This was an intriguing fantasy read however it did fall a little flat for me. I was unable to connect with the characters but nevertheless, I really enjoyed the premise.

Thank you NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review

⭐️⭐️.5
0.5 🌶️

Overall I liked the concept of this book and the characters, but it definitely needs a lot of editing and fleshing out. It felt like I was beta reading a first draft rather than a finished story so while it has a lot of potential, it needs more work.

There was a lot of repetitiveness with overuse of character names as well as sentences like “Only for the excuse of using the weather as an excuse to stay in the house and read or watch her favorite shows” and some slightly nonsensical sentences like “Anya looked out from her mirror in her living at the car driving further away by the minute”

I also felt like I didn’t really get to know the characters as they weren’t really fleshed out at all. They all have a lot of potential, but even by the end of the book I could really only tell you one thing about each character and it’s not that deep. A majority of information that I learned was in the prologue which takes place 30 years before the story starts.

All in all this book was mostly just okay, but with a lot of potential. I will likely not be continuing the series unless the author does a lot more in terms of editing and rewrites.

The Forgotten Prince is the first in a series of novellas by Varma. As expected with a novella this is a short and quick read. I did read an ARC and I hope that by publication this book has had a much needed through edit. Make sure you read the synopsis as it is very helpful to understand a bit more that is not explained in the story.

Here it is for your enjoyment: Anya has worked in the bakery ever since she was fifteen. Seven years later, she, along with her best friend Natasha own the very bakery they used to work in. When the two of them commission for a shed to be built behind their house, Anya finds herself attracted to the tall, mysterious, dark-haired carpenter with two mysterious scars on his back.

Aleryn "Ryn" Sinear, the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Mairene, was banished from his homeland at a young age. With his wings cut off, he, along his best friend and family advisor, were left to die in the mortal lands. What seemed at first like a curse of fate was actually a blessing in disguise when he meets his mate.

But with a target on Aleryn's head, will Aleryn and Anya's love survive?
Can he get his kingdom back with the help of Anya, Nat, and his best friend Theo?

The thing that was a bit crazy was that Anya is kidnapped and they say mate she doesn't even have a reaction. I would think that one shocked that there's fae and two that they are mates would be a bit of a bigger deal to her but it is just glossed over. I will be looking forward to the rest of the stories in the series. 3.5 stars

this felt so much like holly jackson's work... the booktokification of books, needs to be a sociology study.

*♡Thank you to NetGalley and Akira Varma for this ARC in return for my honest opinion♡*

The premise for The Forgotten Prince peaked my interest, and I was so excited to read it. However it fell a little flat for me and I was glad it was only around 200 pages. The pace of the story is fast enough, but I didnt find myself engaging with the characters or routing for them in any way. Nothing felt fleshed out and it reads like something someone wrote in high school.

I still read it all the way through, and I wouldn't say it was a terrible read. It was ok! The prologue set the story up beautifully, but everything else felt bland afterwards. The ending felt rather rushed too.

I thought this book was an amazing quick read! I dove right into the world and loved every minute of it. The relationship between them, mates!!! I was so excited to see them grow.

I especially love the "touch her and die" vibes we are getting.

I can not wait for book 2 to see where this story takes us. Is there going to save them and leave back to the mortal world? OR is he going to reclaim is throne!

This book was quite enjoyable and it's great if you want something quick to read.

However I feel like it is incomplete, and it feels more like part of a book than a first volume. The ending doesn't feel like a volume ending for me. Maybe I'm just not used to read shorter books.

Anya is super sweet and I loved her. I think she makes the whole book feel kinda cozy. On the other side, I feel like there was so much more to be known about Ryn.

All in all, a pleasant read, but it could have been so much more

3/5- A nice short and fast-paced novel.

I was initally caught by the stuning cover and seemingly action packed blurb.
I am a little let down by the lack of action within the novel, and at times it did seem to be just a romance story.
The writing is very juvenile so I had difficulty relating to the characters and their issues.
I did enjoy the cozy bakery vibes, however, it wasn't how the novel was initial presented to me. I liked the love story, it was simple but well done.

This book had me hooked right from the beginning! The prologue left me desperate for more information, and I can't wait to discover more about this as the series continues! In the main story I immediately loved Ryn, his golden retriever energy made me so happy but what really made him steal my heart was his switch into the dangerous man when Anya was put at risk. Anya's character development in this book is what really sealed the deal for me on thw whole though. I found that she was bordering on irritating to begin with, but her character arc was incredible and by the end I really wanted to be her friend in real life. When I began the book and kept finding myself thinking that it needed a strong female lead in order for the story to track (I'm also not the biggest fan of a damsel in distress - a strong female who has someone help her save herself is okay though!) and I was so pleased when she began to fight back in the tenser moments of the book. I'm also really excited to see how she will bond with Theo following the end of this book, I feel like they will develop a really interesting platonic relationship.

I found it to be beautifully written, and I really loved the pace of the story and didn't feel that it was boring or any of the chapters or paragraphs were unneccessary. Once I'd started reading, I couldn't put it down and finished it all in just over 24 hours. Highly recommend reading this as its full of fantasy mystery, romance and some wonderful twists and turns!

This is my second book from Akira and while I didn't like it quite as much as Dream a Little Dream of Me, I did enjoy it! I don't tend to read novellas because I find them to be too fast paced generally, and that was true for this story as well but I'm starting to get used to it. The prologue was very intriguing so I was invested right from the start! Ryn, a Fae Prince has been hiding in the human world since he was a baby because his evil uncle seized the throne from his family, meets Anya, a human baker. The first bit is like a contemporary romance meet-cute, which I loved! The instant connection felt very believable to me. and of course they are fated mates! The second half of the book dives into the fae realm and becomes quite exciting as Ryn's past catches up with him. Anya's bestie Nat gets POV chapters and I really enjoyed her spunk! Ryn also has a bestie Theo who I enjoyed and I'm excited to learn more about both of them!

The epilogue in the faerie realm was emotional and set me up for an epic fantasy. However, everything went downhill once we got into the mortal realm; it was painfully dull and too mundane for me when I expected a fantasy.

The dialogue was sometimes repetitive, and the chemistry between the supposed mates was absent. I wish we learned more about Aleryn’s life growing up before he met Anya. It’s a novella, so the characters can’t be fleshed out here. However, it was supposed to excite me for the next book, and it did nothing but.

4 stars - An engaging and fun book that was a bit slow to get going but once it did was cute and cosy. Had a great time reading it

This was a fun novella with a lot of potential! It laid the ground work for the (hopefully) series quickly but efficiently.

I think there were one or two things I'd loved to have quickly clarified, for example that the humans already knew that fae existed, as well as their land/country (Nat seemed surprised to see them, but not at their entire existance). Also, at one point Berin was referred to as an elf but then later said he was fae? Not sure if that was just an editing error.

It took up to 40% (per my Kindle) for Anya and Ryn to officially get together, even though he had been referenced as her boyfriend? It seemed a bit long to drag that out. However, the beginning of their love story was very enjoyable to read (though I felt the writing of Anya's thoughts were a bit juvenile surrounding it). I enjoyed seeing how fierce a friend Nat was once the story picked up.

Overall, it was a quick and fun read (finished in just over an hour). I think it would be perfect for people starting to dip their toe into the fantasy world.

Thank you to The Publisher Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op, The Author Akira Varma & NetGalley for an advanced reader copy (ARC) in exchange for my honest review.

This was awful. This isn't that special from any other fae stories out there.. The book doesn't start great with the trigger list. All you had to do was state the triggers and not go on a tangent.

Getting through the book was hard, and honestly was not fascinating at all.

The Forgotten Prince—Thread of Fate Series Book 1 by Akira Varma

Thank you to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for providing a copy of this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

The Story: The novella starts off with a prologue following Samira’s escape from their kingdom with her infant son—a bundled Prince Aleryn—nestled in her arms, both having suffered emotional and physical injury by the Mairene guards pursing them. The foundational premise of the prologue was great. It tells us how the prince would never grow up to be the royal he should, how he shouldn’t exist, and the sacrifices Samira had to make to keep them safe, but it never explains why. The only notation is that her brother took the throne, and it was rightfully Aleryn’s. But all this information would have been better served woven through the entire story instead of being a prologue, but that’s not what I care about.

What I care about is the only cool detail in the prologue is never followed up on:
“He was only alive now because one of the villagers sacrificed their own baby and smuggled Aleryn to safety. For all that the guards knew then, Aleryn was dead.”

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE VILLAGER SACRIFICED THEIR OWN BABY? It is implied that the baby was killed, but who did it? Was it done in front of the guards? How did they not know it was their Prince? Why would the villager do that in the first place? What forced this to even happen?

I have so many questions, and if I am completely honest with myself, this was the only thing I cared about through the rest of the novel. I kept waiting for this fact to matter. I waited for the information to come back around. It never did. I’m still disappointed.

I carried that disappointment all the way through the rest of the novella.

The rest of the story is fine, but the world building is non-existent, which allows my disbelief to run rampant and brings out my more critical side. What I mean by this is that the way the prologue is written, you would think this is a more classic fantasy setting revolving around the patriarchal kingdom of Mairene, but what you get is the modern, almost urban, setting of the western world which means, there should be real-world solutions to these magic problems, but there is no exploration of that at all.

The Characters: Natasha was the only character I genuinely enjoyed, and she was neither the MC nor the love interest, which is a grade A bummer. Anya and Aleryn are both written pretty flat. There is no real distinction between them and every other insta-love/fated-mates trope that involves what could be described as a real-world human and a fae.

The Quality of the Writing: This novella, which is a third person narrative story told through Anya, the human baker’s POV, stands at 137 pages long, and it still took me several hours to read, mostly because of the grammatical errors and juvenile prose forced me to go back and re-read sentences, paragraphs, or entire pages, to understand what the author was intending to say. The sentences are stiff and stilted, and often the same length for several paragraphs, which leads to a boring, repetitive flow. There are also repeated details not only on the same page, or same chapter, but sometimes within the same sentence, that are written in a way that I believe is unintentional, as it does not provide any layers of depth to the story and makes for an agonizing reading experience. If the author had used a critique partner, or editors on the line and copy levels, it would have been a more pleasurable reading experience.

The best line in the novella is:
“And with that a blinding light cascaded the valley illuminating the dark, cloudy morning skies with the brightness of a hundred suns.”

You do not see this level of prose again for the rest of the novel; this line is found in the prologue and its glory was spoiled by the following lines two paragraphs later:
“The boom came later though, piercing the ears of everyone close to Samira – killing them instantly.
And with that came the screams of the tortured soldiers caught in her power.”

Soldiers can’t scream if they’re killed instantly. Also, this is a pretty stunning exploration of what the MC’s power may become later in the novella, and it is such a shame that it’s so blandly explained.

Overall Thoughts: While the story synopsis seemed intriguing, the characters and story both lacked the depth that would allow me to read over the juvenile prose and grammatical errors. It reads much like an un-edited first draft. For those reasons, this author is not one I would choose to read another book from, as the overall quality of the product does not meet my requirements for enjoyment, and I am still so insanely mad that the villager’s infant sacrifice was never brought up again. It was such a cool detail that went completely unutilized.

When the queen begged for her son Crown Prince Aleryn "Ryn" Sinear to be safe, he was taken to the huma world for hiding. When he meets Anya, a human baker - there is an instant connection. Their budding relationship is soon tested when trouble walks into the bakery.

This novella drops the reader right into the action. We get a quick prologue about Aleryn & his mother, the queen and then jump to meeting Anya and her BFF Nat. The story is very fast paced which does impact the character development and world building but if you are interested in a quick read, this is just what you'll want to pick up!

Thank you to NetGalley and Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Forgotten Prince, a novella following Ryn a fae prince who has been in hiding since birth within the mortal realm. His family had originally help the throne before it was seized from them by their uncle. The first half of the novella reads like a meet-cute contemporary romance so at first my attention was not held as much as I would've liked. So the first half of the book was not too fun in my opinion. When I continued reading though, the second half of the book picked up a lot diving deeper into things that held my attention and interest. I was excited about continuing it.

It did seem that the characters Theo and Ryn were missing something making their characters come off as boring and plain. With Theo, we know nothing about him. The book itself needs a bit of work seeing as it came off as rushed and had a major set of typo errors in Chapter 3. An example of this is "At least you have the new five days" It reads like it should be "You have the next five days" In chapter 4 there was a sentence where Nat's name was not capitalized. In Chapter 9 the use of "hee" instead of "her" and paragraphs with repeated sentences. In chapter 10 "I just came back from the bakery. She's not there. The bakery is..." "The bakery is trashed. I'm coming back from there. I couldn't find her at the bakery." In this case, it can be blamed on the panic from the character however it felt very clunky. They also skip overexplaining the existence of fae and humans do not react to the revolution, although nowhere in the world is it established that humans have an awareness of other realms existing. In chapter 12, there was a line "Your time is coming boy. He is coming for you, boy." I know they're trying to create a scene of drama but it just comes off as strange who would talk to someone in that way?
In chapter 13, there needs to be some clearing-up done since it isn't straight on what happened to Anya. If she is potentially being assaulted or groped, it should be stated and handled clearly.

Fated Mates, a mild romantic setting, and a dual point of view set from Anya our female main character, and her friend Nat. The chapters that included Nat were enjoyable and her personality was better than that of Anya. No hate to the writing and their styling of writing Anya, it just seems that things for her could have been written differently.

I enjoyed that it was short, sweet, and cozy. It felt rushed and unfinished, however. I did find the writing to be average, it didn't get in the way of the book's flow. This book has a list of trigger warnings at the beginning which is good for those that are triggered by certain things. It gives a warning to a cliffhanger as well. If there is a second book to come out within this series I would possibly read it but that is only in hopes that it would be a better flow in comparison to the first book. I would just hope it includes more fantasy action and romance which are a preferred genre of mine. To those that enjoy a blend of contemporary cute romance but the inclusion of Fae fantasy being packed into a short novel then this book is for you!
It overall needs more editing and huge improvements on the writing within it. It reads like a Wattpad fanfiction written by a high schooler or middle schooler who was just getting their start at writing books. With major works and a few editors, it could be improved and be a good book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Victory Editing Netgalley for sending this arc reading for my review. The opinions listed above are all my own of course.

I REALLY wanted to love this story but it just didn’t quite hit the mark for me.
The start was amazing and I was really hopeful based on the premise presented in the prologue.
To be honest the beginning of the book felt rushed. I wish that the author had spent more time character building because I felt like I didn’t know enough about them or their personalities to become invested.
I wanted so many more chapters just on Anya so that we could get to know her before she was introduced to Ryn.
I wanted SO much more on their love story because it felt really rushed despite the time jump.
The descriptions of some things also felt a little bit repetitive and unnecessary.
The story has so much promise and I really feel like it could be amazing if it was fleshed out more. I feel like this is the first draft and I would have happily read 300 more pages just building up the love story, getting to know more about the characters before the action and kidnapping happened.

This novella was cute. The plot was interesting, and the location is adorable. A bakery with an FMC who always has doughy hands? Adorable. And an MMC who’s mysterious and devoted with a hidden past? Super cute.

However, there were a lot of inconsistencies that kept tripping me up. I don’t generally review based on grammar or writing style, because I feel it doesn’t help anyone. But there were a lot of repeated sentences and incorrect wording that could have easily been fixed with a simple proofread. At one point one character is given two different eye colors in adjacent sentences.

Overall, it was a quick cozy read. I’m inclined to give the second one a chance when it’s released.

The Forgotten Prince feels like an unfinished book. There is an insta-love mated relationship, but there's not enough character development or world building here for me to care about what happens to them. Most of this book has Hallmark movie vibes, but with fae...except these fae can easily be substituted with any scary thugs since their only magic seems to be to heal themselves. Nat was by far my favorite character. She was a real one, and I appreciated her calling out our main characters on their tomfoolery.
Overall, this story was interesting enough that I finished it in a couple of hours, but it needed to be longer to be more complete. Less talk of muscles and kneading dough, more telling me what a fae is like in this universe and why it's a separate yet secret kingdom from where humans live was necessary.
Thanks to the author and NetGalley for this ARC!