I was thrilled to have been chosen to receive an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review, via Netgalley, as the first book had grabbed my attention from the very first chapter. This duology is gripping, fast-paced and extremely enjoyable! I did have to revisit my notes from the first book to get pulled back into this world, but once I did, there was no stopping me and I found it impossibly hard to put down. I was caught between never wanting this to end, but also not wanting to take a break!

Although it lacked the same cohesiveness and pacing as the first book, I still thoroughly enjoyed the series as a whole and am sad to say goodbye!

Thank you so much for the opportunity!

An original take on the story of Red Riding Hood that pushes the boundaries into entirely new territory - a story where the Wolf needs rescuing, Red becomes a goddess of the forest and her twin sister Neve her shadowy mirror. This a story of gods and monsters, elemental magics and a twist in the tail - are all monsters evil?

There are two main themes in For the Throne, opposites/mirrors and sisterly love. The journey that Neve must go on is a reflection of the journey that Red has already been on.
Following directly on from For the Wolf, For the Throne shifts focus to the First Daughter, Neve, as she finds herself trapped in the Shadowlands with Solmir, a former King/god who spent all of book one manipulating Neve through her desperation to free Red from the Wilderwood curse.
In this book it is Red's turn to desperately search for a way to rescue her sister, and yet, as Neve discovered in For the Wolf, Red learns that it is her sister's decisions and choices that are most important.
If you enjoyed the writing and atmosphere of For the Wolf then this book will not disappoint. In many ways Neve is a more interesting, complex and dark character than Red and, whilst Eammon might have the more dark and brooding appearance, Solmir is definitely the more dark & brooding in character.
There was some hauntingly beautiful imagery, particularly the Heart Tree and the keys. Although the Shadowlands can't compete with the Wilderwood for my love, the Old Ones were interesting and sometimes darkly amusing additions.
Personally, the lack of Wilderwood content was a loss and some of the characters from For the Wolf felt a little lost and, dare I say, irrelevant. And, whereas the sections away from the main Red storyline in the first book felt like they were adding to the overall drive of story, the sections away from Neve in For the Throne feel less integral- I'd have like more time developing Solmir's perspective instead.
Overall, I enjoyed this dark mirror of a sequel with it's haunting and lush writing, strong sisterly relationship and tense central relationship.

This is such a brilliant duology, full of fantasy and adventure. For the Throne picks up not long after For the Wolf ended, although I won't give anything away here. Fast faced and exciting, the plot speeds along with familiar and new characters. There are plenty of twists and you can be sure that nothing is quite as you thought at the end of the first book!

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

Book Review - For the Throne by Hannah Whitten

With thanks to @netgalley and @littlebrown for the arc.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Spoilers ahead for For the Wolf....


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For the Throne directly follows on from the events of For the Wolf, predominantly following Neve and Solmir in the Shadowlands, though Red and Raffe also have their own chapters throughout.

I've got to be honest - I REALLY did not like Neve (or Solmir) in the first book, so I wasn't sure what to expect in this. However, she grew on me and Hannah is really gifted in exploring those very morally grey characters..

"Heroes and villains and the spaces between, a prism that changed reflections depending on the angle you turned"

We learn more about the shadowlands, the Old Ones and the Five Kings - although I would love some kind of prequel to do a proper deep dive on them!

This is a beautifully atmospheric, dark folktale further developing the themes around the unconditional love and bond between sisters, and accepting yourself / your destiny.

It's a 4 from me - For the Wolf was pretty perfect and this didn't quite hit that emotional spot that the first book / Red and Eammon did - but a good read nonetheless.

Honestly pretty typical YA fantasy, the same as the first book- if you liked For The Wolf you'll like this one, but it's nothing groundbreaking.

I don't know whether it's because I loved For The Wolf so much and was so excited for this book, but I felt like I slipped back into the world of the Wilderwood really fast. I skipped the usual 'which character is that' confusion that usually accompanies returning to a series after a years break.

The setting is what really shines in Whitten's writing, the world of the Shadowlands was decadently creepy and so very visceral. I found this book overall much darker than For The Wolf, which balanced out the creepiness of the Wilderwood with Eammon & Red's wholesome romance. The darkness of this book served as a great background for Neve & Solmir's angsty love. I really feel like Whitten struck the balance between developing Neve & Solmir's romance, whilst still returning to the Wilderwood to give the readers a hit of Red and Eammon.

There's nothing wholesome about Solmir and Neve though, their villains-falling-in-love story was the perfect accompaniment to the spooky Shadowlands. I also loved that this sequel explored the side characters' personalities more - I loved getting to see more of Lyra & Fife, and I found Raffe's POV chapters really enjoyable. He really brings the energy of 'I'm just a normal dude, how did I end up here' which bought a sense of light humour to things.

The writing of this book as ever holds Whitten's signature lyrical beauty. You'll want to read with a highlighter in hand because this book is lush with beautiful prose. The atmosphere created is so rich, you'll feel like you're battling in the Shadowlands with Neve, or traversing the globe with Redarys.

It serves up just the right amount of folkloric morality, whilst going hard on the fairytale atmosphere.

Basically, if you like folklore vibes, morally grey love interests, enemies to lovers, and reading books with your heart in your throat, you should read For The Throne.

Having just read For the Wolf I was excited to be able to move straight on to For the Throne, but I think in some ways this was actually a slightly jarring way of doing things. I was so heavily invested in Red and her story that I couldn’t help feeling disappointed that this book focussed so much on Neve - a character I did not much care for in the first book.

Still, Whitten’s writing is just as lush and compelling as it is in the first book and the setting and world building are magical. A satisfying and well realised sequel.

Finally got to read the second book and it did not disappoint! Well worth the wait, you NEED to read this as soon as you can.

Thanks to Netgalley and publishers for this eARC of Empress Crowned in Red

I really enjoyed this, like I did For The Wolf. The enemies to lovers slow burn was really enjoyable (however their "get together moment" lacked slightly in my opinion.

I absolutely LOVED the writing in this book. The writing is lyrical and beautiful!

4.5 stars

Hannah Whitten’s dark and richly detailed conclusion to the Wilderwoods Duology was just as incredible as the first, infused with Whitten’s signature brand of gorgeous prose, blending horror elements with fairytale-esque world-building and emotionally complex characters that fans of dark, atmospheric (adult) fantasy are going to absolutely love.

Red and Wolf have finally managed to contain the threat of the old kings, but at a steep cost. Neve (Red’s sister) is lost in the Shadowlands in sinister inverted kingdom where the vicious gods of legend have spent centuries trapped alongside the Old Kings who’ve been slowly gaining control. But Neve isn’t alone, she has an unconventional ally—one she’d rather not have speak to again—the rogue king Solmir.

Solmir wants to end the shadowlands and he belives Neve is the key to its destruction. But in order to succeed he and Neve have to embark on a perilous journey to find the mysterious Heart tree and claim the dark, twisted powers of the old gods…

For The Wolf was definitely a standout read for me in 2021–I absolutely loved creepy atmospheric world of gods, monster and sentient woodlands and the creepy otherworldly vibes were just fantastic! I loved it so much that I definitely had high hopes for it’s sequel and I’m glad to say it most definitely lived up to—and surpassed—all of my expectations.

The pacing of the first few of chapters does start off a little slow but soon picks up and we switch between Red and Neve’s POVs. We also get a bit of a refresher for some of the bigger events in book one, which will be helpful if you haven’t read For The Wolf in a while (though I’d still recommend rereading it before starting For The Throne).

I have to say I wasn’t the biggest fan of Neve or her actions in the previous book. However, her development here was soo well crafted that I honestly found myself more invested in her POV chapters than in Red’s (shocking I know given how much I love all of her and Eammmon’s scenes together.)

The Shadowlands (a creepy, inverted world that reminded me of the upside down from Stanger Things) was a really interesting new setting that really gives us a chance to delve deeper into thhe worlds lore surrounding the Gods and the Old Kings which I really enjoyed, and felt that I had a richer sense of this compelling, dark and magically gothic world. The Old Kings are more substantial here than I had anticipated, but I loved our fleshed out and villainous they were.

We do get some mirroring between the Shadowlands and The Wilderwoods but it’s the sisters (Neve and Red) who carry the most parallels in their story arcs. Like Red and Eammon before them, Neve and Solmir have a bit of a love/hate, enemies to lovers relationship which I absolutely loved, Solmir’s swoon worthy, bad boy monster vibe was perfection. He also helps Neve (and the readers) really explore the concept of monsters and what actually defines them.

The ending was full of gloriously plot twisty, edge of your seat action that I didn’t want to put down—and I was definitely satisfied with how things were wrapped up.

All in all, For The Throne is a wonderfully rich and beautifully written dark fantasy and the sneak peak into Whitten’s upcoming new series has me already eager for a copy! If you love dark fantasy then I definitely recommend checking this (and the first book, For The Wolf) out.

Also, thanks to Orbit and NetGalley for the e-arc.

A beautifully written book. Really enjoyed reading this. Thanks to publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read

I have very mixed feelings about this book. Some parts I liked, others I was not convinced by.

First of all, I should have re-read For The Wolf because it took me a while to remember where things left off in the previous book and I found it hard to connect with what was happening at the beginning. In terms of plot, I think this was better than the first book, however, it felt very slow at times.

The romance was good, there's nothing I enjoy more than an angsty, slow-burn enemies-to-lovers. BUT, (yes there's a but) when you spend 70% of the book waiting for the moment when they finally get together, you want it to be memorable, you want to feel the butterflies and the heat and all the feels. And for some reason, I didn't. I loved the build-up but overall I wasn't satisfied. And despite I loved Neve and Solmir together, I just can't get over how cute and heart-melting Red and Eammon are. Their romance is so good.

Toward the end, it got a bit confusing but I think each of the characters got the ending they deserved, so even if I was left wanting more in terms of romance, I still think the book ended well. I probably would have enjoyed this more if I had read it straight after the first book, so maybe I will re-read them both together at some point.

Back with Red and Neve where their stories intertwine again.

Red is at the Black Keep in the Wilderwood where she is happy with Eammon. Neve finds herself in the Shadowlands with Solmir who wants to get rid of the Kings who are trapped in the unstable Shadowlands.

It did take me a while to remember who was who and what they had done, maybe I should have reread Wolf first? I also found it slow going in some places and definitely liked the second half more than the first....but I found myself very addicted to Neve and Solmir!!!! Aaaah enemies to lovers hooks me every time!

Now Solmir, he actually didn't need much redemption from me because I already loved him!

'He smelled like pine needles and snow, far reaches and open sky.'

The writing was gorgeous, the plot was fabulous, the romance was everything I wanted and a bit more spicier and, after, a slow start, I loved it!

This is the second and final? book in the series and I can say I enjoyed it even more than the first one. It's closely connected with the first one to the point that I felt a little lost at the beginning. Would recommend reading the books back to back or at least re-reading the first one before picking this one (if your memory is bad as mine, that is).

This is a gorgeous, lush rather dark fantasy. The plot continues right where were left at the end of book 1. We get multiple POVs, parallel journeys of the sisters to save each other thus saving the world.

The Wilderwood is there but it is changed and Red's team spends most of its time outside of it. Neve is in the Shadowland, and wow, what a place it is - dark and violent, home of Gods and monsters. It tests bonds and shows the corruptive power of magic.

I found it really fascinating both from the point of view of actions and adventures and from the point of view of getting to know Neve and Solmir (as both of them but her in particular get to know themselves better). The exploration of monstrousness, inside us and in the world at large, was really well done and very interesting to me.

The romance between Solmir and Neve is true enemies to lovers, falling for a monster. The lines who is a monster and who is not get blurred all the time, they both are, neither of them is - it is up to reader to make their mind. I really liked the romance, very intense and dramatic. They start with hating each other, there is a lot of anger and hurt, but as their journey unfolds we see a tentative trust appearing, they save each other, literally and figuratively.

Red's journey has just as many twists and turns as Neve's. Her love with Eammon is secure and only grows stronger.

Overall I liked the supporting characters though I have to admit they paled in comparison with Neve and Red.

I loved the ending which I found fitting to the complexity of the story. Everyone gets their HEA/HFN but nothing is simple. The hurts run deep and it takes time and effort for them to heal but we get the possibility for happiness, the hope for a better world and this is exactly what I read romance for.

Overall this was an enjoyable read and I had more fun with it than the first story in this duology, For the Wolf. I was happy to see Neve as a protagonist as she's a much richer, more complex character than Red. I looked forward to her chapters so much than I sometimes found myself skimming Red's and Raffe's, just to get back to the Shadowlands.

The world-building felt richer in this installment, too. Some of the concepts we encounter in the Shadowlands are dark, Gothic, and compelling. I wish that the magic system was a bit clearer (I'm still confused from book 1 on the whole Kings/Old Ones system and how this translates into the magic the sisters guard) and the plot a bit faster paced, less deus-ex-machina - it was quite straightforward already so I felt more could be done with the writing of it.

With that said, I loved that the Old Ones felt fleshed out and more nuanced than your typical world-destroying god, and truly enjoyed my trip through the Shadowlands with Neve and Solmir - I didn't want to leave!

Just like Neve and Solmir, I have a love-hate relationship with their enemies-to-lovers relationship. On the one hand, it felt a bit rushed, and I would have loved to see some of the passages of introspection or dialogue that felt unnecessary or prolonged in other parts of the book dedicated to developing their relationship instead, giving Neve a real reason to grow to care about Solmir. I wanted more of his backstory and the things that happened to him which would make us feel sympathetic towards the monster. At the same time, I couldn't help but love the whole thing! Recognizing some of the cheese, I couldn't help but see Solmir as a swoon-worthy steamy bad-boy monster boyfriend, and that was just really fun. Little twist towards the end made my heart sink but Whitten brought it back, a bit rushed again, but I left the book feeling pretty satisfied.

All in all a fun fantasy romance and certainly worth reading if you've read the first one!

I've read the first book in this duology last year and was, frankly, not impressed. It was one of my most disappointing fantasy reads of the year. Why read the second one then, you ask? Well, because there were things I actually had high hopes for in a sequel. The general ideas, the atmosphere of the Wilderwood and the shadow world beyond it are intriguing. And most importantly, I was hoping for Neve, the sister of book one's protagonist, to be in the spotlight this time around.

And she was, and it was a good choice! Neve is by far the better protagonist, and the duology is better for shifting focus towards her. Red is still a big part of it of course, and I did like that the sister relationship finally took center stage. But Neve as a character is simply much more complex and intriguing, whereas Red rarely goes beyond "I love my sister. I love my husband." The characterization, or lack thereof, that I criticized in book one is sadly still apparent, with most of the characters having about one personality trait and seemingly existing purely for romance.
The new love interest, Solmir, is vaguely more interesting than Eammon was in the first book (and still is this time around), but the romance in general suffers from the same problems: When this guy is literally the big bad evil and the protagonist has absolutely no reason to feel anything but anger and disgust for them, but still notices how hot they are on basically page 1, then it's just stupid. It's fanfiction. It's not how enemies-to-lovers works, and it takes away from their story as a whole. Add to that the "magic is best transferred through a kiss" that is this books "we sadly totally have to get married for the magic now" and I'm wondering again if this is supposed to just be a list of cringey old romance tropes ticked off one after the other.
The introduction of a new character purely so that one part of the supposed love triangle can be easily discarded (because gods forbid there is actual depth and conflict) is basically all you need to know about the level of character and romance writing. All of the four central relationships are m/f, too, but to each their own, I guess. I find this a little boring, but it's an author's own choice that has to fit their ideas.

The pacing is, once again, subpar. I was really hoping for some improvement because you COULD definitely tell this story in an engaging and exciting way, and I think a lot of it comes down to poor editing. There are so soooo many passages of characters just having conversations about things that already happened, or conversations that are used to further 'character development' in a blatant tell-don't-show kind of way. Why? Half of these conversations lead to nothing and aren't necessary for plot nor characters, they seem like fillers. Red's part of the story was mostly filler, too, and I wouldn't have minded skipping most of her chapters. The ending could have been exciting, but was lackluster and suffers from the same "let's build up unsurmountable obstacles just to solve all these problems in six second through neverseenbefore magic" that the first one did.

The world building is more nuanced this time, with really cool ideas for this admittedly creepy shadow world Neve is bound to. The magic is still nothing more than a deus ex machina, there to do whatever needs doing right now, but I don't need thought out magic systems in every single book, so that's fine. The names used for this fantasy setting are A Choice (Floriane....), but that's simply a matter of subjective tastes.

I think the one thing that really dampened my reading enjoyment as a whole was that this book simply does not have a voice. The writing isn't bad, but I often wondered if the author didn't really decide on the tone of her own story. There is lyrical fantasy prose, then one page later an ages-old god calls a young woman a "bitch". There are about ten different, often nonsensical in-universe-curses ("kings on shitting horses" being the most prevalent one, or the really weird "kings' kneecaps", just to name two), mixed in with an overabundance of "fuck"s. The characters talk like modern teenagers - and I mean all the characters, both the young protagonists and the ages old beings. There is no actual voice, no tonal consistency. This might also add to the generally fanfictiony feel of the whole book.

So yeah, I was hoping for more, for improvements in storytelling, pacing, character writing and general writing, but this is sadly more of the same. I'm sure it'll have lots of fans, but sadly I cannot count myself towards them. Probably won't read the author again.

Thank you so much Little Brown Books UK and Netgalley for sharing an advanced copy of For The Throne with me.

I ADORE IT!

I could not wait to read this book and oh my Lord it did not disappoint.

While I didn't find it as cohesive as the first novel, I will put this down to the fact that there are a lot more POVs in this book, I still loved it. I would also recommend re-reading For The Wolf before diving into this as I was left slightly confused in some places.

This novel is a REAL enemies to lovers with the enemy getting the girl in the end. I mean, I loved Eamonn but Solmir is a different beast altogether. Bless you, Hannah for creating him.

While I did find the first half of the novel to be a bit more messy than her first, by the time we got to 50% the story had really hit its stride. I am devastated that it is only a duology because I want to stay in this world forever.

The ending broke my heart a dozen ways but thankfully the epilogue fixed it right back up.

I cannot wait to read Hannah's next release!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with this eArc!

An amazing sequel, I adored the first book and this most definitely lived up to the hype!

I loved For the Wolf and was so excited to read this one too! I loved it just as much! I really enjoy her writing style and world building. The characters Neve and Solmir were well written and start out as enemies, but I enjoyed their chemistry! This duology was great if you love dark fantasy! I can’t wait to read more books from this author!