Reviewed by CJ | Rating: 4/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read Grove of Trees yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
OPENING HOOK
So on paper this book sounds like a joke. Leprechaun crime lords. Cherub bodyguards named Huck, Pudge, and Honey. A literal Easter kingdom called Eostre Land where the vibe is eggs and virility. I went in ready to laugh at the premise and came out fully invested in a soul-speaking, shadow-wielding chosen one’s messy love life. Grove of Trees should not work as well as it does. And yet, here we are.
THE FULL STORY — SPOILERS INCLUDED
Carwynn’s whole existence is a prophecy. Her mom Maura was the Skell queen, married into the one kingdom everyone’s terrified of, ruled by the monstrous Skell King. Carwynn is prphesized to be the one who takes him down, so her mom begs her best friend David (then, the future king of Loveland) to hide the baby. Decent enough plan, except it doesn’t go smoothly and at thirteen, hidden in the human world, Carwynn is found and has her throat slit by the Skell King’s people. She survives (obviously, we’ve got a whole book here), but now she’s in the Fae lands finding out that she’s a soul speaker with shadow powers, and additional nature powers just showing up as the book goes on. This girl is turning out to have an array of magical abilities and I can’t wait to see what shows up next.
Cut to present day, she’s grown, teaching a human studies course at a fae collegein Luckland. David’s kingdom (Love Land) has been wiped out by what’s officially a volcano and unofficially very much not an accident, leaving he and his partner Wyatt not far away from Carwynn in Luckland. Carwynn finds herself friendly with Lochlainn, who is exactly the kind of morally-gray crime-lord that makes you go “wait, I like him?” against your better judgment. He’s the king’s nephew, running his Luckmen goons like an Irish mafia, and somehow it’s charming instead of ridiculous.
The heist-gone-wrong is where the current story kicks off . Carwynn is supposed to talk to a dead guy for intel, but when the moment they arrive the spirit-voices only she can hear start screaming it’s a trap as a monster shows up. Ancients are so rare they’re now thought to be myths, but right here and now we can plainly see that they are not a myth. As she is dragged away, Pogue holds on and helps her in trying to survive it until David shows up in his full angel-wing, protective dad rage mode and nearly murders Pogue on principle. Carwynn talks her way out of killing him by assuring David that he tried to help. Later, at David & Wyatt’s home she explains that she needs Lochlainn’s archive access to chase down artifacts from dream-like visions she’s been having most of her life, most notably a pink stone, an onyx box.
And then there’s the boys – Lochlainn’s Luckmen. Finley is the wolf shifter who easily charms his way into her heart right up until it comes out that Lochlainn sent him to keep tabs on her from the start. I love her, but the fact that this blindsided Carwynn when she knew Finley as one of Lochlainn’s men from page one is very on-brand for her naivety. It’s all one big mess and she doesn’t know what to believe. There is some very obvious past trauma with bullying and naivety and it’s skewing her ability to tell when men are genuine, as I think Finley is in this case. He really seems head over arse for her.
Pogue, meanwhile, is just being a dick through the whole thing while also being deeply suspicious. He’s got Hallow Land blood but we haven’t gotten the full story on him yet. And then at the very end, everything with Finley and Lochlainn blows up in her face, Pogue drops the fact that Finley ‘marked’ her when he shouldn’t have while keeping the fact that he marked her first (whatever this all means) to himself. So now we’ve got two men claiming a mark on her that we don’t fully understand, a furious Carwynn, and her marching into the ball room glowing with rage to throw her coin in the well to join as a Eostre trial contender.
BEST PART OF THIS BOOK
Carwynn’s voice. For all her naivety, her snark and comebacks are genuinely funny. It’s as intelligently written, as it is funny; not always just “quippy for the sake of it.” The banter in this one made me happy.
WORST PART OF THIS BOOK
I’m not sure there was a worst part. Maybe Finley’s betrayal? although I wouldn’t call it a betrayal, I would have always suspected from first contact that he was there to keep an eye on me. There was a lot of information to take in at the start, but it was done in a way that flowed. I wasn’t frustrated at any point.
THE STEAM RATING BREAKDOWN
🔥🔥🔥 — Warm. There’s steam, including a scene between Finley and Carwynn under the moonlight in the ruins of an old shifter temple, but the romance — while central — isn’t always wall-to-wall explicit. Content warning: on-page violence/gore (the ancient attacks, the throat-slitting backstory).
THE TWIST WE DIDN’T SEE COMING
Not Finley’s spy reveal — we all saw that one coming a mile off. The bigger surprise is Carwynn and Lachlainn having had a night together before the start. That reveal happened at the start, but I found it more surprising than the fact that she didn’t know Finley was reporting back to Lochlainn.
THE CHARACTER WE LOVED TO HATE
Pogue. Dark, mysterious, with total dick energy through most of the book, and we still don’t know if he’s actually on her side. There’s clearly more going on with him than we’ve seen.
THE ENDING — SATISFIED OR DISAPPOINTED?
Good ending, properly cliffhangery. She finds out about Finley, gets attacked by an ancient spider-lady thing, saved by the Vinterland king (well, the interim stand-in king) loses her shit, and stalks back into the ballroom glowing. We don’t get to the trials or half the answers we’re hoping for, so I’m dying to know what happens next.
WOULD WE REREAD IT?
Probably not a reread for me, but I am genuinely invested and curious enough that I’ll pick up book two as soon as it’s out.
THE HOT TAKE
The premise — Irish Leprechaun-style mob boss meets Halloween kingdom Horror meets Hallmark Valentine’s cherubs meets Easter fertility kingdom — should not work (at least seriously), but you know what? It totally works. Side note: I have a soft spot for Lochlainn by the end. He’s not a good guy, but he’s not a monster either. He’s growing on me.
WHO IS THIS FOR
Romantasy readers who love a messy, unresolved love situation (Finley? Pogue? With Lochlainn in the mix it’s maybe leaning into a triangle? Who knows right now) and don’t mind being left with zero endgame clarity. If you need your books to wrap up clean, wait for book two.
WHERE TO GET THIS BOOK
📖 Physical Book
| Bookshop.org
📱 Ebook / Kindle Unlimited
🎧 Audiobook
No audiobook found for this title (no Audible or Libro.fm listing).
🎁 New to Audible?
🎁 New to Libro.fm?
Standalone so far — but that ending makes it very clear there’s an unannounced sequel coming. No official series title exists yet.
Ready for more reviews from CJ? Find More Here
Plot Twisted. 🔥
📱 | Series: Standalone (sequel expected) | Genre: Romantasy | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥