*Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book for review*

This one was a good one. Magic, princes, romance and challenges. I was hooked from the very first page to the very last.

I couldn‘t get far into the book.
The cover is absolutely stunning and the blurb sounded promising, I just immediately disliked the protagonist and the writing feels incredibly flat.

*Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book for review, all opinions are my own*

This book has a very good premise, but I still don't know if the execution was done well.
The book is very fast to read, the author's writing is simple, which makes the story go fast.
The characters are not bad but they were not well developed, in fact, the story itself was not well developed.
The plot was a mess, the author tried to bring a lot to a book alone and in the end did not explain anything right and was unable to make her plots develop in a way that makes sense.
I'm giving 3 stars because the book is not bad it has great potential to improve, the ending leaves a taste of wanting more, and the plot of the story it is interesting if the author is able to develop her characters beyond stereotypes and make enemies to lover and love triangles in the next book less awful, the series can be excellent!

I'll be honest, 2020 has been the year of "gorgeous covers with meh stories" but this one was a surprising exception.

Zora is a warrior from the Dark Valley, a region where shadow monsters run rampant. And she is out for revenge - because her boyfriend doesn't know that "no means no" if you catch my drift. So she does what any normal girl her age would do - she drugs him and steals his one way ticket to a kingdom where she can participate in a bloody battle royale for riches and glory and the all-powerful "blood cup." While there she is ensnared by three crafty princes that try to manipulate her in different ways for their own agendas. Teenage drama, am I right?

I took offense to a couple of things here - mainly the ridiculously modern verbiage that Zora tends to use in this very medieval styled fantasy world. When someone mentioned something obvious for example, she combated with a "Fact" and I pulled a muscle in my optical cavity from the sheer force of my eye-roll.

The shrewd brother princes sound the same on paper and treat Zora with various shades of mysogyny. The "competition" rounds are just various obstacle courses that make "the floor is lava" seem exciting except for the gruesome and pointless animal brutality.

My decent rating comes from a solid pacing and entertaining narrative. The end twist was satisfying and left the story off in a way that gets me to want more. I found myself liking the main character despite her penchant for talking like a valley girl circa 2003.

Overall, I'm intrigued and interested to know how things turn out. I would certainly recommend to those who like a little fantasy but don't have to take it too seriously.

Thank you to netgalley for prividing a digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Cup and The Prince is the first installment in author Day Leitao's Kingdom of Curses and Shadows. 17-year old Zora Sunborn lives in a place called Dark Valley where dark magic created strange creatures. People in her village always have lights on, they don't use any covers, skirts, or even tables because it creates shadows, and the creatures can be born in these shadows. Zora teaches self-defense techniques to younger students to protect themselves against the shadowy creatures that come in (4) different types: Humans with gray skin, claws, and sharp teeth; 4 legged wolves that are fast and dangerous; spiders the size of an apple with sharp pincers and deadly poison; and balls which are round and small like a spider or large as a human. They can literally explode like a bomb.

Dark Valley is a literal prison, a punishment for their descendants who created the shadow creatures from dark magic. After Zora’s boyfriend Seth cheats on her and demeans her worth for being a girl, she decides to pay him back by stealing his invitation, ring, and golden rod which gives her entry into a champion’s only royal games. It's a competition that is held every 3 years, but this year’s competition will be a bit different. With Zora being the only female champion in history, the stakes get even higher when Prince Griffin decides the winner will get the Blood Cup. The Blood Cup demands a sacrifice.

To win the competition, you must also kill a Lion and wade through all the politics that comes with the competition including finding a possible partner for the future. Zora is underestimated from the start because she’s short and a female. Zora's competition comes in the form of Prince Griffin who really wants to win the cup as readers will soon discover. There’s an assassin who apparently wants her dead, and Prince Larzen who she is forced to strike a bargain with after he uncovers her lies. She becomes immersed in court politics and later catches the eye of King Kiran, who, of course, wants something from her.

To win the competition, she must fight her way through a series of challenges, as well as the machinations of two princes, a King, and a third party with an agenda. There are many shady characters in this story. I honestly did not know who the good ones were and who the bad ones until the ending when Zora discovers that for herself. There’s another character who readers should pay close attention to. Her name is Alegra and she may be the most important character outside of Zora herself. In fact, the cliffhanger ending taunts you of things to come and what danger she brings to everyone, including Zora.

This will be a quick turn around since the sequel, The Curse and the Prince, comes out in January.

Slow to start, then a decent pace to finally a rush to fix things up. There are a lot of unanswered questions which to a point you expect with a series but I felt this was too much.
I am interested in what happens with the characters and it was fun to read during the middle

The Cup and the Prince was a quite interesting read and I was especially intrigued by the unique magical system and world. The idea of monsters hiding in every dark corner or shadow really speaks to my love for dark fantasy. With this in mind, I must - unfortunately - say that I found this book a bit lacking. The main ideas are great but I didn´t get drawn into the story the way really good books do. Perhaps it was because I found the writing in this book to be more of the telling kind rather then showing (which is my preference). All in all, I definitely do not regret reading the book although I don´t think I´ll reread it, at least not any time soon. I would however be interested in reading more from this author because it is obvious that Day Leitao has potential to be an amazing author in the future.

I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book had a lot of promise. The problem was that I just couldn’t stay invested in her. The secondary characters didn’t draw me in either, and though parts of the plot worked, there were large sections that just didn’t work. Nothing really caught me up enough to keep me invested and that made wanting to keep reading difficult. I hope the second might go through more review and rewriting, to be what this one wasn’t.

You know those books you want to throw across the room? Well The Cup and the Prince by Day Leitao is one of them, for me.

The novel had a bit of a weak start, but quickly settled into a good pace and I found myself drawn into Zora’s story. She lives in a small village infested with monsters that manifest in the shadows. Like everyone else, she grew up learning to fight these monsters so she could survive each day.

The young man she is sweet on has been chosen to represent the town in a competition held by the Royal family and he has encouraged her to see him off ‘properly’. When she overhears him speaking with another villager she learns he is not the person she thought he was and there and then she makes a decision that is about to change both their lives.

Zora presents herself at the challenge as her village’s champion and soon finds herself participating in a number of trials. This isn’t all that is going on, though.

There are three brothers that make up the Royal family. The newly appointed King, the one who likes to play games, and the one who is having an affair with the King’s fiancé. The last one also happens to be participating in the championship. Zora ends up finding herself mixed up with all of them, in a situation she doesn’t understand, and one that is becoming increasingly dangerous.

In the last 5-10% the story suddenly changes pace. The rest of the novel unfolds in a way that feels like the author rushed to tie up the end of the book, leaving many loose ends dangling.

While there is a ‘next’ book for the reader to move on to in order to find out what happens, I was left thoroughly unsatisfied and annoyed. Much how I might feel if I had spent all this time on a journey only to be told I had been travelling in the wrong direction.

If you are the sort of reader who likes a story that suddenly drops off leaving you needing to start another book to find out what happens, then this just might be up your alley. However, I felt cheated and as a result will probably not bother reading the next book in the series.

2.5/5 stars from me, having lost a star for the way the novel wrapped up and ended.

Thank you to the author, the publisher (Sparkly Wave) and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this novel in exchange for an impartial review.

From the book’s first to last sentence it is a captivating story that keeps you turning the page! The characters development was amazing and plot twists are to be expected!

When Zora is betrayed by her boyfriend, she decides to take his place as champion of the Dark Valley and head to the capital city and compete in the Royal Games. But, as the only female contestant (and the first female contestant at that), she doesn't receive a warm welcome, but she is determined to prove herself, and her ex, wrong.

Zora must face a series of opponents and challenges, whilst also navigating the king and his two younger brothers, who all seem to have their own plans for how she can be of use.

You can imagine why I thought this would be quite a standard YA competition/fantasy/romance story. And in essence, it was. Zora is the plucky young protagonist who has to prove her worth, take part in a series of challenges and manoeuvre her way around some scheming princes who are all playing their own game. And it's fun, and short and sparky and I am thankful for all of those things.

Unfortunately, there were a number of problems.

First off, no plot should hinge on the main character's virginity. Zora's main motivation for joining the Royal Games was not actually to prove herself, or represent the Dark Valley. It was because her boyfriend cheated on her. And, as the champion, because he expected her to have sex with him. However, it would be completely inappropriate to call it sex, instead, it talks about her giving herself to him, or of other characters, who get to do whatever they want, being rude, or inappropriate or naughty. I hate sex-censorship in a book. /Thankfully/ Zora remains pure, especially when compared with the other main female character who will apparently just sleep with anyone ... ??!

Zora herself has the standard ballsy, young, attractive YA heroine thing going on. She thinks she's not as pretty as the other girls and seems to flip between wanting to represent her region, and wanting to get revenge on her cheating boyfriend. And then trying to prove herself as a female champion. But because there wasn't a set or clear motivation, and because we never really find out what the Blood Cup actually is or does (or why anyone might want to win it) I couldn't really care less whether she actually won or not.

Also, the challenges themselves. Although they had quite a Hunger Games-y vibe to them, they quite honestly seemed lame. Although they were designed to challenge Zora specifically, (again, unclear why, except that the prince seemed to want her out of the competition) that didn't appear to stop her. Add to that the threat of someone trying to kill Zora - which never felt quite real, especially when she was mentally jumping between basically the two other main characters as the culprit.

I liked the starting premise of these shadow creatures that inhabit the Dark Valley ... and then it was completely dropped, as Zora moved away from the valley. There was a nice running theme of her adjusting to completely new situations ie sleeping on a bed (where shadow creatures would spawn underneath) or fighting in the dark. But these concerns and adjustments petered out quite quickly.

And there were some nice moments where Zora challenges the way that women are seen e.g. with a painter who is aware he's making crude paintings for a male audience, but needs to sell them to support his family. But she is constantly being told what to do by the princes - it's just that they are no so overtly rude as someone insulting you to your face. It's still sexist.

And the sexism that was there, albeit in a clearly male-dominated society, was extremely uncomfortable and made the 'romance' element all wrong. It is NOT charming to want to protect someone under the guise of making the audience uncomfortable if a woman is hurt. It's not attractive to play matchmaking games that seem to have no purpose. And it's certainly not a redeeming feature to constantly comment on how attractive all the women are. I didn't get Zora's romance story. And quite honestly it was unpleasant to read.

As a bare bones, the story itself was good. It's just that it wasn't fleshed out in the right way, or in all the wrong places, that made this quite uncomfortable to read, and it did not challenge its own problems sufficiently.

Zora, who always prided herself in being honorable and brave, does something reckless - she drugs her boyfriend who lied to her, hoping to get in her pants, before he leaves. Now, Zora herself will leave. She'll compete.

dnf at 20%

Despite having read a bit of this, I still don't know what the Royal Competition exactly is, what it entails, who will compete, if it's a yearly thing, whatever.
I know about Dark Valley, though, and I'd have loved to know more about it, under other circumstances. Every shadow breeds shadow creatures, physical things that are pitchblack and will dissolve when killed. The valley is closed off, and only the person who will join the Royal Competition is allowed to leave.
Zora wants to win and bring recognition to her people, somehow make things better. And she thinks she'll come back, after, too - so it seems to be a choice she'll have to make.

All this sounds intriguing, so where's my problem?
Simply told it's tell, don't show. Freuqent infodumps, awkward pacing. The characterisation feels inconsistent. We're told one thing but Zora does or thinks another. I get the gist of what the author is trying to convey, but only because I can think of what they meant, not because it's what's actually written down.
It kinda feels like a first draft that needs to be worked over, like a newbie author trying to find their way without going the long way of getting experience but publishing as soon as possible. It reminds me a lot of text based rpgs I played as a teen with other teens, and nobody knew where the plot would go or who the characters really are.

I don't even feel like I can judge if this person is a good writer or not, they simply need so much more words under their belt till they can find their footing. For this reason, I quit, and will pick up another book instead.

The arc was provided by the publisher.

This book took me by surprise! I really, really enjoyed everything about it! I really connected with the main character, Zora, and the whole premise and concept of this book.

Zora has been training and fighting her whole life, but still, no one expected a woman to join the competition this book is about. A quote that really stuck with me is, "If I'm weak like you think, I'll be out in the first round. If I'm not, then what's the problem? People will realize I'm a competitor like the rest, a person, not just a cute little pretty thing that's only good to serve men."
I have liked Zora since the first chapter, but his was the quote that really solidified my love for her.

I loved a lot of the side characters as well, but it's hard getting into that without spoilers. I'm definitely excited to find out more about them in the next book, even though this one really got my expectations for a sequel up.

My only complaint is about the lack of representation, but that can still change in the future, so I'm hoping for more in the next book!

This was such a good book - I couldn't put it down, it was rude of work to get in the way!

I read it in about two days and loved it, such strong female characters. Feels like a retelling of Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. I really enjoyed it and can't wait for the next installment.

I was a little doubtful about this one when I for at started because it seemed like it would be similar to so many other YA novels out there. However, I was quickly drawn in and unable to put this one down. I love that Zoe is such a strong female character that doesn't need romance and is able to deal well being a pawn in some royal game. It starts off with her sneaking out out town to join the royal games in place of the chosen champion once she finds out about his true character. She's quickly found out by one of the princes and becomes a pawn between the two princess and the king. Not only does she have to survive and win a competition where all odds are stacked against her, but she has to play the games of the court, and survive assassination attempts. I also liked the hints that there may be more to prince Griffin than we initially thought. The only thing that I really hated was the cliffhanger at the end and the fact that book two doesn't come out for a few months.

I had high hopes for The Cup and The Prince. Firstly, let's be honest the cover art is beautiful and secondly, there's the synopsis which was interesting and I had thought from reading it I would be hooked from the first page. However, those high hopes were gradually dashed as I read page after page and wished I hadn't begun it in the first place.

I'm stubborn when it comes to reading but I was tempted even at around 2 percent of the book, not to finish.

The characters feel one dimensional, and whilst Zora as the main character is good in her role of storyteller. She is determined in her need to be more than what her role in life is as a female but even that at times felt more like a teenage tantrum and a knee jerk reaction to circumstance. I wanted more depth, more history to explain her desire to win the Blood Cup. Perhaps it was only me, but I felt as though Zora leaving her home and those who depended on her because boyfriend cheated simply wasn't enough of a reason.

The side characters are easily forgettable and again, one dimensional and lacked true substance and backgrounds to make them ones you would remember. Scenarios didn't seem at all believable, for example Zora succeeding in successfully surprising a trained soldier and holding him at swordpoint. Even distracted, his training wouldn't permit him to remain held for a second. Yes, work of fiction but come on, it needs to at least make some sense.

Given that Zora has lived in the Dark Valley, where shadows are monsters as well as places were they hide? I thought that they would have been present to aid the reader in fully understanding just why Zora struggles in a place where shadows are naught but shadows.

The Cup and The Prince has so much potential but this book felt like it was the second or third draft and not a completed first novel in a series. Perhaps book two will deliver more, but sadly I won't be reading as this book lacked so much that I love in a gripping and vivid fantasy where the world building has me feeling as though I'm a character in the book myself.

I really liked this book! It’s loosely based off mine craft and is about all these people from different regions competing to win a competition and for the first time someone from the dark valley is allowed to enter...
Zora is such a cool character when she put her boyfriend to sleep and impersonated him when she found out he was cheating I’ve never laughed so much. Also I’ve been shipping her and Griffin since she put him on his ass. I actually like Larzen even if he is a bit schemy. I’m intrigued to find out who “alegra” really is. That ending! Omg such a cliffhanger what is he?? I’m gonna make a prediction I think he’s like a version of a wolf and she’s his mate but hey maybe I’ve just read too many fanfics. To summarise I loved this book it got me out of a reading slump I read it quite quickly so now I just can’t wait for the next book

I really wanted to like this book, and maybe I will at another time.
The idea of it was great and interesting. I love a strong heroine and I loved the shadow creatures.
But, the writing felt too juvenile for me. It was a bit choppy and we didn’t get to really know the characters inner thoughts or workings. It was very face value.
So, I DNF’d about halfway through. I might pick it back up again at a later time, because the plot really did seem promising. But, for now, I have to set it aside.

Ok to tell the truth I didn't expect much from this book because the cover sorta looked like just another cheasy fantasy book, but the description sounded interesting, so I thought let's try read it. And what a surprise I got, I could not put this book away, and I absolutely love Zora, and I can't wait for book 2.

So I'm excited over this book, it's easy to read and follow and it spellbound me to keep reading. The writing is allso great, cause there is a secret that you will only find out what it is, by keep reading. And I do allso love a good twist in a story and I got that, and I do love some difficult romance and I get that too. So I love this book and can deffently recoment it.

I got this book as an Arc on Netgalley for an honest review.

I unfortunately did not like this book.
I did not like the characters because they seemed not to have any sexual morals. This book is supposed to be a YA Fantasy but because of all the inferring to sexual encounters I would have made it an adult fantasy. By the time I made it to 65% of the book I realized I did not care about the the characters or the story as a whole.