the sequel was just as fun as the first!
its a unique little YA fantasy full of classic tropes and i ate it up
its for the disney girlies, the 'once upon a time' girlies, the vampire girlies, the peasant/royal girlies

I yet again love how it plays around the idea of fantasy kingdoms and has all the classic Disney fantasy vibes of baroque fancy colorful buildings and towns with friendly bakers and neighbors and evil step family with orphaned naive heroic girls who think they'll be saved. I loved how the MC is that classic damsel in distress believing in wishing on stars and true love and I can't wait for her to be slowly crushed by the realization that there is no prince coming to save her lol

Evangeline's new husband, Prince Apollo, is now trapped in a sleep state to manipulate her into opening the Valory arch. She can't trust Jacks or his feelings anymore, he has broken her trust too many times, but perhaps this time he means it? She finds and awakens the Valory arch on her own hoping to be able to outsmart Jacks and find something inside to save Prince Apollo. The arch is missing four pieces that she must find to open it: one for luck, one for truth, one for mirth, and one for youth. Evangeline begins her hunt with Apollo's personal bodyguard, Havelock. Meanwhile, the kingdom believes Apollo to be dead by his brother Tiberius's hand and the successor, Lucien Acadian, is set to arrive tomorrow.

Jacks continues to appear and offer his assistance via new bargain but she continues to deny him, this time though we now find out that Evangeline and Apollo's bodies are somehow linked and any injury that happens to him will happen to her.
The successor Lucien is revealed to be Luc, her ex-boyfriend and also now a vampire for Lord Chaos. Jacks saves Evangeline a few times leading her to believe perhaps he does care. To heal her, Evangline needs to be bitten by a vampire and go through the painful transformation of wanting blood but not having it or she'll become a vampire by morning. She escapes Lord Chaos's den and flees to the woods only to be hunted by cursed Apollo. They discover that Apollo and Evangeline were cursed with the mirror curse and the Archer's curse so she enters into a new bargain with Jacks. Evangeline finds all four stones and also new history about the Valor family and the Ballad of the Archer and the Fox.
There's another girl with pink hair named Petra who has found one of the other stones and is also a key who Evangline kills in self defense. Apollo is whipped and she can feel it and Jacks takes her to a tree house safe haven to heal. Jacks shows up really hurt one night and they snuggle.
She finds one stone in Lord Chaos' house, one in a tomb at a party, one on Petra, one in the clock at the treehouse inn.
Evangeline opens the valor archway with Chaos (Castor Valor) and Jacks but once Chaos's helm is off he murders her and she dies in Jacks arms trying to tell him she loves him to break his curse.

Record scratch, Jacks uses the stones to go back in time to prevent Chaos killing Evangeline even though he will have to sacrifice something to do this. He turns back time and then yells at Evangeline until she leaves, she realizes she can break his curse by telling him she loves him and returns to the arch only to find it covered in golden blood and Apollo standing there. Apollo removes her memories!!!

We get so much lore man: we find out LaLa cursed Apollo and Evangeline because she wants the arch open to free her love the dragon and Chaos wants it open to get the helm off, and Jacks also want it open but not really. Jacks wants the stones so he can go back in time to before Donatella, his true love.
She discovers the Valor family are all considered good and loved until something big happens which leads to them being beheaded. 

She learns of the "Merrywood Three", Prince Castor Valor (Chaos), the archer (Jacks), and Lyric Merrywood who were best friends.  Lyric Merrywood, LaLa(Unwed Bride)'s brother, was in love with Aurora Valor, Castor’s sister, but Aurora was Vengeance Slaughterwood’s betrothed since birth. Aurora left Vengeance at the altar for Lyric but Vengeance than killed the entire Merrywood House. The Valors are all asleep behind the Valor archway.

I will say this one had a loottttt of lore dumped on you which was a bit difficult to follow since there are so many characters and each one has a name and then also an alias or two. But ya know I love some dramatic endings this whole book was spectacular and chaotic and i loved every second



not gonna lie when I say I picked these up for the beautiful (UK) covers but stayed for the dumb tropes
that had me kicking my feet and giggling all the way through  10/10