The Curse of the Goddess: The Queen and the Heiress, Book 1

The Curse of the Goddess: The Queen and Heiress by C.C. Gonzalez is hands down an amazing book filled with sapphic romance, mystery, and multiple unexpected plot twists. Valda, princess of the Sky Kingdom, is a stong warrior woman, who has been told she will meet her mate on her 25th birthday and instead is faced with the most devastating challenge, blindness. Maris is an orphan from the Sea Kingdom who has faced her own challenges growing up and wants answers to her suffering. Both come together with Maris helping Valda recover and adjust to her blindness. Their relationship grows and unfolds in a funny, frustrating, and sexy way. Valda is smug about her appearance and effect on women, while Mira is attracted to her but reluctant to admit her feelings. Watching the relationship unfold between the two was beautiful and also agonizing as well. There are some unexpected and expected plot twists that occur including a huge cliff hanger at the end. Overall, this is a must read book and I for one cannot wait for the second book.

I have had trouble finding a romance book I enjoy for a long time, and this is finally one of them. I read through this in a fairly short burst over about two days. The plot was enjoyable, even if it was not the most original thing ever (I felt it was probably meant to be easily digestible,) and the characterization I felt was strong for the most part. It being romantasy, I was however put off a few times by elements that felt way too modern, but I did not feel these were unforgivable shortcomings. It has some editing errors. Most often this was a paragraph not being intended, a sentence missing a period. Occasionally a word was simply wrong (scarab.) I have some misgivings about the ending. However, I'd recommend the book in spite of its imperfections. SPOILERS BELOW. I rated this 4* instead of 5* because of the ending. Around 70% of the way through the book, I identified that it was spending too much time building up and that the ending wouldn't resolve in a way that felt satisfying. The reality was worse. I had a strong sense that Gonzales really wanted the dramatic scenes as it played out with the reveal of Maris' investigation, and I did not feel this was earned at all. Maris has an outrageous reaction to this information that seemed to throw all of her character development up to that point in the trash. It even hits as far as to utilize a time where Maris all but explicitly states that Valda murdered her father and not Arwin, which had me yelling "YES HE DID."…