[Review] Wolves & Roses by Christina Bauer

Series: Fairy Tales of the Magicorum #1

Release Date: 31 October, 2017

Publisher: Monster House Books

Genre: Young Adult/Epic Fantasy/Family/Fairy Tale Retellings

ISBN: 9781101885932

Edition: ARC Ebook
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Review Written: 18 September, 2017
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Bryar Rose has a problem. She’s descended from one of the three magical races—shifters, fairies, or witches. That makes her one of the Magicorum, and Magicorum always follow a fairy tale life template. In Bryar’s case, that template should be Sleeping Beauty.

“Should” being the key word.

Trouble is, Bryar is nowhere near the sleeping beauty life template. Not even close. She doesn’t like birds or woodland creatures. She can’t sing. And she certainly can’t stand Prince Philpot, the so-called “His Highness of Hedge Funds” that her aunties want her to marry. Even worse, Bryar’s having recurring dreams of a bad boy hottie and is obsessed with finding papyri from ancient Egypt. What’s up with that?

All Bryar wants is to attend a regular high school with normal humans and forget all about shifters, fairies, witches, and the curse that Colonel Mallory the Magnificent placed on her. And she might be able to do just that–if only she can just keep her head down until her eighteenth birthday when the spell that’s ruined her life goes buh-bye.

But that plan gets turned upside down when Bryar Rose meets Knox, the bad boy who’s literally from her dreams. Knox is a powerful werewolf, and his presence in her life changes everything, and not just because he makes her knees turn into Jell-O. If Bryar can’t figure out who—or what—she really is, it might cost both her and Knox their lives… as well as jeopardize the very nature of magic itself.

See more at Monster House Books's website.

This book was received as an ARC from Xpresso Book Tours and the Author in exchange for an honest review.

Honestly I really, really wanted to love this book. I tried my hardest not to roll my eyes every time Bryar did something cringe-worthy or tried to insist she didn’t like Knox. Especially when the premise of the book had sounded rather interesting.

Bryar Rose is supposed to be following the standard fairy tale template for Sleeping Beauty. That means enchanted sleep, talking to birds and woodland creatures, singing to attract them, and falling madly in love with her prince, Philpot (His Highness of Hedge Funds). Yet, she’s the complete and total opposite of all those things. To make it worse she’s been homeschooled so she’s incredibly naive unless you count time spent with her best friend Elle (short for Cinderella of course) from her Group therapy. The group therapy run by Denarii who aren’t all that bad, at least according to her aunts. For someone who longs to be normal, Bryar has a lot of trouble socializing with people, and her only seemingly redeemable skill is that she’s become a master hacker since she’s homeschooled on a computer.

Thing is, she’s been dreaming about Ancient Egypt. Something she’s definitely not supposed to be doing. And when she decides to break into the LeCharm offices (something she and Elle have done countless times now) solo, she ends up meeting Knox. Knox just happens to be the guardian of Were-animal magic while his friend Alex is the guardian of witch and wizard magic. Conveniently Knox’s inner animal realizes that Bryar is definitely part something since he’s determined they’re going to be mates. Things just keep getting worse for Bryar as she heads out of town to Elle’s cabin in the woods to work on deciphering the “Book of Magic” deal that supposedly holds the key for returning magic to the world.

It just so happens that while out at the cabin, her group therapy leader, comes to call with the intention of murder. It doesn’t quite happen, thanks to Knox, but Bryar’s world is fractured and everything just starts to go to hell in a handbasket quickly afterwards.In the end, Bryar manages to survive being kidnapped and almost forcibly turned into a Denarii by Philpot who turns out to be Julius Caesar (yes, that Julius Caesar) who has somehow survived and stayed youthful by eating the internal organs of Magicorum. Knox manages to show up and challenges Jules (as he likes to be called) to a fight, almost dies and basically unleashes Bryar Rose from her curse of sleeping (which was placed on her to keep her inner wolf from waking up).

Basically, the story started off with a really lovely idea, but quickly dissolved into a mess of character tropes. Bryar who wasn’t perfect beforehand realizes somehow she’s a mixture of all 3 magics. Knox is the tough bad guy with a shadowed past and a hero complex. Elle is a compulsive liar and Alex is perfect. Overall, I have to give this book a rating of 2 stars, because I just felt so disappointed to find the books good premise killed by the number tropes and ideas shoved into one novel.