Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I love a cosy fantasy, and Bannen's books are exactly what you want from this genre, but with enough character development and emotional complexity to make the fantastical situations seem like realistic relationships. Rosie and Adam are both great characters, and the supporting cast is also strong. Bannen's worldbuilding is creative and the narrative races forward without seemingly any authorial intervention, which is exactly what you want.

Three books in and I still can't get enough of Tanria, or her cast of characters. I admit to wondering how I would bond with Rosie, having been so invested in Mercy and Twyla, but she is the feisty heronine I've always needed. While I'll always have a soft spot for Hart in my heart (ha!), I found I was quite on board with the romance between Rosie and Adam (more so than with Twyla and Frank). I felt the peril of the gates kept the plot moving really well, but the highlight for me (as a lover of both previous books) was all the cameos and a certain couple reconnecting ❤️ a very solid 5* for me, and I really hope we'll get to come back again...maybe a wee Zeddy and Duckers novella???

The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam by Megan Brennan

I LOVE this series and honestly feel like it’s hugely slept on! Every book has been such a joy to read, and this final installment was the perfect send-off.

Rosie and Adam’s story is hilarious, heartfelt, and everything I could have hoped for. What I love about this series is how warm and fun the whole world feels—you can’t help but get attached to the characters. In this book, long-standing questions from the first two installments finally get resolved, and we even get to peek in on the main characters from those earlier books to see how their stories carried on.

As a series ender, it sticks the landing perfectly. If you loved the first two, there’s no doubt you’ll fall for this one just as hard. It’s funny, heartwarming, and a brilliant finale to a series that deserves so much more love.

a great conclusion to a fun and emotional series

The world is absolutely bonkers but so bright and meaningful and I would love to live in Eternity with all the great characters.

Rosie and Adam get trapped in the Old Gods world and take a spiritual journey that has them making so many big life decisions. Questioning what it means to be immortal.

The romance is great, the tension and the respect. Here for it.

Definitely worth a read.

This was one of my most anticipated reads of the year and. as expected. Megan Bannen did not disappoint. I love everything about this series - the world, the characters, the humour. the romance!

I loved the opposites attract romance in this one and Adam is 100% a new book boyfriend for me.

Each book feels like its own contained story, which means you can technically read them in any order. But I definitely recommend following the publication order.

Megan Bannen keeps getting better and better at hitting my expectations out of the park and I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.

In a Nutshell: A romantasy with an opposites-attract trope. Okay characters, okay plot, good ending. The third book in the Hart and Mercy trilogy. Can work as a standalone but better read in series order. This is my least favourite of the series. The 2025 series-finale jinx strikes again! 😢

Plot Preview:
Rosie, an immortal demigod, has long served as a Tanrian Marshall, but after more than a century of service, she is frustrated with the repetitiveness of her work and the regular losses of those around her. While on her latest assignment, she discovers a sinister-looking shadowy haze inside the portal leading to Tanria. Unfortunately, the shadows are visible only to her. Because of her meddling, the portal is now defunct, and the inventor of the magical doorway, Dr. Adam Lee, has to be summoned. It is soon clear that the damage goes far beyond the single portal, so when all the portals start malfunctioning, Adam asks for an emergency evacuation of Tanria. Things don’t go to plan, and Rosie and Adam find themselves trapped in the Tanrian mists with two other characters. Now it is up to the demigod and the doctor to get them out of Tanria unscathed.
The story comes to us in Rosie’s third-person perspective.

I had liked the first two books of the ‘Hart and Mercy’ series – quite unexpected as spicy romantasy isn't really my thing. But the creative worldbuilding, the interesting characters, and the darkish plots kept me entertained.
In my review for the second book, I had predicted that the third one wouldn’t be my cup of tea as the blurb sounded too formulaic. I still hoped that my guess would be wrong. But who knows me better than myself, right? This book, (the last one of the series, which I didn’t know earlier), turned out to be the least satisfying in terms of main characters, storyline, fantasy, and romance. The secondary characters and the ending helped save my overall rating.


Bookish Yays:
🐉 Many characters from ‘The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy’ get a good role in this story! I have much fondness for these characters, so it was wonderful to see them get a deserved place in this series finale. The characters from Book Two: The Undermining of Twyla and Frank, are only mentioned in passing, but even that is good enough as it makes sense given the timeline.
🐉 Duckers and Zeddie get a well-earned separate Yay. I knew that they would never get a book of their own as we have already seen their relationship go through multiple phases in the earlier two novels. That’s why I am delighted that in a romance series that celebrates three new relationships, we actually get FOUR relationships. And funnily enough, the best love story is not indicated in any of the book titles. Love Duckers, love Zeddie, love them even more together!
🐉 It’s great to return to Tanria with its mists and its strange postal workers (love the funny nimkilim in this one!) and its curious mix of human and demigod denizens and the autoducks and the equimares and everything else! (Note: You’ll enjoy Tanria better only if you have read the earlier books as this book assumes familiarity with the worldbuilding.)
🐉 Dragons. Again. 🥰
🐉 The fairytale-esque story within this book, and its link to the main plot. Loved it!
🐉 The ending, with its action and the final resolution. The only part of the story where the proceedings are gripping, the tempo is steady, and the emotions are intense.
🐉 The epilogue. The perfect way to say goodbye to these characters and this world. Gotta give the final book for getting at least the ending right. I will miss some of these characters and the whole of Tanria.

Bookish Mixed Bags:
🥀 The tempo is somewhat random. The story starts off at a fairly fast pace (unlike the first two books), but then it drops and stays there for a long time, making the plot seem repetitive. The sameness of the location in this middle section doesn’t help. The final quarter increases the speed again.
🥀 It is nice to have a romance story with a height gap where the female character towers over the man. Even when we have the tall-woman-shorter-man combo in this genre, the gap usually isn't more than a couple of inches. So to see this giant woman and a “pocket-sized” man is unusual for sure. However, after a point, the comments about Adam’s height get very repetitive, as if the book wants to keep reminding readers that he’s diminutive.
🥀 Rosie as a demigod: not that impressive. She hates that she is immortal, which is a refreshing change from the usual portrayal of gods and demigods in fiction. But except for this one characteristic, the writing makes her sound like any typical twenty-something woman. I was hoping for a more mature and sensible personality considering the woman is almost 1.5 centuries old.
🥀 Adam was a mostly boring and lacklustre lead, all the more for a romance MMC. The only one thing I like about him is his backstory.
🥀 The fantasy part of this romantasy is slightly better than in Book Two. But it is too vague for more than half the book and suddenly jumps up several notches in the final quarter. I wish there had been more consistency in these elements.

Bookish Nays:
👙 This story is set ten years after Book Two. The gap is a bit too much for such a small series, especially when most characters are humans. I don’t know if such a big time-jump is justified by the plot.
👙 The storyline is the most basic so far. I wish the content had retained some of the darkness of Book One. With a paper-thin plot, a fairly predictable mystery (you can guess the ‘who immediately’; you just can’t guess the ‘how’ until a certain point) and slow pacing, I was never enthralled by the proceedings.
👙 Rosie as a character: too shallow. Her arc keeps circulating through limited topics: her frustration with her immortality, her hatred for her unfashionable uniform, her anger at her father, her attraction towards Adam and his physical appeal, and her obsession with her lingerie. She is the weakest lead of this series, which is really sad as she is physically and potentially the strongest.
👙 The lingerie content is so annoying after a point! It’s as if this was the only trope with the potential for humour and so the writing goes on and on about Rosie’s intimates and her need for fancy bras and panties. The whole thing felt juvenile.
👙 It goes without saying that if I didn’t like the FMC and the MMC, I didn’t like the romance. It is weirdly insta and slowburn at once. There is nothing to connect the characters except physical attraction. The writing aims for a grumpy vs. sunshine vibe, but IMHO, it failed miserably.
👙 Personal preference: Yet again, too many profanities and too high spice levels (with one extended steamy scene towards the final quarter). These two issues existed in the earlier books as well, so I was somewhat prepared for this, and I wouldn’t have complained if they were required by the content. But the implementation, especially of the cussing, feels frivolous this time.
👙 Just as in the second book, I hate that all the chapters come from the female lead’s perspective. If Adam has equal billing in the title and is a complex lead, he should have had some chapters for his feelings. Only the first book used both Hart and Mercy equally in the plot development.

Overall, this has been yet another addition to the 2025 jinxes of disappointing-final-books of ongoing series. To be fair, it was not the worst I have read, and the ending did fill my heart with happiness, but I wish the story had been stronger, the lead characters better sketched, and the humour slightly less immature.
While this book *can* work as a standalone, you will not get many of the plot points and the Tanrian worldbuilding if you start here. So I would suggest beginning with Book One if you are interested in the series.
Recommended to those who enjoyed the earlier books and wish to send off those characters with a fond farewell.
2.75 stars.

My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK and Orbit for providing the DRC of “The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

A sweet third book to finish up all the adventures in the land of Tanria! Rosie is sure a fun character, all 6 foot 5 inches of her, complete with a fancy taste in intimates and a lighthearted view on life, despite the fact that she is a bit down on the fact that she must live forever (thanks to her dad's Trickster god genes). Despite that, she does deserve a chance at love and so I am happy to have read all about it, even with the vine that seems to be growing all over Tanria and there is a race to stop and and get through the portals before it is too late. And I absolutely love Duckers who is a great side character and also deserves a happy ever after all the trauma in this book with vines, exes, good food, and dragon riding (I was surprised to learn that dragon snot is glitterfied!) Lots of humor and good times though, plus a sweet romance the grows slower than the vine but is heartwarming between Adam and Rosie and the ending that I loved but did get me tearing up. This was a fun book to read, and even though I am sad it will be the last one, I did enjoy getting to spend just a little longer in Tanria and the ending is simply wonderful!

A good last book in a very fun trilogy with old gods, new gods, a magical land that was once a prison, and all the interesting people that live and work in it. I wish every happiness on Adam and Rosie who definitely deserve it!

One of my all time favourite series. I loved The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam and will never not recommend it. This was the best book in the series yet but please pick up the rest and read them as soon as you can! 10/10 would recommend to anyone looking for a fantastical but cosy read!

Rosie is an immortal Demi god, who a 157 is beginning to feel a little jaded with her work and life, when she dies again being electrocuted by a faulty portal that’s jammed with ghostly thrones only she can see things go a little sideways. Dr Adam Lee the grumpy, perfectly formed pocket man and inventor of the portal comes to fix it things get a little more interesting. A mass evacuation of Tanria is ordered and Rosie, Adam, Duckers and his ex Penrose are stuck on the wrong side of the gate. Oh no. This was excellent in all the ways the previous books were excellent. I would happily visit all the odd couples of Tanria and Bannen never fails to make me blubber in all the best possible ways. I also loved that’s Adam’s proportions were historically accurate. Special shout out for Duckers who finally got his happy ending as well, he’s had a heck of a journey and has been a key player in all three books. Loved it.

Thank you to NetGalley & Little, Brown Book Group for this ARC! 😍

This was by far my favourite book in the Hart & Mercy series and I had so much fun reading this final instalment!

This book was different but better than the other two because I couldn't work out what Rosie and Adam's HEA was going to look like and it had a slightly sad, heartwarming twist to the end ❤️

In this book, we get over cute Grumpy x Sunshine romance with our short king/tall queen, MORE dragons, we get to meet more of the Old Gods and we get a whole load of Duckers & Zeddie drama 🤣

An absolutely fantastic continuation and conclusion of a trilogy which just gets better with each book.

Rosie is immortal, and it sucks. She’s spent several centuries watching everyone she loves age and die, and she can’t stay that way - which is frankly just rude at this point. She’s currently working patrolling Tanria, but something’s gone wonky with the portals they use to access it, and she’s the only one who can see it.
Enter Dr Adam Lee, the man who created the portals. Rosie met him once, years ago, and has held onto his handkerchief ever since. But he surely won’t remember her… will he?

I absolutely loved Rosie and Adam and their individual stories as well as their interactions. One of the things I really love in an interconnected series is the glimpses we get of characters from previous books, and especially in cases like this where several years have passed since the previous books, and having several previous characters come forward to be a major part of this book was fabulous.
This is one of those series where I feel like I enjoy each subsequent book more as we see more of the world and understand it better. This third book added some really fun twists to the magic and the world that we didn’t know about before, which I loved.

Overall this was a fantastic conclusion to the trilogy, and I would highly recommend them for fans of romances in a fantasy setting!

Here's my money, give me the next in this lovely series. Another cute, cosy and well plotted story to help me smile and feel good
Loved it
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam is the concluding book in the Hart and Mercy trilogy and a book I had been really looking forward to reading. I read the eARC via NetGalley.
It is / has:
-F/M fantasy romance
-Forced proximity
-Book three of Hart and Mercy - I recommend reading them in order.

Although this was an incredibly fun and enjoyable read one that I would recommend to anyone that has read the rest of the series I did find this my least favourite of the three books. However, there was a lot of things I did enjoy and I did like ⬇️

* We retain the unique fantasy world that is a mix of zany and charming, which also reflects Bannen’s unique style of writing. Plus we still have dragons!
* The characters are brilliant. Rosie is incredibly vibrant, gregarious, and I appreciated her and Duckers friendship.
* It’s great to see non-stereotypical characters in a romance. For example, Rosie is taller and Adam is shorter. Adam didn’t feel like a MMC I had read many times before either.
* I’ve really loved how Duckers has been a central thread through all the stories. This felt to me to be a really good decision as it adds a element of consistency throughout the books and we get to follow Duckers’ story too.

However…
* I did at times find the story to be a little bit slow going.
* I was prepared for the world and its kooky elements, as the story progressed to its conclusion these felt exaggerated.

This, and the rest of the series, would be an excellent read for anyone that enjoys unique fantasy worlds, with fun romance.

Headlines:
Quirky continuation
Joyous characterisation
Bittersweet connections

This series...This series has been joyous and quirky from book one to book three and it has my whole heart. Megan Bannen delivered on a gorgeous characterisation of Rosie and Adam in book three and I am so sad this series is over. It's definitely a series I'll re-read.

Book three centred on an invasive plant in Tanria that was messing with the portals. For lead characters we honed in on Rosie, a demi-god and Dr Adam Lee, the portal inventor. Adam was an uptight, monosyllabic puzzle, smaller guy and extremely tall Rosie, verbally vomitted everything without a filter. What a pair of opposites but with more in common as the plot unfurled.

This was such a rich plot, with slow reveals of Rosie and even more, Adam. The who of Adam was extremely satisfying to read and discover. As a reader, I toured Tanria like I never have before, took a ride on the dragons, and made it through to the world of the gods, so much excitement but a whole lot of tension too. Talking of tension, Rosie and Adam had it in buckets.

I have no idea what Megan Bannen will write next but I am first in line in wanting to read it. Go forth and binge this series!

Thank you to Orbit Books for the eARC.

This was the best of the series. I have read the previous two and highly recommend reading them before getting to this. The primary characters are only fleetingly mentioned earlier, but the world makes better sense if read in the appropriate order.

At the end of the previous book, I guessed who the next would be about because of the way Rosie was mentioned. She’s an immortal offspring of an old God. This sentence would make more sense if one has read the other books. The dynamics of this is something she grapples with every day. She dies regularly just because she loves taking risks.

The gate portals to Tanria seem to be in trouble. Rosie sees something others around her cannot and the portal’s inventory is back on the scene. Rosie was attracted to him when they last met and this time they are forced to spend longer in the other’s company.

The plot spans a lot of events and it brings about more change than previously encountered. The plots in each of the books happen with a long enough interval and each ends with a significant shift in the lifestyle of the people in the world.

I like the camaraderie, the back and forth conversation for the entire cast of characters. The pairing was cute ( even though I guessed the twist) and I enjoyed their romance. The more elaborate scenes were few and far between, the budding relationship made sense ( my use of plant terminology was accidental but works with the bigger picture – not too much of a spoiler).

I highly recommend this series to fans of the fantasy romance combination. I only wish I would have waited and tried in the audio format.

I received an ARC thanks to Netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience of this and the previous works.

"I'm a different person now - a better one, I hope. And Pen has changed, too. It's just that... You never stop being who you were, do you? You may be on page 120 of the novel that is your life, but that doesn't mean that page 37 doesn't exist anymore. Pen and I had a lot of pages together in the early chapters, so it's weird being here with him all of a sudden in the middle of the book."

The cozy and necessary finale to one of my favorite and best starts to a series ever!

My reviews to the rest of the series:
↬ The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy 5 shining stars ✨
↬ The Undermining of Twyla and Frank 4 stars ✨

I loved being back in Eternity and Tanria to visit my beloved characters and read about a new challenge and adventure. But I am still sad that Duckers never made it out of being the adorable side kick. I wanted the third book and finale to be about him. I wanted him to be the well deserved center of attention. The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam was entertaining, sometimes flirty but mostly another cozy fantasy like part two already was (The Undermining of Twyla and Frank). Part 1 with Hart and Mercy was simply too amazing and the other two books simply could not even come close to all the things that I felt and that happened in The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy.

✨ 3.5 stars rounded up

"Sometimes, a small kindness can be quite... large... to the recipient."

But I am still super happy to have read the whole series, to see all the storylines woven and come together.

To see the walls, the harsh exterior of Adam, aka Dr. Lee, come slightly askew was adorable and so sweet and heartwarming. To see him blush and get distracted by the talk or sight of the beloved intimates of Rosie was simply chef's kiss.

And to see the friendship between Rosie and Duckers bloom, her heart open up again, and her struggles with immortality and a self-centered god as a father was special and weirdly relatable at times.

"It has been a long time - a long, long time - since I did anything that resembled living. But here... I was alive for a few days. And I find that I don't particularly want to return to the life - no, the nonlife - that is waiting for me in Quindaro."

Oh Adam how you sneaked your way right into my heart, you soft cantaloupe.

I am gonna miss Hart, Mercy, Twyla, Frank, Rosie, Adam, Zeddie and Duckers, and all the Nimkilins and Dragons all around Eternity and Tanria.

"No one is better than you, because no one else is you."

Thank you so much to Netgalley, Little, Brown Book Group UK , and Megan Bannen for the arc in exchange for an honest review. The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam is out and available to be read as the finale to the series.

I absolutely loved this series, it's such a shame it has come to an end.

A fantastic light hearted romantasy you won't be able to out down.

I can'r recomment this series more, everyone has to read it!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me access in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 rounded to 4 ⭐

Once again Megan Bannen delivers a different kinds of cosy romantasy with The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam. We re-enter Tanria this time with our garnet eyed demi-god Rosie (and our favourite Tanrian Marshal Penrose Duckers).
I love the diversity in all of Bannen's books, reading romances about, middle aged friends to lovers, or in this case an Amazonian immortal and a short 'king' is a breath of fresh air. Whilst not as humourous as previous books in this series, the tone suits Undercuttring and it is still charming and cosy to read.

A very cozy, inconsequential read for a rainy day!

I did read book one (The Undertaking of Heart and Mercy)back when it was a pick for Fairyloots adult subscription box. I haven‘t read book two (The Undermining of Frank and Twyla), but had no trouble following this book. It seems book 2 and 3 are what can be called „expandalones“. The characters of book one and two are often mentioned, referenced and even encountered.

The characters we meet are mostly loveable – there is a diverse range of characters, human and ohterwise, with distinct personalities and relations. They are very unique, even if tropey occasionally. A lot of background characteristics are often just superficially teased upon but not mentioned again. These snippets are fine for the characterisation, I just hoped they had been touched upon not just once.

I felt thrown back into the world of Tanria from the first page, and it felt a bit like a comforting coming-home. It’s an easy world to appreciate and to fall back into. Knowledge from the previous books help, but are in my opinion not necessary for enjoyment or understanding. The writing of the book definitely helpd feeling at home instantly. It was pretty whimsical, and cotton-candy sweet occasionally. It was really easy and fun!
I enjoyed the plot and the resolution of it, mostly. It felt rather predictable, which was expected but not unwelcome. The „twist“ with Adam was foreshadowed pretty early on, but I didn‘t see the immortality coming. The progression oft he plot occasionally felt like a computer game / quest based game, but it was fun to follow! The 7 year time jump (so to speak! Ha!) at the end surprised me, but it was something unique that I enjoyed.
I wasnt _that_ happy with the ending, with both Rosie and Adam losing their immortality. I’m never too fond of people losing their powers. But it made sense for Rosie.Concerning Rosies father, Rosie forgiving him at the end, after all that he did (and didnt do), felt a bit off to me. I get it was done for a cheesy family is everything resolution, but it didn‘t do too much for me.
Overall I had a pretty good time and it’s a worthy conclusion to the world of Tanria!
4 Stars!

A really fun and sweet fantasy romance. This is part of a series but can be read as a standalone - I haven’t read any other books in this series before and still really enjoyed this one. The characters were endearing and the plot was fun and fast paced.