The main character falls into a fae relam with attractive hunks. I enjoyed the premise and how the author described things, but the dialogue didn't make the characters very likeable. I think this book has a lot of potential. The in-between moments were captivating.
I would recommend people that enjoy portal fantasy to give it a go.

Asavi's first book didn't hit the mark for me. I really wanted to like it because it had things I enjoy—fantasy, new worlds, and a strong main character.

At first, I wasn't sure if the author meant for readers to dislike the main character because she comes off as really angry and harsh for no good reason. When she enters this new world, I thought she’d shine with her cleverness and skills, but instead, she felt like a totally different person who wasn't even using her talents! Throughout the book, she often forgets about the unique abilities that could help her in the tricky world of court politics and instead makes some really bad choices.

The main character’s anger comes from seeing how badly everyone is treated, but it’s shown in a pretty straightforward way without much complexity. There’s a clear difference between being oppressed and having a voice. I found it confusing how she ended up falling for some of the characters, the ones who actively subjected her to harm and manipulated her. It bothered me that the male characters often took the spotlight, needing to come to her rescue instead of her being strong on her own. Honestly, I was hoping the main character would outsmart everyone and shake up the whole system.

I even started to wonder if the author was a man because the relationships felt off-balance, with her ignoring bad behavior from friends or romantic interests. The intimate scenes felt overly focused on just penetration and made me question if she really would enjoy those moments.

I won't give it a one-star rating because the world-building was interesting, with different courts and landscapes. The flow was good most of the time, too. But the plot was pretty weak, with noticeable gaps and plenty of grammar and spelling mistakes. There were repetitive storylines and thoughts. If the author had spent more time on the fantasy parts and less on the questionable relationships, it could have been a much better read. I see some potential for the series, but I don’t think I’ll be reading the next books anytime soon. By the end, I was just ready to be done with it.

Anthea has spent most of her life taking care of her sisters on the other hand working at a PR company that caters to the whims of Guilty, arrogant and repulsive men can be soul crushing. However it pays well, she can’t complain too much if she has her sisters to think about.

Something her younger sister refuses understand how she could do such a thing no matter how much it supports them.

One night when she decides to unwind and have fun after another fighting match with her younger sister turns into a trip to world full of magic and elves but a problem arises when she has no recollection of how she tumbled into the bed of an elven prince neither does she know the way back home.

Be as it may, Anthea still thinks it’s dream yet when she wakes in a dungeon with two elven princes’ staring down at her she realises what a precarious position she has landed herself in.

They proposed a bargain, Do everything we ask and we shall provide with food, shelter, protection whiles we find you a way back home. Being a human is a dangerous thing to be in the world of Isluma dominated by elves with strange powers. she accepts the bargain and hopes that she hadn’t made a mistake.

This was such a cool concept and i was much eager for the plot to unravel like spools of thread but the pacing was considerably slower than I anticipated. It got to a point I was consistently disappointed and frustrated over the lack of development and detail which mirrored what the FMC was feeling.

I think it speaks a lot about the author’s writing. I was feeling every bit of her frustration and helplessness. she was far vulnerable than anything, She was alone, solated and the mercy of two men who did not have her best interests at heart and her only friend seems to be questionable at best.

30% through the book my thoughts felt muddled like I was underwater with the shrinking of pacing which luckily the plot picked up pace at 50% except I got angrier. I don’t think Anthea was angry enough in my opinion, I don’t think the men and women who opposed her were aware of themselves enough to see what they put her through and I think her whole blossoming romance with Eldrian was too soon, not enough development.

I thought it was because it was a long time since Anthea experienced any intimacy so when she got the first taste she was hungry for more. Her sleeping with Endreth caught me off guard and it appears she had a taste for men who treats her horribly and has a thing for men whose name begins with the letter E.

Eldrian needed a lot of self reflection, grovelling and growth to be worthy of my Anthea.

Aside from that! I would love to read about all the new addition to the sequel.

Thank you Netgalley for for providing a review copy!

Fantastic start for a fantasy debut author! The pacing was a little off from my normal taste but the world building a political intrigue were so good it still kept all of my attention. The book good better and better as it goes along and I could feel the author getting more comfortable and confident with their work. I can not wait for the next books to come out from this author. They will be an instant add to my TBR shelf

An overall light fantasy that does a great job world building and introducing the main characters. It has the right amount of fantasy to really pull you in.

I had high hopes for this book because it had a lot of the elements of fantasy I enjoy, but I struggled through it. The book follows a human woman who falls into a elven universe and is caught a web of conflict.

- The world building was not believable. I'll try to explain this without spoilers, but this was 95% of the reason why I was unconvinced by the book's plot. This was my main problem with the book because what ends up being one of the main issues for the protag hinges on this world building that is severely underdeveloped. There was a social strata that the author wanted to portray but also didn't engage with at the same time. It felt like the author couldn't bring herself to faithfully display what she was writing about, which watered down the point she seemed to be attempting to make.

- We don’t find anything out about the protagonist's history until significantly into the book, and the only thing we know about her is that she had tragic things happen to her in some vague past. Also, she has two sisters that are present for the first couple of chapters then barely remembered. It’s hard to see the protag as a fully formed character and really makes it difficult to root for her. This is especially painful when her character is supposed to be complex (because of her morally unpleasant career choices she makes).

- There's multiple time skips in the book during what would normally be considered important moments for character growth.

A cold-hearted workaholic women with questionable ethics works in the PR industry, scrubbing reputations clean, trying to support her family of sisters until one day she is whisked away to a completely different world of elves. It is political intrigue, adventure, romance and dragons ! This book has all the makings of a great story. It has a main character who is vulnerable yet stubborn and resilient. It has brooding males who fall hopelessly for the main character. The political intrigue involves plots, schemes and betrayals. Then there is the magical element of the elves and the dragons.

I like how the world and the political intrigue have been set up. I like the main character and find her actions relatable. There is never a point where her actions feel unreasonable. The writing, in the later half as the political intrigue picks up, is good. I liked the second half of the book much better. The pace picks up in the second half making far more engaging than the first half ever is.

This easily could have been a five star book but it fails due to some reasons. First and foremost is the linearity of events in the beginning. It gets better in the second half of the book where the linearity helps the story along but in the beginning, it gets a little tedious to keep reading chapters that start along the lines of "weeks passed .... " essentially nothing changing in the character's life. While I understand the need for the stagnancy at this point as a contrast to the coming twists and turns, moving back and forth between the character's past and present would have been a better approach.

The second thing is the romance. While I am perfectly fine with romance taking a back seat to politics and adventure, there needs to be some connection to the pairings. I did not feel it at all. I have no opinions on the couples whatsoever. While I understand how it may have arisen, it falls flat in terms of emotions. I liked to be shown that the character is attracted rather than being told that they are.

The writing is really good sometimes, however there are places where the story reads as if written as part of a creative writing exercise with no novel elements, just a reuse of the age old ones. This book does not make any novel commentary or bring out anything that has not already been said before. While the twists and turns sure are unpredictable, some of the reasoning seems flimsy as if the twists were brought in simply for the sake of bringing in twists, as if the creative writing prompt had mentioned five twists and hence they must be introduced and reasonably explained.

Love the lore and the legend. Love the overall concept. Needs a bit of editing though as most of the characters fall flat. The main character's relatability is what keeps it going, otherwise I do not find myself particularly attached to anybody else. The other characters need to be fleshed out more. Has all the right elements in it but would not be recommending it as it isn't worth the time ultimately.

This debut kept me interested until the end, despite its flaws.
I had a few issues with the pacing, not so much with the plot, but with the relationships.
The story is heavy on the political intrigue that includes warring rival courts. The slavery aspect of the story is a little overdone, but I'm willing to overlook that.
The author shows great promise (the writing got better that the book went on) and I am curious to continue the story.

This was a hard book for me to review. It contains a lot of themes that I like (fantasy world, gradual understanding gained, political maneuvering), but it also contained a lot that I could live without (lack of character agency, mentions to the modern world/technology, blatant lying from characters that are supposed to be well liked).

Overall, what stopped me from giving this book 4 stars was the lack of agency for our main character. She was pushed around and being very blatantly used for the duration of the book. Any choices that she was able to make were ultimately inconsequential and the story would have proceeded much the same way regardless of her choices.

That said, what prevented me from lowering my rating to 2 stars was the political intrigue of this world. It went more in-depth than I expected from the description and set itself up well for a sequel. In general, Avasi did a good job of giving information to readers over time and letting us string the pieces together (with one notable exception involving secondary character backstory that I felt was very "on-the-nose" and obvious despite Anthea not putting the pieces together).

I enjoyed reading The False Pawn and will probably pick up the sequel if I come across it.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this novel.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy of this book! Below is my honest review.

Trigger warnings; torture, violence, sex scenes

I'm not going to lie: I was so close to DNF-ing this book. I was about 20% into it and thought that the plot was too slow, but i pushed through and I actually enjoyed this a lot more than I expected! If you're worried about it being too much like SJM's books (specifically ACOTAR), I would say that it doesn't really feel like SJM's books. Yes, there is a strong, independent female protagonist in this book, but I don't think she is an exact copy of Feyre or Aelin or Bryce. The worlds are different and the magic system is also different. Yes, there are people who are hundreds of years old and have magical abilities, but that's not unique to SJM's worlds.

I think what made me really enjoy this book is Anthea, the protagonist. At first, I found her to be a little unlikable, but once she discovered that she held all the power in her predicament and started giving no Fs on whether she lived or died, I became more intrigued on her story. In terms of the world, it was easy to understand and you can see that there is room to grow it. So definitely excited about that. Overall, I'm sad at the ending but will definitely be picking up the next book in the series!

I may be biased but I’m super happy to be able to find this gem. I read a lot of isekai manhwas so this was up my alley. There’s a mystery element and a lot of angst. This was mostly an introduction of a foreign world rich with monsters and magic that the main character originating our mundane world, fell into. So hopefully the second installment is more action packed (with a generous dose of romance).

I loved that Anthea wasn’t the typical tiny and innocent looking woman that was also so physically capable of everything under the sun. She was independent and intelligent who knew she was severely lacking strength and combat capabilities. What I didn’t like though was that by the middle of the story, she became so dependent, heavily reliant on a male savior. I didn’t agree with most of her choices during this turning point in the novel. It was also odd that the first time she saw a long pointed ear humanoid in person…she thought ‘alien’ instead of elf. Pretty sure elves are pretty popular mythological creature in our world. But if she’s not well versed in fantasy, she’s at least seen emojis on her phone showcasing the differences between an alien and elf. Those are my only gripes about our little miss female lead that I can recall.

Everyone keeps comparing it to ACOTAR but since I’ve never read that series, I couldn’t really agree or disagree. But if I had to compare it other known works, very loosely - the premise (minus the deception and dark topics such as torture, enslavement and mentions of SA) reminds me of ‘The Saint's Magic Power Is Omnipotent’. By the end, it gave ‘Yona of the Dawn’. (I’m not explaining any further because I don’t want to ruin anything for future readers).

Thank you Netgallery for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was an amazing fantasy debut novel! The story follows Anthea, who is transported from modern day into a world of elves. The FMC is multifaceted and relatable. I liked that she was able to use skills from her real life employment to navigate relationships and court politics in an unfamiliar setting. The plot and world building were intriguing. As a reader, you don’t know who to trust, which keeps you on your toes. The romance was more of a side plot but didn’t really pull me in. It seems like the intention may be to continue the slow-burn into the next book. There was some spice. However, it didn’t add to or negate anything from the story. I felt impartial about it. The naming of the characters was somewhat difficult to follow. There was a Fyrlion and a Fyralin??? It would be helpful to have a list of characters and their role as a reference in book two.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ebook. Overall, I really enjoyed this read. I am looking forward to continuing this series to see where the story goes!

(3.75 easily rounded up to a 4)

I had fun with this! And I love the premise: When you’re just living your normal, everyday life and all of a sudden end up in a magical fantasy world.

I do think that Anthea was way too okay with this whole situation way to fast. I would’ve been in shock and wonder and fear for a hot minute.

Anthea’s decisions and personality don’t always make sense to me. Sometimes she’s super smart and then sometimes she’s whiny and making less-than-smart decisions.

Elven magic doesn’t impact Anthea the way it should, so instead of figuring out how to get her back home, they want to figure out what this magical immunity is all about. And humans (like Anthea), are treated like slaves in this world. So this adventure doesn’t start out too fun for Anthea, as you imagine.

And there are so many untrustworthy characters that make this so interesting and intriguing. Especially when it comes to what happens later in the book (and for what could happen in future books).

Elves and court politics and secret missions and long-since-thought-dead-dragons ANDDDD a prophecy…

Thank you to NetGalley for the digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review! My review is already up on Goodreads and my TikTok (Zoe_Lipman) review will be up at the end of the month with my monthly wrap-up.

Did I devour this book or did this book devour me?

Let me say, I was hooked from page 1 and could not put this book down, reading until the wee hours of dawn. I loved the pacing of the book; each bit of new information had me forming theories, questioning characters, and eagerly turning the page to learn more. I found the plot fascinating and intriguing and after that ending cliffhanger, I am desperate for the next book in the series.

Overall, I LOVED this book and couldn't get enough :)

This book follows Anthea who is thrown from her world into another very different world. This new world she finds to be very different from her own, as it is inhabited by elves. She quickly finds that not only is she different as a human but that she is immune to their magic as well. This book is full of new twists and turns and I found I couldn't put it down.

At times it was a bit repetitive and I struggle with the way it ended but I would highly recommend the read. And I can't wait for the next book.

A big thanks to NetGalley and A.E. Asavi for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I devoured this book! We first encounter Anthea, our female main character, who is fed up, exhausted, and looking for a new path. The majority of us can say that we have been in her shoes before. However, one should always be careful what they wish for. After a night of partying, Anthea meets a stranger and is transported to an entirely new universe and falls into the arms of a handsome elven prince. Our dream, right?

Our author has created a world that we fall into with Anthea and must figure it out with her. There are politics, hierarchies, class divides, much different than Anthea's home universe and the more she learns, the reader does too. Asavi gives us just enough to follow along with Anthea but leaves you desperate with wanting for the next book in the series. This book is a true cliffhanger.

If you are a fan of spice, do not fear, there is plenty to thirst after. If you are looking for world building, you will also find it here.

Well done for a debut and I look forward to the next in the series.

Woefully adequate. I wanted to love this and I wanted it to be my next big, amazing fantasy read but alas it was not. I didn’t hate it and I didn’t love it.

Firstly, I have an issue with books that don’t include a trigger warning list, this book definitely needed one. There were many difficult topics broached, including slavery, sex slavery (though not explicit) and human sacrifice. Whilst these may not have been the worst instances I’ve ever read I do believe it would have been courteous to consider the audience and allow them warnings as these were difficult to read.

That said, this book was enjoyable, it had mystery and intrigue and a lot of the best romantasy tropes. The eventual romance that bloomed didn’t feel forced and developed in a natural way, with some cute run ins. The twists and turns weren’t entirely predictable, and still caused some pleasant surprise. However, there were times where the story felt mistimed and incomplete, there were objects and places mentioned once and then forgotten, or moments where the FMC repeated herself unnecessarily.

Overall the story was enjoyable and I will be looking out for the next book, but it sadly doesn’t break into my list of best books of 2024.

This was a take it or leave it for me. I kind of didn't really like anyone and the story itself was kind of over done. I think that this could have been fleshed out a little more and then could have been epic but as it sits if it does turn out to be a series I most likely won't read the rest of them.

Overworked Anthea struggles to fit any excitement into her life as she's too busy working and taking care of her two younger sisters. One evening, she ventures out on the town, to escape a life on the crazy hamster wheel - except she gets more that she bargained for.
Waking up in a world inhabited by Elves, Anthea finds her life completely changed. These elves are vicious, steely and focused and they need Anthea. The plot felt very well paced, and it has the perfect balance of romance, fantasy and intrigue.
A great debut and I'm looking forward to the next instalment to see where Anthea's journey ends.