Review: Custards & Crowns by Laura Greenwood

Custards & Crowns (Falhaven Castle #2)
by Laura Greenwood

My Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Cozy Fantasy Romance
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: m/f

Blurb:
Love is in the air for Princess Evie, but is she brave enough to face it?

Now that her best friend has returned to Falhaven Castle, Evie wants nothing more than to spend all her time in the kitchen. But royal duties don’t stop just because she wants them to, and with her older sister sick, it’s up to Evie to take up her position.

With her feelings for Nate growing with each passing day, Evie knows it’s only a matter of time before she ends up revealing them to him, but she’s terrified that she’ll end up heartbroken if he tells her that he doesn’t feel the same. As more time passes, she realises that some things are better said out loud.

Can she confess her feelings before things take an awkward turn?

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Custards & Crowns is book two in the Falhaven Castle series, a cozy fantasy with a baking dragon, a princess who wants to be in the kitchen over the throne room, and the baker who wants to be there with her. There is a slow-burn friends-to-lovers romance, with a pinch of steam in later books, and an ace heroine.

My Review

I received a free copy from the author and voluntarily reviewed it.

I really like this series so far and was so excited to read this one. This is such a fun cozy fantasy romance series with a food theme and I really like it so far. In Custards & Crowns Evie has realized she’s in love with Nate, her best friend with whom she loves to bake. After the events in the first book Nate is now returning to Falhaven for good and I was excited to see what this would mean for their relationship.

Custards & Crowns has Evie dealing with her newly discovered feelings and debating what to do with those as well as if and how she wants to tell Nate about her feelings. I feel like this could be frustrating with how the book progressed and there were times I wished Evie would just tell Nate already, but mostly I thought it felt quite relatable and realistic how it all progressed. These two are just so sweet together and I enjoyed seeing more of them together. There are so many fun scenes with them baking together and talking. I also liked how they go out and spend time together outside of the kitchen in this book, which was fun to see. I like how understanding Nate is and the way they can talk about almost everything. There is a fun scene at the end, but then the actual ending took some of the shine off it as I felt so bad for Evie. I really look forward to the next book and see how these developments all play out in the next one.

I really like Evie as a main character, she’s so relatable with her sensory sensitivities and struggles with some of the social and political aspects she has to deal with. The scenes were she’s baking are always so fun to read and I like reading about the food she makes. I also liked seeing how she interacts with her sister Veronica and how Veronica helps her sort through some of her feelings and things she doesn’t understand. I do feel bad for her with how her mother treats her and how she doesn’t understand Evie at all and those scenes could be hard for me to hard. Evie has to take on some additional responsibilities in this one and there are some slight political plot lines going on. I like learning a bit more about this world in this one.

To summarize: I had a great time reading this one. I really like reading about Evie, she’s a great main character and I find her very relatable. This book deals with Evie’s struggles now that she knows she has feelings for Nate and isn’t sure if and how to tell him. While at times I wish she could just tell him already, I thought it did feel realistic how it all progressed. Nate and Evie are just so sweet together, I like reading about the way they bake together and how Nate understand Evie. I also like seeing Evie interact with her sister Veronica and the way Veronica helps Evie sort through her feelings and helps her understand things. There are some slight political sub plots, but mostly this is a cozy fantasy romance book with lots of baking and a strong food theme. I look forward to the next book!

Links:
– Goodreads
– Bookbub
– Amazon
– B&N
– Kobo

You can also read my review on Goodreads and Bookbub.