The 54th book I read this year was The Evergreen Heir By A.K. Mulford, the fourth book in The Five Crowns of Okrith series.
This author is an indie-author I found through my Podcast and Tiktok, this particular series of hers was picked up by Harper-Collins for traditional publishing somewhere around the second book.
This is an entirely biased review because I love this author and this series.
*edit* I have since read and reviewed the rest of the books in the series, which is now complete:
Book 1 – ‘The High Mountain Court’
Book 3 – ‘The Rogue Crown’
Book 5 – ‘The Amethyst Kingdom’
A vague summary
This book follows Neelo, the heir to the Southern court. In the aftermath of book 3, mysterious forces and a race of witches long thought dead, threaten all five kingdoms. Neelo has enough problems to contend with as it is, with a mother happy to drink and smoke herself into an early grave, the arrival of the man their mother has promised their hand to and a particularly nasty strain of witches brew, a drug smoked by most of their court. Neelo quickly realises that the trouble in their friend’s courts may be connected to this strain of witches brew, which is killing their mother faster than all the other drugs and drinking has over the years. As Neelo investigates, their golden retriever/ soldier betrothed, Talhan, helps them, largely against Neelo’s will (or so Neelo likes to pretend). Neelo must figure out how to defend their court from this hidden enemy, whilst contending with the pressures of ruling in a world not designed for the way their mind works, all whilst fighting their growing feeling for Talhan, in an effort to save Talhan from a life chained to them and their court.
My thoughts
Of course I loved this book, that goes without saying. The characters are great, their personal journey arcs are always good but I especially loved that in this book we have a non-binary, autistic coded main character and an adhd, dyslexic coded love interest! Although, I don’t come from either of those space from a personal perspective, I feel like the author took a lot of care and time in how they approached these characters (although I am biased, having watched a lot of their TikTok’s explaining the thought/ research behind this book). Plus, the author did not shy away from writing spicy scenes for these characters, in fact, I think we got more than in previous novels! Neelo’s special interest is books, so a love of all things literary is woven throughout this story, which was another thing I enjoyed about it.
These books are proper fantasy romance and I’m so sad that the next one is the last in the series!
Pssst, you! Yeah you. Look at more stuff
- Scared Sexy Novella series
- November reading wrap up
- House of Scarabs – Hazel Longuet
- The Rose trilogy – Jodie Louise Vail
- The Fallen and the kiss of dusk
- Love on the notes of destiny – Anna Penteras
- The Christmas Tree farm – Laurie Gilmore
- Built on Ruins – Kate S Toll
- The Strawberry Patch Pancake House – Laurie Gilmore
Antonia Bernardin 
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