If you are reading this and considering this series I strongly encourage you to proceed. You will not regret it. You will struggle to keep everything straight for a while, and will go back and forth in the book to recall who this or that is, which king or queen , whose mom, but it will get easier and then you will become immersed in the world and know everything. Don't give up. It's worth the frustration at the beginning.

I don't usually write reviews but this series deserves one. Let's st...

If you are reading this and considering this series I strongly encourage you to proceed. You will not regret it. You will struggle to keep everything straight for a while, and will go back and forth in the book to recall who this or that is, which king or queen , whose mom, but it will get easier and then you will become immersed in the world and know everything. Don't give up. It's worth the frustration at the beginning.

I don't usually write reviews but this series deserves one. Let's start with how glad I am that I read a few reviews before starting the series or I may have stopped after the first few chapters.

First of all you start off in what feels like the middle of the story, and if that wasn't enough she throws what feels like a million people and places at you all in the first 2 chapters. I was struggling to keep everyone and every place straight. I was intrigued by what I was reading but unsure if I wanted to work this hard to understand everything going on when the purpose of reading for me is to relax and I was feeling everything but. I had to print the worlds map from her website and write down who was who and from where :\ People, it was a lot! But I knew this coming in so I pushed through it, and boy am I glad I did. I have not had a series keep me this captivated in a long, long time. I read them all in 5 days. I could not put them down. I was dreaming about them. It was just crazy. I am admittedly a huge fan of Kristen Ashley, but I don't usually read her books back to back because I find her characters personalities repetitive in some cases, same people different names and situations. I might find that is the case here whenever I reread these in the future, but probably not. I am obsessed with this world and characters she created. The personalities, the relationships, friendships, loss, the emotions it caused. The sex! Holy hell were her sex scenes hot!!!! It is shocking this series doesn't have like 20k+ reviews.

I waited for the entire series to be released and then binged, instead of reading one and waiting for another to be released like I usually do. I think it's important to keep that in mind - as this series can be confusing if you do not binge it. It's difficult to keep the characters straight when there's so many of them and taking a break from this KA universe and then getting back into it - I can see people getting confused or needing to re-read a chapter or two to refresh what exactly is go...

I waited for the entire series to be released and then binged, instead of reading one and waiting for another to be released like I usually do. I think it's important to keep that in mind - as this series can be confusing if you do not binge it. It's difficult to keep the characters straight when there's so many of them and taking a break from this KA universe and then getting back into it - I can see people getting confused or needing to re-read a chapter or two to refresh what exactly is going on.

I have read (almost) all of KA's books and I see that each time, she's evolving and experimenting as an author. The format is different but her unique and captivating writing is still the foundation. I'm in awe of her being able to keep it fresh while still being her.

If you've read through her series, they're usually one couple at a time - with the finale bringing in and tying up all the couples in the end. I've gotten in the habit of re-reading the entire series whenever a new book is about to be released, just to catch up and refresh on the characters I've loved, the subplots, the secondary characters, etc.

Instead of doing this one by one, this series does it all at once, which I get because it seems that everything is happening all at once. In addition, to it happening all at once, Fantasyland characters come to assist and then it's really awesome/mind-blowing but somewhat confusing.

HOWEVER, even understanding this is the way her brain works, it was difficult at first. This series throws everyone at you at once. In Book 1, it's challenging to get used to, as I had a difficult time keeping Queens, Kings, Kingdom names, Kingdom types, etc. all separate.

When it switches perspective, I had to stop a few times to readjust my brain to "catch up" -- okay we're meeting this character and in their kingdom and their kingdom is the scary/happy/water/fire/earth/red/green kingdom, but they're marrying into this kingdom, the king/queen of that kingdom is mean/complacent/awesome/dead/alive and the hero of this kingdom is trying to____.

I wished there was a character index in the end of each book or a map of kingdoms so I could glance at along the way.

I had to remind myself - this is the beginning of everything. It's introducing me to the world and later when I get it all straight, it will pay off... and it did.