I love The Nutcracker, and so, I was excited to read this retelling of this popular Christmas story. However, I couldn't connect with the story. It felt like it was a cross between young adult fiction and adult, and honestly, I think it would have been great as a young adult book if Klara was younger. Second, the book rushes in early in the book, and I felt like that was too fast paced so early on, and then when Klara and Jaemis met, it just seemed like so much was going on without enough time on each setting. The writing is great, and so are the characters. I'd be willing to read more by this author in the future, but this one was a miss for me.

I wish I could follow suit and talk about how incredible the story is. But it is way too long and filled with too much description. The story lost me before anything actually happened. That makes me feel like I shouldn’t be publishing this review on Goodreads or other places because I don’t feel like I cared enough about the story actually to have an unbiased opinion. I’d recommend revising and rewriting it before publishing so future readers may find it more interesting.

This was an attempt to retell the story of the Nutcracker. I received an advanced copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Well honestly, this book was poorly written, even more poorly edited, and just plain difficult to read. The story was cute enough, but it was too hard to overlook the glaring errors that had me shaking my head in real life and wasting time rereading the sentences and trying to put the words in correct order. I would recommend sending this back to the editor, cutting out at least 25% of the superfluous drivel prior to actual publishing.

This is an adult retelling of the Nutcracker.

The mouse king has imprisoned the true king and queen and their son Jaemis is planning a rescue. Then he overhears a plot to capture a girl named Klara from another realm and knows he has to stop it...

Meanwhile, Klara and her family are celebrating Christmas. Her godfather gets her a nutcracker doll. After plenty of drinks, Klara has the oddest dream...

This is a charming story. If you like the Nutcracker, you will like this as well.

I had high hopes for this book I was love a good re-telling with a bit of smut thrown in it was a bit long for my liking but it had such promise. it kept me engaged enough to want to finish but I wasn't sad to see the characters go in the end. I think you should read it for yourself and make your own opinion.
the author did a fantastic job of re-creating the nutcracker but keeping certain facts in, its a wonderful magical world.
Thank you to Netgalley/ BookGoSocial/Verika Sloane for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

DNF 50% of the way. This book was not for me. The writing style felt very weird. I felt like I was reading a hallmark movie but make it fantasy, and not in a good way. It felt like I was reading a children’s book with how the nutcracker world and characters are described but the author just added random mature themes that just felt very off. Even the family scenes in modern day just felt cliche and straight out of a hallmark Christmas movie. The first red flag for me was when the FMC said she wanted to be like normal kids with normal sized houses not living in a giant mansion. If that doesn’t scream old money privilege idk what does. All in all, not for me.

A Spicy Nutcracker retelling!! OMG you need this on your Holiday list! I can't stop thinking about this! Oh and the spice! Yes, yes,yes!
I just reviewed A Curse of Frost and Fate by Verika Sloane. #ACurseofFrostandFate #NetGalley
[NetGalley URL]

This was an amazing read. The cover and title caught my attention first. But I was a little unsure coming into this because retellings can be a hit or miss thing for me. Thankfully I loved this retelling and the way everything seemed to flow so well and the chemistry was perfect. The characters all felt like they could be a real person and the story pulled me in so much that I actually cried along with them.

What a gorgeous novel full of loveable characters and a storyline that I couldn't put down. This one is a must read! I loveeeeeddd this retelling, seriously hooked from the first page.

“A cursed prince was nothing more than a titled man who knew how death would claim him”
“You’re still the most handsome doll in the house. Goodnight, my Nutcracker prince”
“You’re lost in thought, I see … would you like to be found?”
Absolutely the best Christmas book I’ve read this year !!! Oh my goodness !!! I’m in awe !!! I don’t have words to describe what this book meant to me !!!
I devoured it in less than a day !! I couldn’t stop reading it!!
As a huge fan of the Nutcracker’s story I couldn’t help but deeply appreciate the way the author reassembled this story to make it more adult, more magikal and spicier !!! I loved every second of it!!
Klara and Jaemis’s story was spellbinding and enchanting and I loved getting through the whole journey against the Mouse King and Queen with them!!
The connection between the worlds and the magic system were made even better by the secrets and mystery surrounding the characters’ abilities and the figure of this uncle that seems to know it all and be always there !!!
I would highly recommend to everyone to read this story with the original soundtrack of the ballet in your ear … believe it made the experience a hundred times better !!!
A Christmas book, written for the Christmas season, that highlights a thousand fold the importance and the significance of family and love during a time of the year where they have most meaning. I’m so glad I had the chance to read this story !!! I can’t wait for it to be out !!
“There is no me without you”
“Life is merely a dance. A series of steps to an ever changing song. Hear this. When you no longer hear the music, you must stop and find your rhythm again … and love? … Oh yes, love has a rhythm too”

The description and beautiful cover are what caught my attention. Unfortunately, and it pains me to say this, I ended up skimming through the story. I just could not get into it.

Thank you BooksGoSocial, NetGalley, and Verika Sloane for this ARC.

This was so good. I absolutely love retellings and this didn’t disappoint. The characters were great, the world was magical and I will definitely re-read this. I hope it comes out on audiobook as well because I think it would be amazing there. The only issues I did have was all the typos. I’m not taking stars off for it because they’re easily fixed, but there were quite a few and a good edit would make this even better.

Stars: 4
POV: dual
HEA?: yes
OW/OM Drama: no
Cheating: no
Cliffhanger?: no
Tropes: fantasy, romance, magic, retellings, nutcracker

A Nutcracker retelling definitely caught my attention! I haven't read anything like this before and I really enjoyed this. There were some spelling and grammar errors that took me out of the story a bit, but that's to be expected with an ARC. Overall, I liked this and will continue!

The cover and synopsis of this book sound wonderful, but the book itself just didn’t deliver. The writing/pacing/overall story felt clunky and not well-thought out. I found myself cringing at times and at others I felt like I was pushing through mountains of info-dumps.
Overall rating of 2/5 stars.

Spicy retelling of The Nutcracker. The prose could be stronger, but I see great potential in this author! Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance copy!

Note: this book has mature content so it's recommended for ages 18 and up.
I love The Nutcracker. I have been a dancer for most of my life so it's safe to say that I was around the story of the nutcracker a lot as a kid and I love it even more now that I am in college. I loved all of the magic and wonder in this book and I wanted to keep reading to meet all of the characters and read about what happened
I really liked how the book wove in references to ballet and the book - I loved what the author did with the Sugar Plum Fairy how she was a dancer, and all the other details that were in the book. Klara and the prince were such great characters and I loved watching them fall in love. Overall I would recommend this book to adults who loved the Nutcracker when they were younger and those who love Fantasy Romance.

If you like fairy tales, Swan Lake, true love, Christmas good feel movies and are an adult (there are some really sexy bits), then you will love this book. I’m not really into ballet, but I do like losing myself in a good fantasy story. Verika says she always wanted to write the story of Swan Lake as a book. Now she has, and wow - I never imagined Swan Lake like this. The story has been altered by her imaginative writing into a book that drags you in and doesn’t let go. Thank you to Verika Sloane and NetGalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine, freely given.

Yikes. I love the Nutcracker. So the synopsis was very intriguing to me. But this book was not it. I felt no connection to any of the characters. I didn't even feel chemistry between Klara and Jaemis.

I struggled to even finish this book. If I were a better person, I would've DNF'd it days ago to spare me.

I’m sorry I got 50% through and I just cannot finish this book. The cover is gorgeous and the premise drew me in. That said, I feel nothing for these characters or their situation that compels me to continue reading. It reads like a very long fan fic with stilted conversations and the pacing is too fast in some places and too slow in others.

2.5 stars

This was really far too long. The cringe factor was high. The errors.. Crowned molding. The author tries to throw in big words that she perhaps doesn't 100% understand or is mistaking them for other words. At any rate, we end up with things like "he felt the warmth and sanguinity of the sun under a nubilous sky"

Let's assume we mean:

san·​guine ˈsaŋ-gwən
: marked by eager hopefulness : confidently optimistic

which doesn't make a lot of sense in this context as it is used to describe the sun, particularly under a nubilous sky.

nubilous
in British English
(ˈnjuːbɪləs IPA Pronunciation Guide )
ADJECTIVE literary
1. cloudy; misty
2. vague; obscure

Ah the warmth and confident optimism of the sun under the cloudy... wait.

Also, the guests took part in a syncretized dance.

syncretized; syncretizing
transitive verb

: to attempt to unite and harmonize especially without critical examination or logical unity.

Wat?

The writing was really juvenile to me. The writer does things like use the same word too close in succession which is just lazy to me. Everything is explained as if you are an imbecile. There are so many things that could have been left out that would have brought the word count down to something more reasonable and also would have just been better. For example, there is a point where a character is trying desperately to cross a perimeter which is denoted by a sparkle in the air. She races for it, being chased, and then "suddenly yanked back by her cloak's hood, her fingers brushing the sparkling shield" would have been enough to tell the reader she had gotten very close without "showing just how close she'd gotten." Not needed.

Semi-spoilerish?
The ending was just a travesty. Both MCs are duped in the most obvious way, and I actually had to skim many pages because the cringe was so thick and uncomfortable.

I actually said out loud more than once, a la Austin Powers to Robin Swallows, "WHY WON'T YOU END?" Which, in hindsight, should have been my cue to DNF this one.