Once Upon a Broken Heart (Once Upon a Broken Heart, 1) Hardcover – September 28, 2021

I’ve never read Stephanie Garber’s books before this and wow! I was impressed. It felt like a twist on Alice in Wonderland a little at first mixed with a touch of Cinderella. But in truth, this story is its own and so well told! Stephanie is a master with words, painting such clear, colorful, and whimsical images with her world building and lore. It was easy to fall into this story, and I was hooked more and more with every turn of the page. Much of it leaves you guessing with some fun twists and turns. It wasn’t predictable as much as I thought and there were some surprises toward the end which was delightful.Very well written. Such poetic descriptions. And the characters are so alive that you can’t help but feel for them.Definitely worth the read and you can bet I’m going to jump into book 2!

Another book it's been a month before writing the book review for. Unfortunately, that means, I've forgotten some of the finer details.Evangeline is sure that her first love has been spelled into marrying her stepsister. She's so sure of this that she makes a deal with the Prince of Hearts despite knowing that his deals are often twisted and the requestor ends up regretting the deal almost always. There's a hint of a connection between Jacks and Evangeline upon meeting and their deal. The deal is that Jack will stop the wedding in exchange for 3 kisses of his choosing from Evangeline. Without spoiling things too much, he stops the wedding by turning everyone into stone.Evangeline immediately regrets her decision because she didn't want anyone turned to stone. Not Luc (the guy she's been in love with for a long time), not Marisol (her step-sister), and definitely not all the wedding guests either. Evangeline does what is necessary to right the wrong (I'm not going to tell you how), but that results in a good bit of time passing in her life and the characters, essentially, do their best to move on with their lives. Yet Evangeline still has to fulfill her part of the bargain.Since I finished this book just shy of two months before writing my review of it, I'm forgetting some of the details. I don't remember exactly how Evangeline got the invitation to go to this other kingdom in an attempt to wed their prince so that he could become king. But regardless, Evangeline realizes that her life is stuck as is and this is an opportunity, however small, for her to find love. Evangeline tries so hard to fall in love with Prince Sebastian that she ignores common sense. She ignores that he's pretty much been spelled to like her the same way Luc was spelled to like Marisol. She has no history to back up any relationship or trust with Marisol. But I will say that I waffled back and forth on whether I thought Marisol was an alley or an enemy.I wondered based on the description if Jacks would call in the kisses for himself at strategic times, but apparently, his kiss is fatal to anyone who isn't his true love. Maybe this is backstory given through the Carvel series so people who have read it would have already known, but I haven't read it so I was unaware, and thus disappointed to find out Evangeline was supposed to kiss others, even though I still assumed that Jacks would end up being the male love interest. Evangeline has to process how she feels about Sebastian, Luc, and yes Jacks so far into the story.The cliffhanger ending has me dying to get my hands on book 2, The Ballad of Never After, but my cheap self has to wait for that to go on sale since I have so many other books that I'm behind on reading. In the end, I feel like Once Upon a Broken Heart deserves 4 Stars. It was a solid start to a series that I'm looking forward to finding out more about. Jacks was probably my favorite part of the story. Have you read Once Upon a Broken Heart? If so, what do you think? Let me know!*Sorry for the scattered review. That tends to happen when I get backed up on book reviews.

Such a wonderful book. Whimsical and enchanting and funny. A wonderful escape and clean romantasy. I'm not a prude, and this wasn't boring at all. The romance here is still electric. Clear writing and plot. I want to read the series again someday.

This was fantastical and fun, and also a little bit creepy at times. It’s been a couple years since I actually brought the book, so I went in pretty blind, not remembering much of the premise. So everything felt new and interesting, and each twist came as a genuine surprise to me. In the middle things got a little convoluted, and I thought I might need to jump ship, but I’m really glad that I didn’t. The story ultimately was compelling enough that I was pulled through to the end… Needing to know what was going to happen. And that’s still the vibe with the rest of the series.

Love, betrayal, mystery and magic…I enjoyed this book. It’s an adventure, a journey, a love story and a mystery all pieced together. It’s set in a magical world with a descriptive writing style. Watching the development between main character with them being enemies to possible lovers is what has drawn me in. All in all this book just feels fun in a tormented kind of way for me.

This is my favorite book in the whole world I love it so much

“For anyone who has ever made a bad decision because of a broken heart”I felt that dedication in my soul. No really though this book delivers incredibly well on its premise, that you can make terrible choices chasing the idea of love while missing out on the real thing.I adore the slow-burn with Evangeline and Jacks, they remind me so much of Howl and Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle (the Ghibli film not the book). His light teasing of her while actually saying what she needed to hear and would help her was such a good way to keep him from being the usual abusive mmc dressed up as sexy brooding aloof guy. And while I get some people’s take that Evangeline is weak, I don’t agree. Even she comes to realize she’s chasing the wrong thing, idealism and not reality and her hopefulness is a sweet characteristic if wrongly placed at times. She’s endearing and I like that she embraces her femininity and love for fairytales and romanticism instead of shunning it like so many fmcs in today’s genres.Is this the best written book I’ve ever read? Probably not. Are there some holes here or there? Sure and yes there’s convenient plot points that put characters in situations that seem forced (the poisonings to get proximity for EvaJacks) but honestly this is simply a good book to read and not analyze too much. It’s cotton candy fantasy. It’s like reading through lots of your favorite fairytales all jumbled together and seeing what it would be like to actually live in that world. For me it was entertaining enough and I’m excited to see what the next book has in store.