Elise Kova

Perfect for fans of A Court of Thorns and Roses and Uprooted, this stand-alone, fantasy romance about a human girl and her marriage to the Elf King is impossible to put down! The elves come for two things: war and wives. In both cases, they come for death. Three-thousand years ago, humans were hunted by powerful races with wild magic until the treaty was formed. Now, for centuries, the elves have taken a young woman from Luella's village to be their Human Queen. To be chosen is seen as a mark of death by the townsfolk. A mark nineteen-year-old Luella is grateful to have escaped as a girl. Instead, she's dedicated her life to studying herbology and becoming the town's only healer. That is, until the Elf King unexpectedly arrives... for her. Everything Luella had thought she'd known about her life, and herself, was a lie. Taken to a land filled with wild magic, Luella is forced to be the new queen to a cold yet blisteringly handsome Elf King. Once there, she learns about a dying world that only she can save. The magical land of Midscape pulls on one corner of her heart, her home and people tug on another... but what will truly break her is a passion she never wanted. A Deal with the Elf King is a complete, stand-alone novel, inspired by the tales of Hades and Persephone, as well as Beauty and the Beast, with a "happily ever after" ending. It's perfect for fantasy romance fans looking for just the right amount of steam and their next slow-burn and swoon-worthy couple.

A Deal with the Elf King

Taylor

The Elf King's face, ethereal, handsome, youthful, as hard as diamonds, is as handsome as it is terifying. He is like a poisonous flower -stunning and deadly. This, I realize as his eyes flash an even brighter blue, is the face of death. 

Megan BV

“for those who need a break and a second glass of wine”

Natalie Sypeck 

Lavinia McDonald 

Amelia Edmondson

This book pleasantly surprised me. I didn't expect to like it as much as I ended up doing so. Louella and Eldas were brilliant characters who had to deal with their struggles, but they eventually overcame them because of their love for each other. I loved Louella's character a lot, and I very much sympathized with her sentiments of having a sense of obligation toward her community, which became the driving force for her motivations and actions which made her repress her feelings for Eldas. She was willing to sacrifice her happiness in being with Eldas for the sake of her people, actually, she was even willing to sacrifice her life at the beginning for her people. So I'm glad that in the end, she was able to freely choose to be with Eldas without feeling guilty for "abandoning" her people. They're in good hands, and if anyone deserved a break, it was her. And I'm also glad that Eldas grew from his emotional turmoil and allowed himself to feel love toward someone. He reminded me a bit of Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice, especially during the scene when he asked Louella if he loved him. Haha! Aside from the main characters, I also enjoyed the world-building and lore about the land. The side characters were delightful as well. Overall, I enjoyed this book!

Mirror

buny

** spoiler alert **
           this was saurrrrrr good... the kind of mindless pleasure i wanted from a book albeit it was a bit too slow for my liking.... usually i wouldve given this 2.5 or the 3 stars rating of my usual neutral or neutral okay but the last 30-40% really got to me alright...... eldas rly grew on me and i really loved his background story of how he had to be sequestered as the next elf king and he choose to for another for his queen's arrival.. how lonely he was in that midst. ANDANR. luella's conflicting feelings of duty towards capton's ppl as her benefactors and as their sole healer and towards midscape as their queen and the only one able to make spring come around. i LOVED her going away bc she felt she only loved eldas bc it was the only thing for her to do and realising she loved him and CHOOSING to come back for him. love is indeed a choice 💞

3.5 ⭐ i am a sappy bitch no one touchme rn

Whitney Nicole

I read this to get out of a reading slump and boy did it do the trick. It’s a fun read, and I actually love that it’s a series of standalones in the same world, so we get to explore the other creatures of midscape. At just over 375 pages it’s definitely fast paced but hey, that’s what you need after a slump. And I loved watching the relationship grow between Eldas and Luella.

Kelsey Munson

3.5/5⭐️ Totally binged this entire book on my 3 hour flight today. Fun story following a Hades/Persephone storyline. Quick read that kept my interest throughout.

LOL THIS WAS CHEESY AND GR8, I liked it towards the end I think the romance was well-developed and the characters were all instantly likable! a fun one! the best part about this by far though was the audiobook, there were sound effects and voice actors for each of the characters so it really was like a little movie so I would recommend doing the audiobook on this one

fris🐝

Boring. Needs a lot of work. Writing is very rudimentary. The premise is good - who doesn’t love a fantasy romance? It’s just not executed with any skill. Also, social media is such a lie, as there is absolutely no spice in this book. Fade to black always. Didn’t live up to the hype. 

Sophia 

Lauren Grey

“I see life. He sees death. Two sides of the same coin. Two halves that require the other to exist.”
——
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice: 🌶🌶🌶

Typically, I like to split my reviews into likes and dislikes about the story, but this one is hard to categorize that way. A Deal with the Elf King by @elise.kova is about Luella, a human girl who is chosen seemingly out of nowhere to be the Human Queen to the cold Elf King across the magical fade. She believes she is going to her death, but realizes there is a lot more going on than she realized. Luella has to make a hard choice about where her heart truly belongs.

The beginning was intriguing even if the world building was a bit fuzzy. Luella started out very feisty and bold and I liked her a lot. I enjoy a good marriage-of-convenience story, so I was really looking forward to the romance and how the surprise forced marriage was going to play out. The cold Elf King is also awkward which I adore. Enter a magical wolf and I am invested…

Then the book lulls. There is no urgency to the problem and the story is less than engaging. Everything unfolds rather quickly, but there is no real drama or conflict. I really don’t know how to describe why it was so dull. Maybe I didn’t care, because I didn’t feel a connection to any of the characters. They felt flat and boring, no personality. It’s a lot of looking at plants and reading journals… in a room, in a carriage, together, alone. Then all of a sudden, there is love! She is literally telling herself she has to make a choice, then like a paragraph later she is begging him to kiss her, then they fall into bed together. There is absolutely no chemistry and nothing pushing this “romance” forward.

And then to make everything more boring, the entire plot gets wrapped up in a neat little bow. Although this is part of a series, it is considered a standalone. 

The only thing I really liked about this book was Luella’s mother’s encouraging and comforting words about children growing up and a parent’s role. This quote felt very personal of how I wish my own mother felt when it came to me growing up and creating my own life. “Every child must leave. Sometimes, it is to a house down the street. Other times, it is somewhere very far away. But if that child ends up where they belong, and are happy and loved… that’s all a parent wants.”

So A Deal with the Elf King isn’t bad; however, it was not what I was expecting and did not live up to all the hype. I have heard that the second book in the series is better than the first, so I might give it a shot eventually.

karrington pease 

oh this was a fast read! i love the world Elise builds. i also loved the character development we see with both eldas and luella!!!! i went into this thinking it was a series, which was my mistake. i wish the enemies to lovers theme was a bit longer in the book! overall tho very good and fun read!

Lorna Beckett

honestly didn’t love it. I stuck it out because it was short, but I felt like it was too predictable and felt a bit boringly written, but I’m too tired to explain more eloquently than that lol

Shai

Francesca G

I need to stop reading single pov slow burns because if this wasn't either of those things I probably would've enjoyed it a lot more

Melanie

It was a decent slow burn romance. It was just okay. It's very sweet and not salacious! The only thing that jarred me about the story was that the "love" aspect seemingly came out of nowhere. The MMC went from a could care less attitude to wanting the FMC safe like within a blink of an eye. That aspect kind of took me out of it but I did finish the book. 

If you are a romance reader that likes a more subtle romance that isn't filled with overwhelming amounts of spice than this would be a great book for you. This story was intriguing enough for me to continue on with this series to see what else this world has to offer.

thea lockburn 

** spoiler alert **
           definitely a good read 😊😊

HOWEVER i only started liking it after around 20 chapters. The first 20 was kind of boring but it wasn't too bad 😳😳

Overall, it's a really good light read 👑👑

Jenna H

Aishling

** spoiler alert **
           [Review: 29th December 2020]

2.5/5 ⭐️ 

The start of this book felt like I was reading an early 00’s wattpad fic, so much so that I thought I’d dnf it. Now this might seem like I hate wattpad which is untrue since one of my favourite stories is from there, but it just had that kinda amateurish feel to it in parts. Especially with the magic system and Luella meeting Hook, they just felt too convenient in the way you’d imagine a child playing magic games creates a power for themselves when it seems like they might be loosing. 

Child one: “I have water magic and you have fire magic so I win”
Child two: “Well actually my fire magic has special water repealing effects which means you can’t beat me and actual I win”

Ya get me? I know I might sound a bit harsh but that’s the feel I got from it. For example with the “knowing” and “being”, it felt like they were added in just for Eldas to be able to control Luella for a moment, and then the “being” is added for Luella to be able to get out of it, and then it’s all never mentioned again. 

The main reason I kept reading was because I have an incessant need to know things, and I wanted to know how the story would go. 

The story itself picked up after a bit but I skipped a lot of pages, only briefly glancing over them to see if they had any interesting moments. There was maybe one section in the book that I felt was really good and I wanted to keep reading, but the rest was just average. 

I was surprised to find out this was the same author as Air Awakens, since I’ve had that on my tbr list for ages, and honestly I thought this might’ve been one of their first books. I’ll still be keeping Air Awakens on my tbr list and hopefully I’ll enjoy it more than this.

Bibi

I enjoyed this book more than the other books in this series the ending was great it also had some humor which was great but I will say that I didn't really connect to any of the characters they were mostly bland

dija

I LOVED THIS SKSKSSKSKJSHDHD

Buddy read with Nicole!!!

Beatriz Aguiar

2.5

it was a fine book. i'm not obcessed, I didn't fall in love with the main characters. in fact, the parts i liked the most were far in between. 
i had a huge issue of getting into the story with this one: i don't think the characters were very well fleshed out, the conflict was confusing and as a result all the drama in the book felt pointless because i didn't care.

now, that said, it was still an enjoyable read. there's a turn page quality to the book and i really did like the high tension scenes and Luella's herbology.

 
  BOOKOPLATHON #2
 - read a spicy book

Courtney

3.5 stars. This was a good romantic fantasy. I will say the last maybe 30% was the best part of the entire novel. I wanted more from this and parts were slow and essentially boring. The instalove after only a few meets when it was supposed to be hate to love/enemie to lovers, just didn’t do it for me. Luella changed her feelings for the Elf King so quickly it gave me whiplash. 

The world build was well written and interesting. I enjoyed the different species of fantastical creatures and look forward to the next in the series.

Jantien 

Even though I love different genres, I will always come back to fantasy and it never disappoints. This book is a slow burn in a magical world, and it’s honestly just amazing. Can’t wait to read the rest of this series set in the same world.

Annabella

indy roozendal

1.5/5 stars for A Deal with the Elf King.

When I first heard of this book I was quite literally vibrating with excitement. As someone who loves fantasy and reading about magic and whatnot, this book sounded like it fit right into my street. A human destined to marry an Elf King? Sold. 

What a fool I was for thinking so. Considering it took me nearly two months to finish this book, it is a surprise I managed to finish it at all. The only reason it got 1.5 stars instead of 1 is because the main character wasn't that bad. She had a sharp tongue and knew how to bite back. I liked that.

It's also the only part I  did  like. The romance was lacking and the fact that she deadass screamed "I love you King Eldas" at the end, I got second hand embarrassment from it. If it weren't one of the last few pages I would have thrown the book out of the window.

Eldas, the mighty Elf King who forced her to marry him and apparently had no respect for anyone below his status (which, by the way, is everyone) was introduced as a first class asshole. Obviously he switched up quickly, considering there were about 300 pages and we only met him what felt like 100 (but was probably 30) pages in. Because how else was the "perfect" Nuella supposed to fall in love with him in such a short amount of time?

Eventually they kissed and kissed and kissed and then when Nuella asked if he loved her, he blanked out. Now you know, that's fine. He did experience no affection after all and to be fair they had only known each other a short time. Next to that she was a mere human, although his queen, and he was the mighty and powerful king with apparently extroadinary powers of which we saw none. Of course he wouldn't know what to say.

But when he asked HER like a day after, she quite literally said that it wasn't that simple.
It was quite hilarious to read but like- what the fuck?

Anyways, to clear the plot up Nuella eventually solved the matter at hand in the most underwhelming way ever. She reunited with her parents, whom she had missed gravely, only to leave them to go back without any regret whatsoever. She gets crowned queen, all the elves suddenly love her or something, no mind half of them wanted her dead or saw her as a mere fuel point, and they lived happily ever after.

Sounds quite exciting doesn't it? Well, it wasn't. I love reading, it takes me into another world and reality and I experience the story even better than all movies. But this book was just plane boring. I debated not finishing it but I was getting so close to my goodreads goal and well.. I really wanted to write my first official rant review.

A Deal with the Elf King

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