Anastasia

Product Information

Owlcrate did a theme a while back, ‘Courtly Intrigue’, a lot of this book was very much giving that. Every release she's written since I first read Stolen Heir has surpassed my expectations in some way. All of that said, I am excited for the paranormal/vampire trilogy that will be coming in the future. Sophi Lark wanted to create her own HEA for the Real story of Anastatasia we know, and I do think she did an amazing job of it.

The world building within this book is the best I’ve ever read, the imagery she conducted inside my head from her words is extraordinary, the backstory, the characters, the scenes and history of Russia. No but for someone writing fantasy for the first time, the magic system was solid even if I wish it had a bigger part of the story. The growth these characters go through, not just Anastasia and Damian, but her whole family is fascinating to see. It feels like fantasy and romance elements (it is marketed as fantasy romance) take a backseat and sneak in like little thieves in the middle of the night in the book. Now I’m used to fantasy books being long and setting up things but mostly that is happening for high fantasy worlds or like the fantasy elements in a story, and in this case we are not given a new world and the focus/time spent was more on the historical and political info for the time and the family.I loved how she constructed her magical world and how much competent was the narrative, that was amazingly developed.

She loved trading jokes (for which she often got punished), playing pranks and had an acting talent. In this fantasy,kind of retelling of Anatasia, I say kind of because it’s not an exact retelling of her story more of inspired by, we follow two POVs one mostly of Anatasia. There is also a LOT going on and a lot that separates out two forbidden lovers, however, there is steam on page and it relies much more on emotional weight and the combining of souls than carnal language and erotic scenarios. The softening of his heart towards a troublesome but bright girl who he just can't help but be drawn to.

Like so many other people, Anastasia was one of my favourite films as a little girl, when I heard Sophie was writing a retelling I hoped it was going to be great, it’s my first read by Sophie so I had no idea what to expect in terms of her writing. And you want to tell me that in a world where people can light fire with their thoughts and stop time nothing seems to be changed? But the most important aspect to differentiate the genres is that Romance, especially mafia/contemporary doesn’t need a lot of world building since it’s based in reality while fantasy whenever involves magic, folklore and magical creature, needs to have a well crafted scenery to wrap and surround the characters and it needs a credible magic system. I read on a Kindle Paperwhite and the illustrations still looked impressive on there but I did use my phone to see a few in full color. I would recommend this book if you are a current fantasy reader or maybe looking to venture into the genre.