I participate in more bookish Discord servers than I care to admit here. (Honestly I would need to count.) One of my absolute favorites is the one for The Nerd Fam. It’s full of wonderful people I love socializing and discussing books with, and it’s got some amazing reads to boot. Every month, one upcoming title gets selected for their Early Reads Book Club. It’s a lot of fun and I’ve found some really fun reads through it. This month, our chosen read was Veiled Court by C.N. Crawford, and it was a great time!

A very big thank you to The Nerd Fam for the copy of the eARC! Veiled Court published on May 25th and is now available through all your favorite book sellers, including on Bookshop.org.

Summary:

Syn was once an assassin for the king, but managed to develop a deep hatred for monarchy while in his employ. As an adult, she finally escaped that life. Along with her best friend and fellow former assassin, they found her young sister, now orphaned and suffering from the long-term effects of the king mass poisoning area’s water supply. The three of them leave the Fey realm behind to build a life among mortals in the human city of London. But now, years later, the king is dead and the monarchy has ended. That means it’s safe for Syn to return to the Fey realm, where her sister may be able to find treatment for her illness.

Unfortunately, the night they plan to disappear through a portal, new information comes to light. The Fey nobility seek to retain their power by installing a new king or queen. After everything she has been party and witness to, Syn can’t allow that to happen. So, she has to find a way to infiltrate the process and prevent it. In order to do that, she’ll have to pose as one of them to find and gain entry to the Veiled Court. Once she infiltrates, she’ll have to participate against them in a competition of deadly trials to earn the crown. If she succeeds, she keep any new despots off of the throne. However, a single misstep could mean anything from instant death to burning for treason, or all the imagination in between.

My Thoughts:

While Veiled Court is the first installment of a new series, it shares a world setting with C.N. Crawford’s Avalon Tower series. This does not mean that you need to read that series first. I personally haven’t read any of her other books, but had no trouble following this one. I’m sure there were some references that I missed, but I never felt lost. Rather, it felt like references were there to spark pleasant familiarity and not foreshadow any plot. Worldbuilding is still very present here and not relying on prior books. Although we only see a few small slices of the worlds, we see these in intricate detail. It also gives the impression of a much larger and rich (albeit more vague) world outside of these slices.

Likewise, the text also frequently refers to the Arthurian Legend it pulls some inspiration from as well as actual British history. If you’re very familiar, you’ll get a thrill of excitement when you catch the references. If not, you won’t miss anything that isn’t spelled out more clearly elsewhere in the text. So far, this series stands on its own very well, but watch out for that cliff at the end. This can serve as a great introduction to Crawford’s work. If you do choose to start here and then go back to read the Avalon Tower series, take note that you’ll be getting some world events out of order. I’ve heard that the spoilers are minor, but they exist.

This is definitely one I’d recommend to any reader who loves romantasy with solid plot. The book leans heavily into a lot of standard genre tropes without them feeling syrupy or contrived. For example, there is a love triangle in the story. However it never portrays the protagonist as wishy-washy or disloyal. The attraction toward both parties is obvious, but so is the reasoning behind her reservations. That made it far less frustrating than the trope can often be.

I’m already looking forward to the next one, which is expected to release roughly a year from now. In the meantime, I do plan to pick up the Avalon Tower series. I enjoyed the worldbuilding and the flow of the prose enough that I want to dive further in. I know there isn’t a huge amount of character crossover, but I’m looking forward to finding out exactly how much there is.

Content Warnings: Infidelity, Blood, Graphic Depictions of Violence & Injuries, Chronic Illness, Death of Parent, Graphic Depictions of Sex, Alcohol & Heavy Drinking, Child Death

After I Finished Veiled Court

After Veiled Court, I dove into one that was overdue. I mean that literally. I had been very excited to receive it as an ARC, but wasn’t paying enough attention and missed my download deadline. That meant I wasn’t able to read and review it before publication, but I still really wanted to read it. It was a queer, post-apocalyptic horror that sounded delightfully creepy. Thankfully, my local library was able to get a copy into my hands pretty quickly after release. So, it was a little later than I hoped but I was so very, very glad to get it!

My next review will be for We Call Them Witches by India-Rose Bower.