ARC Review: "The Curse of the Fallen" by Abbey Fox (The Wicked Kingdom #3) ★★★

ARC Review: The Curse of the Fallen by Abbey Fox

The final book of The Wicked Kingdom trilogy is here, its title named after protagonist half-fae-half-human Arkimedes’ ability to remove fragments of people's souls (more his powers than a literal curse, unlike Book 1’s Curse of the Crow wherein he was cursed to become a crow every night).

“I’ve been yours from the moment I first laid eyes on you. Since before I understood who you were to me.”

[Contains some spoilers]

PLOT SUMMARY
In the world of Caztian, after Nava, Arkimedes and Devon’s escape from the Copper Kingdom in the 2nd Book, they venture to a safe home in a secret location accessed via a fountain gateway. From there, they seek answers in the house's archive (library) to consult a scrying mirror that can answer questions.

Eventually, they discover that the shadowy figure that looks like Arkimedes (and previously attacked Nava in Book 2) is the emissary of the Shadow God and, furthermore, responsible for the Zorren (demons) attacking the Beekeepers (keeper of life), which is what Nava is. Beekeepers have powers such as using nature particularly vines, transforming into pollen, dust and leaves, can read the energy from plants and glowing skin. To defeat him, they must find a magical artifact. The plot thickens with the mystery of Arkimedes’ mother, Queen Briar: who killed her and why?

This is a past-tense dual POV from the perspectives of Nava and Arkimedes (going under the alias Orion as that is his name as a prince). One chapter the Epilogue is from the POV of Devon.

OVERALL OPINIONS
Having never read the first two books (I know, I really should have read the first one, at least), I was surprised to find it was written in such a way I understood the events that had happened previously. This is done through Abbey's narrative reminding the reader of said events. It reminded me of that of Sarah J. Maas' ACOTAR books.

Indeed, better yet, Abbey provides a very useful synopsis of the previous books at the beginning of this one. I haven’t seen this since Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Always grateful for summaries and reminders of events.

Overall, the book had good vibes, at times amusing banter, and I loved the bond between Nava and Arkimedes. It wrapped up the story rather well, although the Epilogue gives the sense that we might see them again very soon? I hope so I'd love to see more of Devon at least.

<< Positives >>
🠚 I loved the layout. For one, having a bird feather as a section division was creative. For another, I always appreciate a map so getting several in the beginning was great. The world-building was good, any questions I had were answered there.
🠚 Kudos to Abbey for including names with meanings that make a lot of sense for the characters. This is very clever. Nava means “beauty”, Arkimedes means “master thinker/planner”, Devon means ”black”, Oberon means “royal bear” and the Corvus (the more elite form of the Crow Society) means "raven".
🠚 The style of writing was good. The spicy scenes were mild and there were a lot of detective vibes and I enjoyed the mystery elements. Added some good suspense.
🠚 I liked that in this book, all three of them get injured quite badly at some point. Provides a realistic aspect to their otherwise plot amour characterisation.

<< Negatives >>
🠚 My main issue is that, for the length of the book, there was not a great deal going on! I felt there should have been less buildup and more action. The main showdown as someone previously mentioned is later on in the book with, say, 40 pages to go, at the most. Don’t get me wrong it was good, but things dragged on too long. This meant I couldn't ease into the story as well as I'd have liked.
🠚 While a lot of aspects were clarified there were moments when I thought a character was still there and they weren’t. One such example is when Nava and Arkimedes have gone to investigate the initial Zorren attack – I thought that Devon was still with them, when in fact he is resting up at home.
🠚 Some characters just come and go without much depth to them. Examples include Leela and Eris, Leela especially disappears about halfway through. What happens to her, for example?
🠚 Some revelations felt too predictable for this one.

CHARACTERS
Nava is very sweet and has been through a lot already. I thought Nava was going to get her memories restored, though. Arkimedes is perfect., always very protective of Nava and we love a protective man! Aristaeus through his description reminded me of Treebeard from Tolkien's world, I like him and I like that some Greek mythology was included here as Aristaeus is the God of Beekeeping.

Devon is by far my favourite! He is amusing, crafty, wicked yet clever and as described has many flaws yet in his own way, because of helping Nava and Arkimedes with ther mission, he redeems himself. Indeed, he has the best character arc in the trilogy from what I can see. I had a feeling Devon was secretly in love with Nava, uh-oh cue brothers of a kingdom fighting over a soulmate again. History sure likes to repeat itself.

FAV QUOTES
• Alarming, how fluidly he could transition to villainy.
• Imperfectly beautiful.
• He was ready to destroy them all. To make them pay for even dreaming that they could hurt her.
• Nava was a keeper of life and a magic-wielder, mate to the prince of the Dark Ones. She wouldn’t be caged again.
• “Jealousy drives those with weaker minds to madness.”
• This man she’d thought a monster for so long was suffering. He had many flaws, committed crimes that deserved no forgiveness, and yet against all odds, he was her friend.
• “I’m glad I got to fall in love with you two times.”

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I am honoured to have been selected as an ARC reader for this book, and I’d like to thank Abbey Fox for the opportunity. This has not affected my opinion in any way.

"The Curse of the Fallen" comes out April 7th