a duel with the vampire lord is better or is it just that the fans of this series are the
only ones that have continued the series and thus they're the only ones at this point rating the
books? I don't know and I'm gonna find out. And I'm, you know, going into this now knowing her style -
a deal with the elf king was the first book I ever read by her - going into it knowing her style,
I'm prepared for it to be a little heavy-handed and that's - I'm gonna be okay with that, I'm not
gonna knock her for it okay? And what else did I want to say? Oh most important thing about her
work is that her work is all on kindle unlimited! Personally, as someone who reads a lot and I
don't like to buy books - I get everything from the library - I thought that it ended up working
out for me in terms of how much I've used it so kindle unlimited, if you have it, check these books
out. You aren't going to be losing anything from it. I'm going to start telling you what these
books are about and give you my feelings on them. I'm just going to give you what I remember
from deal with the elf king. I'm not going to reread it so let me tell you what goodreads
says this book is about because lord knows my memory. This is a quote from the book. "The elves
come for two things: war and wives. In both cases, they come for death." I gotta say, she starts
off the book with some pretty epic lines and then - no hate, no hate okay? I absolutely
applaud her for writing as much as she does, as quickly as she does. You can't keep up that level
of intensity for an entire book, I understand so I'm just gonna shut my mouth. "3000 years ago, humans were hunted by powerful races with wild magic, until there was a peace treaty formed. So now for
centuries the elves have taken a young woman from this particular village to be the human queen
and I know what you're thinking - is it this one elf king that's immortal right? Taking all these
wives? No. Okay, that's what I was worried about. The elves do die. And the way that you're chosen
is if you start showing signs of magic so our main girl has been living her life and she hasn't
been showing any signs of magic so she's like whoo I'm safe! Our main girl's name is Luella and she
has been studying her entire life in herbology and so she's the town's only healer and there's some
kind of like fever or poison or something going on in her town where it's very essential that
they have her as a healer saving people so when - spoiler not spoiler - she gets whisked off into the
fairy elf realm, she's very upset because people are literally dying because she's not there right? She is taken to a land filled with wild magic and is forced to be the new queen to a cold yet
blisteringly handsome elf king...Ooh I love this. Once there, she learns about a dying world that
only she can save. The magic land of midscape pulls on one corner of her heart, her home and the people
tug on the other. But what will truly break her is a passion she never wanted." Whoa this is my first
read-through of this, wow okay. It's inspired by the tales of Hades and Persephone as well as Beauty
and the Beast with a happily ever after ending. It's perfect for fantasy romance fans looking for
just the right amount of steam for their next slow burn and swoon-worthy couple. So there's that. I
will say like literally my only problem with the book was simply that the trope was very obvious, but other than that like I did not mind it. I think I said this in my review earlier but
it's like if you want to kill time this book will hold your attention and do the job that you
are asking it to do. I didn't think the writing was bad, I thought the story was like normally paced,
I thought the world building for a standalone I'm always impressed by people who can write
fantasy standalones. Overall I thought she did a good job I just thought like whoa this
is like a villain character - the elf king is like a person I had read before. He is
a powerful fantasy man written by a woman - what are you going to do? This is an incredibly
long intro to my video but I am going to start right now...The dance with the fae prince and I'm
not going to look at the synopsis or anything like that before I start it because that's how I
roll, crazy like that and yeah so we're going to start a dance with the fae prince. All I can see
is "she knew her hand in marriage would be sold dot dot" It's a forced marriage
enemies to lovers series. Okay wish me luck. Okay hi guys I'm back actually
real quick. Upon opening this - also it's finally like cool enough, it's kind of like autumny time
that I can let my candles. First things first - the map for this world, there you go, it looks like
a video game map. And I had no idea that this all took place in the same kingdom of Midscape so I
wonder if we'll have any crossover. I don't know but yeah I thought first of all I thought that was
funny and then her dedication page is for "everyone who stays up late reading books about kissing."
I just appreciate an author that understands their audience and writes for them. I think that
that's great so I'm already, I'm feeling welcome. I can't wait to begin. See you when I have an
update okay? Greetings everyone so hi. I am only on page 39, chapter 3, and so far I actually like
this setup, the way that she's telling the story better than how I remember I felt with
reading duel with the elf king. This has a bit of mystery to it, I think I am going to
get into spoilers so I've decided this video will be a spoilery one so this if you don't
want to know anything this is your goodbye bye! This one I feel like she might be trying to
make it like a Cinderella kind of thing because she has evil stepsisters and her mother and
father have passed away and she's being like sold off you know? And she was kind of like the
servant of the house and you know anyway... But other than that, it doesn't, so far it
doesn't match up with Cinderella at all but I appreciate that I have no idea what's happening.
Like with the elf king I kind of immediately knew there was like a curse and somehow she was the key
to solving it but something bad would happen to her and so the elf king is trying to sacrifice
himself so that she doesn't get hurt, you know... I like got that from like the very first second
but this I have no clue. There is the woods that she's not supposed to go into because there's
evil fae stuff and then whoever she married (the fae prince, I mean...) is busy and doesn't want to
see her. He just wanted this book that her mother had so we know there's something important
about the book but we just met the prince and basically he wouldn't come down to see her
he was like "live in my house, I don't want to see you, I'm very busy" and she was like "uh we just
got married?" She didn't meet this guy like his his butler signed the papers right? She's like
"excuse me we just got married, can I at least like see your face my dude?" And so he comes down to
her study and she notices that all the chairs are like facing away from each other and she's
like that's strange and then he comes in and he's just like "don't turn around" and she's like "what?" and he's like "I said don't turn around!" His butler had given her all of the rules of the house and
he's like "there's a final rule that you must know - under no circumstances are you to ever
lay eyes on me!" He's like I heard that you wanted to meet me and, you know, I will
oblige, only if you swear to never look at me. So I had to put the book down at that.
So I have no idea where this is going but so far like I like the language that she's
using a lot more than the elf king and like I said I'm just intrigued. I'm 40 pages in and I don't
know what's going on so that's my update see ya! Okay an update I'm on page 129 and I so far
I'm still liking it. I think the main character is like annoying in a way that she has to be a little
annoying in order to get the plot to move forward but like she's not super getting on my nerves.
We just learned the main guy's name and at first they were introducing another character and so
I thought his name was Hol. Like h-o-l. Which is a character's name but I was like are we
gonna have a romantic lead and his name is Hol? But it's not don't worry. Overall I think
it's interesting, I think - the dialogue's a little weak because there was a point where
she literally was like "no I must be dreaming!" and I'm like nobody says that out loud but I'm
enjoying it and they hate the elf prince so... Hello we are checking in from page 202, no notes
basically since the last time I checked in except that I think that the romance is just a
little strange. Maybe it's that the our main girl has been very sheltered and also like yeah she
is technically married to this guy so she's kind of hoping that she falls in love with him but
like I know that they've had more time together off the page that we haven't been a part of
so maybe that's it as well but it just kind of seems like suddenly she's like having a lot
of really strong daydreams about him and there's many points in this book she has already said like ~the need to touch him~ you know? like they're drawn together. He's got this gravitational pull, kind of
came out of nowhere it feels like. The yearning bit isn't fully pulling me in but that's okay. I
think I think that the fae prince is a little whiny brat a lot of the time but I kind of get why
but yeah he's kind of acting like a baby and he's owned up to it - he has said that he acts like a
like a spoiled child. So good that he knows, but anyway I might finish this today so I will catch
up with you next time. The book has been finished. So what I appreciate with this is that even
though this is definitely like a fantasy romance she doesn't put - there's like two or three scenes
steamy scenes right? It's not like the whole book so i appreciate that. But I will say this book the
dance with the fae prince...the dirty talk was so painful for me to read. I would you know I'm
fine with action words even though she chose a plundered? What was the other
one that started with a p? purged? She used a couple questionable verbs. I'm
fine - I'm usually fine with like descriptions of actions but when there is like dialogue
and she's talking in like thick paragraphs I just - oh man - the cringe was real. I figured
out I figured out what was gonna happen about halfway through but I appreciated how it ended.
I don't think the romance was super strong but it had characters that I liked. If I remember
correctly, deal with the elf king didn't have many characters but this had more people and
and there was like a little goofy boy character and yeah I appreciated it so I would actually
say I like fae prince more than elf king? And I also like that a significant amount of the plot
surrounds her childhood horse Misty that she loves. I think I liked the romance a little bit more in
the elf prince or the elf king but I liked the just in general like plot and other characters
more in this book. What's funny is they were talking so much [ __ ] about the elf king in here
which was very funny and I remember in the elf king they really didn't like the fae and then
they also mentioned that allegedly there's vampires but no one's seen them for centuries.
And the next book in this series is about the vampires so I will start that maybe tonight. Catch
you then when we have - what is it - duel with the vampire lord. So it's deal, dance, and duel. Duet, oh
the next one is duet. So you guys with the vampires. Hi guys right before I jump into the vampires, I wanted to read what the goodreads summary is. Here we go, now that I know what the story is
about. She knew her hand in marriage would be sold, she had no idea of fae prince was the buyer. Katria swore she'd never fall in love Oh oh okay that wasn't yeah hold on. She swore
she'd never fall in love. She'd seen what love means through the cruelty of her family but her
new husband makes not falling in love difficult as their attraction begins to grow. So too does
the oddities within her new life - strange rules, screams in the night, attacks by fae, then she
witnesses a ritual not meant for human eyes and she finds herself spirited away to the
land of Midscape. A dance with a fae prince is a complete standalone novel inspired by the tales
of Psyche and Eros, as well as Cinderella - okay - with a happily ever after ending it is perfect
for fantasy...we said that already okay. So yeah that is one thing that actually really bothered
me about this book is just that her whole deal is she doesn't want to love because she
was abused by her stepmother. Her father like she just, the love that she has seen in
her life because her mother died very young, the love that she has seen - she doesn't want
any part of it. And so when they are very clearly falling in love she's like "no feelings no feelings"
and it's just not super believable. Anyway so that's the official summary but on to vampires
okay see you tomorrow. Hi there just an update I'm only on chapter two but look at this first line...
But also this one is much more obviously connected with the world than the elf king was because
the Applegate trading company is the name of our main girl from fae prince! That's her father's
company. He went to the distant north to get silver and he died so I hope this place
doesn't rely too heavily on the silver because... What we've got going on is there is a village
that every single month on the full moon they get attacked by vampires and our main girl
is the like main person who makes silver stuff so she's very important. Every 500 years,
there is a blood full moon where the vampire lord can come in and apparently the like
full moon vampire [ __ ] it's just a taste of what the vampires can cook up. So they're
assuming tomorrow on the blood moon they're all gonna die. But they're gonna put up a good fight.
But yes that's where we're at and I feel like I'm gonna fall asleep any second now so I don't know
how much more I'm gonna read but I will update you once I learn more. Oh and our girl because she's a
very important person or something, the master hunter gets to choose who she marries so she's
not allowed to be touched by anyone. Master hunter told her probably next week you're gonna get
married but she still doesn't know to who and yeah... Hello my friends, I am on page
164. I am 30% of the way through and this is not a vampire story. This is absolutely a
zombie story which I find hilarious. What are my thoughts? So I'm having a little bit of a rough
time getting into it but honestly it could just be me succumbing to a little bit of a reading
slump, I don't necessarily think it's an issue with the story just more of me reading too many of
these types of books back to back. so I don't want to knock a point off of her for that. Things
that I do like about this story is that this is it's got like a little bit of a different
take on the whole like enemies to lovers and then this kind of it's not forced marriage but like
she has been captured and like has to stay there to help the vampires break a curse but what I like
about it is there's this added element of she is pretending to be something that she isn't as well.
So they all assume that she's a hunter when she's not, her brother just has like kind of helped
train her sometimes. She makes weapons, that's her thing. All the vampires are like great, we found
a hunter and she's gonna help us break the curse and she's just like yeah, I'm a hunter here to help
you break the curse. so I appreciate that. The only thing that's kind of bothering me about the
book is just that because it's in first person and it's we're only seeing her point of view, it's
just a little annoying because once again with with the tropes that are in this entire series, you know that there's a misunderstanding, you know that if everybody just told each other
what they know like what is this curse? They keep mentioning the curse but like she doesn't
ask for details about it? It just gets kind of annoying in that sense but overall
I think that this one is fun. It has a little bit more of a halloweeny feel I think
so I'm kind of getting in the mood and I think today I'm like in the right mindset
where I can if not finish it at least get a good chunk of it. Right now is when we're kind
of jumping in to the action part so yeah I'm interested in what the curse is. I wish she would
ask, wish she would ask. Anyway here we go! Our boy is 3124 years old. So just gonna be real, her writing style,
the steamy scenes - I don't remember it being so bad in the elf king but like it was pretty, as I said, pretty not good with
the fae prince but vampire lord the smut scenes are...first of all they happen early, like this
is before we're even halfway done with the book. And they are just painful to read. I gotta say I'm
sorry for like I don't even think people who like smut would necessarily like
this, like this isn't just me you know, I don't know, but I feel like this book is
so long - like I don't know why I can't get into it but yeah he just said he's 24 years
old but they were in like the long sleep or whatever for three thousand and one
hundred years so he says he's "around" three thousand one hundred and twenty four years old - but for him it felt like mere moments. Yeah okay anyway I'm gonna keep reading but
I'm - it's taken me like almost two hours to read a hundred and something pages
which is not how I do things so... Close your eyes if you can't handle horribly written smut because look at what
I'm reading. What do you think I could show you? Stop! So this is absolutely the smuttiest
of the three. I don't like it, like I - so many people said that this was actually
the best one in terms of the plot but now I'm thinking I need to reread the elf king because
the elf king might end up being my favorite of the three? I would say the like the fae one was
fine other than like these long paragraphs of dirty talk that could have been erased but like
as far as the plot and whatever fine, but this like even the plot is just so convoluted - so far
it's fae prince, elf king, and then vampire lord... bundle it up and toss it away. The series
has been finished, oh my god that took so much out of me to finish that damn
book. So what are my thoughts on vampire lord? I thought that that one was the most truly
enemies to lovers in that even though it was kind of just like a misunderstanding, they genuinely
like hated each other for most of the book, so if you're into that I would say on a ranking
of enemies to lovers it would be vampire, elf, fairy? But yeah I just think that I don't know
why this one was quite so long - this one was 526 pages versus the other ones were more like in
the 400, 300 range. So I think she tried to add more like world building and lore and like this
curse but it just felt a little bit too long. It was just overall a little confusing, there were
like many layers to the curse and then there were many layers to like...so overall it definitely
wasn't my favorite, it wasn't very vampire-y. I think the only like vampire vibes you get is
in the smut scenes because she really sexualizes the whole like sharing blood thing but other
than that, it really felt more like they were just a bunch of people fighting zombies and a curse. So
if you were hoping for like very vampire-ish vibes like they can go out in the sun, I mean, and
they don't sparkle you know? So yeah I would say I definitely lean have more on the elf and
fae side. I feel like the fae one is the one that bothered me the least. Again, I'm gonna have to read
the elf king. I have a feeling if I reread it that might be my favorite so in terms of ranking it
I might just go in order of the series - I think it gets worse but what I do really want to read
is the next book which will come out next year and it's the final one I think and
it's about sirens so it's gonna be like a low-key mermaid kind of thing going on and
honestly I'm down -apparently they sing... Stupid? are you dumb Cari? They're sirens. Yeah no
they were - because in the other books they have all referenced the sirens and how much they would
love to hear the sirens singing duets and whatever but they're sirens, like that's their
thing that they sing I can't believe I just said that. But anyway overall I think
if you are the kind of person that enjoys the forced marriage and enemies to lovers tropes -
I'm not a big, I don't really enjoy the forced marriage trope at all so if you like those two
and you're kind of willing to read any thing that has those tropes these will be fine but I think if
you're more of like you like those tropes but you aren't willing to read like I'm not, I don't want
to call it like it just wasn't great I would say. Her air awakens trilogy or her air awakens series
is much much much much better than these if you're looking for a kind of enemies to lovers magical
thing going on, definitely read at least the first three of the air awakens series. These
books, it's nice that they're standalones again I really think that these are kind of like
if you are at a loss of what to read next these are interesting options for you, if you
if they tickle your fancy but overall I felt like especially vampire lord for some reason
was really hard for me to get into. So I will still like I said I will still read the fourth
one but yeah again if you read the elf king and you liked it I would recommend trying fae prince
and if you are stuck looking for a fantasy read give the elf king a try. It's so funny how
everyone [ __ ] hates the elf king like like the fae, the vampires - everybody hates the elf
king and I think it's fabulous but yeah I would say don't stray from it this isn't like horrible -
maybe don't put them on the tippity-tippity-top of your tbr if you've got a lot to read so anyway
that was my deep dive into the married to magic series family and yeah sorry I feel
like my reading vlogs are always so strange because I am very bad at like taking breaks and
sharing my thoughts so this was me like really forcing myself to talk about the books. I hope to
get better as I continue on but yeah thank you for being along on the journey with me and I will
see you guys next time. I have no idea what I'm talking about next time so I can't tell you but
I will see you guys then and thank you always bye!
