Thank you to Netgalley and One More Chapter/HarperCollins UK for the ARC, but The Promised Queen was just not for me.

I’m not going to lie, I have mixed feelings about this book.
Overall, I enjoyed it! It had a a wonderfully sassy and snarky female main character. It had a misunderstood and broody male main character. It had dragons and a magic quest. It had interesting creatures and politics. It had multi POV and flashbacks. There is a lot going for this book!
What threw me off, though, was the pacing and that the multi POV changed partway through the chapters. For me, it made the flow a little choppy. I’m still not sure about the twist in identity, it felt a little out of left field.
Saying all that, there were definitely more positives than negatives and I am looking forward to where the story goes!

Thank you to NetGalley and One More Chapter for the digital advanced copy of The Promised Queen by Kate Johnson. This review reflects my honest thoughts and opinions.

The Promised Queen is a fast-paced and entertaining read, but ultimately, it fell short for me. It leans heavily on familiar fantasy romance tropes—Ember, a thief, wakes up in another world where she’s hailed as the prophesied savior, expected to marry a beastly prince and bear his children. Determined to escape and return home, Ember joins forces with Rhaell, who offers her a deal: help him recover magical stones needed to heal the sacred tree and restore magic, and he’ll send her back.

The book struggles with underdeveloped plot points and a writing style that often muddles action scenes. Key moments lack clarity, leaving me confused about how certain events unfolded. The central “reveal” near the end of the book is particularly jarring—it arrives without any narrative buildup, making it feel disconnected and unearned. Foreshadowing could have significantly improved its effectiveness and emotional resonance.

One of the book’s strengths is its pacing. The story moves quickly, and the characters are constantly in motion, facing one challenge after another. These conflicts, while initially intriguing, ultimately remain surface-level. I started the novel hopeful, but by the end, I felt unsatisfied.

Ember and Rhaell have potential as leads. Ember is portrayed as witty, strong, and independent—a refreshing departure from the passive heroine archetype. However, this characterization is frequently undermined by repetitive and overly sexualized descriptions, particularly of her physical attributes. While she’s described as a master thief, her skills are rarely demonstrated in a convincing or plot-relevant way. Rhaell remains an enigma throughout; his motivations and background are unclear, and the reader learns little beyond his quest for the stones and his self-perceived ugliness. Their romantic connection lacks emotional depth and seems driven more by physical attraction than shared experience or vulnerability. Supporting characters are similarly underdeveloped, which weakens the emotional stakes and world-building.

There is a meaningful theme at the heart of this story—female autonomy and reproductive rights. Ember’s horror at being seen primarily as a vessel for childbirth in a society plagued by infertility is a compelling premise. Unfortunately, this theme is diluted and inconsistently explored. It never reaches the emotional or narrative weight it deserves and dissipates by the book’s conclusion.

One of the strongest aspects of the novel is its setting. Kate Johnson has created a rich, imaginative world with intriguing magical elements and a compelling backstory about the sacred tree and the significance of the stones. These aspects held my interest and hinted at the novel’s potential.

Despite its strengths in pacing and world-building, The Promised Queen didn’t deliver the emotional or narrative payoff I was hoping for. I won’t be continuing with future installments, and I wouldn’t recommend this one to fans of fantasy romance looking for well-developed characters and stakes.

4.5 stars 🌟

OMG what a wild ride! This book kept me guessing, the twists, then I second-guessed myself the whole time, and I loved it.❤️

This book was so much fun and had everything from:
• dragons 🐉
• magical creatures 🦄
• portals ✨
• men with wings 😇
• enemies to lovers ❤️‍🔥
• only one horse 🐴
• twist and turns 🤯
• a promised one 💍
• royalty 👑 & secrets 🤫
• spice 🔥
• a beastly prince 🤴
• betrayal 💔
• and death 💀!


It just gave absolutely everything a romantasy should! 😍 If I had to recommend a book to a first-time reader of romantasy, this would be it! Rhaekl is absolutely adorable, and I loved his POV. 🥰 Ember was feisty, badass, and showed her softer side—so likeable! I'm so excited for the next book! 🤩 Definitely reading more from Kate Johnson! Thank you @publisher @author @NetGalley for the ARC! 🙏

I ended up having to DNF this.

While the premise is intriguing, the writing wasn’t enough to draw me in. There was little information on Ember’s home world, and little world building on the world she fell into. For a romantasy, it lacked much romance and I didn’t feel a connection to the characters.

The POVs of other characters were quite random and I fail to see their significance. Ember constantly bounced between wanting to escape and seemingly accepting of her position. There were also multiple paragraphs that could have realistically been left out for they were just filler.

However, above all of this is I have a few issues:

1. The excessive mentioning of tits and bosoms. I cannot believe I read “… her bosom heaving”.

2. The improper usage of speech tags. If you ask a question, you didn’t say it. You asked it.
3. The overuse of adverbs. “She sobbed prettily.”

As well, I need someone to explain to me what colour “hair the shade of something you’d find in the privy” means, because I still don’t get it.

Overall, it wasn’t my cup of tea but I can see how it would be someone else’s. Good luck to the author in her upcoming release.


Thank you NetGalley and One More Chapter for this ARC.

Thank you to Harper Collins & Netgalley for approving me to read this book, I’m rating it 4.75 stars.

This book had me hooked omg!

It was truly hilarious, I love a foul mouthed FMC. I love that the FMC was also highly suspicious of everyone, naive characters jar me a little bit and although she didn’t have a clue what was going on, she was definitely the queen of adaptation.

This story had scheming, prophecy, heist like situations and arranged marriage and so much more. I highly recommend this to everyone it was a true delight to read.

Rhaell and Ember are cute together and I enjoyed their relationship at the start ❤️ but it didn't grip me.

The world building was ok but there wasn't enough depth to the characters for me to really get sucked into this world. Everything was very surface level and the story just kept getting worse.

The twist is very obvious and very annoying. To be honest the entire story about getting her pregnant was just awful.

I only read this book because I got it as an Arc otherwise I would of DNF'd.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for an eARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book was such a fun ride. It has so many elements to it and the twists and turns kept me guessing until the end. Ember is a fantastic character, dumped into a strange world she doesn't understand but comes to empathise with and on a quest where her old skills are very much needed. Great world building and and characterisation. Loved it.

This is a fast-paced, fantasy romance that has a solid plot that will keep you engaged.
The first half was a bit hard for me to get through at times. I almost feel like the world building isn’t expanded on enough for the layers of plot to flow but as I got further into the book, that was forgotten about anyway. The romance is a slow burn, and one that was done very well. I spent a lot of the time trying to guess where the plot was going but the author did a fantastic job at keeping me on my toes with the plot twists.

Thank you to NetGalley, Harper Collins / One More Chapter for this E-arc

Content warnings: abortion, maiming, infertility, imprisonment, violence, betrayal, murder

Ember's forced to steal to ensure her clockmaker father and two brothers have food to eat. Not because they're poor, but because her brothers spend all their money on women and booze. Then Ember breaks into the wrong house. She saves a beautiful woman chained to a table, but then Ember becomes their sacrifice.

With a dagger in her heart, Ember falls from the sky into another world. The citizens have been waiting for Ember because she is their Promised One. The world she entered may be new and strange, but it could be even more dangerous than the world she left.

Filled with twists and turns and an end you (maybe) won't see coming, the novel is a good choice for fantasy readers who don't mind some romance. Although billed as a romantasy, this is closer to fantasy with a dash of smut.

Thank you to Netgalley and One More Chapter/HarperCollins UK for the ARC.

1.5 stars, DNF at 10%.


The bones of this book are good. Even at 10%, I feel like the world is unique and interesting. The concept, where a girl falls through a portal and becomes queen in a parallel world, is super cool. The execution just leaves much to be desired. I really, really liked the idea that our world (or something similar) is the Iron World and a magical fantasy land is just a portal away.

The bad: I am not convinced this book wasn't written by a white man in 1985. Emphasis on Ember's cleavage, sobbing prettily (Literally a line from the book), constant reminders that Ember is Ugly!! The king of Yskara wants her... bedded and bred. Look, there is value in using tropes like this to up the stakes. Girls of Paper and Fire did it beautifully, so I know it can be done. But this was just to up the stakes of the romance between Raell and Ember.

Ember also somehow talks like a modern British person. She is barely literate, has a crippled father, two younger siblings that rely on her...I'll let you draw your own conclusions here.

When Ember Hart steals the High Lord's Stone, she hopes only to buy her father more medicine. She certainly doesn't expect to find herself in a strange new world, where she is declared to be The Promised One who must produce an heir with the prince known as The Beast. Ember's only hope of getting home is to restore magic to the kingdom, which means joining forces with Rhaell, Captain of the Guard, and trying to not to get distracted by how ridiculously handsome he is...

Romantasy is a little outside my comfort zone, but I loved Kate Johnson's Hex and Hexability so much I couldn't resist this one. I made sure to read it slowly to take in all the details - which was not easy given how much I wanted to race through it - and I found the plot really clear and easy to follow without becoming repetitive. I loved all the world-building, which felt new and exciting, and I particularly liked the interpretations of various mythical creatures (dragons!). I also thought the plot was really strong, as each of the stones that Ember and Rhaell hunt down to restore magic to the kingdom provides its own adventure while driving the overall story. I would personally have preferred a more definite ending, especially since ending The Promised Queen in a way that seems to pave the way for a sequel does introduce quite a lot of new elements into the story at its end, but I did appreciate that it this book has a satisfactory ending in its own right. And I found the first chapter that suddenly switches to the subplot pulled me out of the rhythm of the story, but I could soon see how these chapters contribute to the book as a whole.

The romance plot is every bit as good as I'd hoped, with some unique takes on familiar tropes and plenty of spice. I read The Promised Queen in one sitting, and it has reminded me why Kate Johnson is one of my favourite authors. But readers might want to know that this book deals with some difficult issues, including abortion and the threat of sexual violence, although always sensitively.

So, I struggled to get through the first 20-30% of this, and it looks like that's where a lot of people seem to give up. There were some chapters/POVs that I couldn't make sense of that don't integrate in until later in the book, and trying to reconcile Ember's way of speaking with the world she fell into was a bit weird, even if it was explained.

That being said, once we got going into the quest plotline, I ended up having really enjoyed this. The world was interesting with some unique aspects, Ember was spunky and maintained a certain level of disbelief at where she was and what they had to do, and Rhaell was a delight.

Things really picked up at 2/3 in, Ember and Rhaell were both precious and delightful, there was a twist that I genuinely didn't see coming, and I enjoyed how everything resolved and wrapped up. Bonus points for there being a group of people with wings (and tails) and explicitly mentioning clothing that accommodated those features, and a "get away from my husband" moment.

So, I thought this was fresh, and despite the slow/uneven start, I ended up really enjoying it and am glad that I pushed through.

I really wanted to enjoy The Promised Queen, but sadly, I ended up DNF-ing it around the 100-page mark. The book just felt incredibly slow, and I found myself struggling to get into the story at all.

From the start, the pacing dragged. Not much seemed to happen, and I kept waiting for the plot to pick up or for the characters to truly draw me in - but it never really did. I also found the chapters to be very long, which made it feel even harder to stay engaged. I usually don’t mind long chapters, but in this case, it made the reading experience feel more like a chore than an escape.

The dynamic between Ember and Rhaell is meant to be a slow burn, but I wasn’t really feeling the chemistry. Their interactions leaned heavily into physical attraction without much emotional depth early on, which made it hard to connect with their relationship. That said, I did appreciate that Ember isn’t written as the stereotypical tiny FMC we so often see in fantasy - she felt more real in that way.

The world had potential, and I liked the inclusion of magical creatures, but it didn’t come through strongly enough in what I read. Plus, the modern-world references scattered throughout pulled me out of the story more than once. A few can be fun, but it started to feel a bit too on-the-nose.

This one just wasn’t for me - but I can see how others might enjoy it, especially if they’re more patient with slow-building fantasy.

I was really intrigued by the premise of The Promised Queen: a master thief thrown into a dying kingdom, forced into a dangerous prophecy, and caught between a beastly prince and a brooding captain of the guard? Sign me up. The setup had all the ingredients I love: political intrigue, reluctant alliances, a touch of magic, and slow-burn romance.
Unfortunately, while the concept hooked me, the execution didn’t fully deliver. Ember is a fun and snarky protagonist, and I appreciated her defiance and self-reliance, but I found myself wanting more depth from the supporting cast, especially Rhaell, who felt like he had potential that never quite got explored. The worldbuilding was interesting but a bit thin in places, and the pacing sometimes made it hard to stay invested.
That said, Kate Johnson’s voice is witty and bold, and there are definitely moments of tension and chemistry that worked. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t dislike it either—it was a decent read that just didn’t quite live up to the promise of its premise for me.

Ember Hart is a thief. But one bad job finds her falling from the sky and almost bleeding out in the arms of a terrifying soldier. When Ember broke into the manor of one of her town's lords she didn’t expect to find herself tied to an altar and used as a sacrifice in a creepy ritual.

Waking up in a world which is most definitely not her own she’s faced with a vicious king who only sees her as a broodmare to provide him with prophecised heirs that will restore his kingdom’s magic and secure his family’s bloodline. Ember does her best to escape but Rhaell, the captain of the guard, is assigned to watch over Ember until her wedding to the terrifying Prince Bronadyr is complete.

The King’s grandson is considered a monster by the people of Yskara but as the only blood heir the King has he is the reluctant heir to the throne. When Ember is told of the Prince’s brutality she forms a plan to escape and return home to her family. But she cannot do it alone and tries to persuade Rhaell to help her. Rhaell finds his loyalties tested as he sees Ember as more than just the Prince’s bride-to-be.

This was a twisty romantasy which kept me guessing up until the last few chapters. The slow burn between Ember and Rhaell was perfect!

It’s always refreshing to read strong female characters and I liked that Ember knew she had flaws but embraced them and carried on regardless. The King really is vile and I couldn’t help but cringe every time he made an appearance.

I enjoyed the world-building and like the idea that there are different realms/kingdoms where people no longer mix but still have knowledge of each other. The ending is a bit of a cliffhanger and I am dying to know what happens next!

The Promised Queen is coming June 5th and available to preorder in paperback and ebook!

The Promised Queen was such a fun ride! Ember’s a badass thief who accidentally ends up tied to a beastly prince thanks to a prophecy—and of course, there’s a broody captain of the guard with major slow-burn vibes 👀.

It’s got magic (and the lack of it), clever banter, a bit of spice, and a heroine who’s not here to be anyone’s pawn. Totally one for the romantasy girlies!

This book was fine - it didn't blow me away, but I didn't hate it. The writing style felt too modern for the setting, but the plot itself was ok. The romance was pretty convincing, but the world building just wasn't there which made it difficult to connect to in places. I don't think I'd tell people to rush to read it, but I'd mostly suggest it's worth giving a chance.

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

This was not the book for me.

By 20% I couldn't stand the FMC. Maybe I just didn't understand enough of her background, but her dialogue was a complete turn off for me.

It rolled over into the romantic elements. So much 'ugly, huge tits, size of a forearm, boneing' kind of descriptors just took away any chance of a meaningful romance for me. It all seemed superficial at best.

Like I said, just not for me.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to review this book.

The magic system and idea of a promised one foretold to save the magic was pretty interesting, the worldbuilding did get a bit confusing and complicate at times but I still loved reading about it.

I wasn’t expecting this to be a monster romance from the cover, title or blurb and I know part of it is to keep the shock factor. But I would have liked a trigger warning page or a note somewhere of some of the themes because there were some pretty dark and intense scenes that may be very triggering for some readers.

The pacing was not consistent at did have various speeds, which I didn’t mind too much, but when it came to the relationship between Ember and the mmc it was hard to figure out how much time had actually passed since they first met.

Whilst the book main,y focuses on the pov of the fmc and mmc there is also a chapter where it is from the kings pov (which felt a bit like a filler chapter) and there was also a pov for two characters that weren’t really explained until near the end.

I have never read a book that had the word t*ts in almost every chapter and sometimes right after each other in a different sentence, some of the spicy scenes was a bit cringe with the dialogue.

The language that Ember uses did feel very out of place (I know she is from a more modern world), there were times when she would speak normally per say and then the next dialogue she has she’s speaking like a roadman that’s lurking in an alley.

Ember didn’t really have any character development and with the funny pacing we didn’t really see her connect with many of the side characters (like Phoebe and Caelia) and considering some of them do have impact on the plot it would of been good to see her interact with them.

The ending was very good and did leave an interesting ending that has me curious but I don’t think I will buy either book. It would be a fun read for someone who wants a blend between fantasy and a spicy romantasy.