The Unlucky Fae And The Good Luck Charm (Fae On A Budget #0.5)
by Ariana Jade
My Rating: 3 stars
Genre: Cozy Fantasy Romance
Age Category: New Adult
Type of romance: f/f
Blurb:
Every fae only has one chance to prove their worth.Springtime is around the corner and that means chronically unlucky faeling Naia is preparing for her first adventure into the human realm.
To ensure she has the best chance of finding fortune, she needs to craft herself a good luck charm or disaster will follow her wherever she goes.
Together with her best friend, the irresistible Daxia, Naia does what she can to prepare for the upcoming adventure. But as always, misfortune is just around the corner. Can she escape her bad luck or will it catch up with her like it always does?
****
The Unlucky Fae And The Good Luck Charm is a prequel in the Cozy Fae Guide series. It’s a cozy fantasy series with a sapphic romance and a pinch of steam. If you love adventure and quests, quick reads, and found family, this series is for you.
My Review
I already read the companion novel set in this series and was curious to read. The companion novel The Rebellious Fae And Her Irresistible Rival follows a different couple, but is set the same world. This book The Unlucky Fae And The Good Luck Charm follows Naia who was a side character in the companion novel.
Naia is very unlucky, I thought she worked better as a side character and almost had a comic relief function in the companion novel but here it just felt a bit much. She constantly has bad luck and bad things happen to her and people don’t really interact with her a lot. I felt bad for her, but didn’t find her as interesting to read about as her being unlucky was such a big part of her character. Luckily her best friend Daxia is always there for her and isn’t scared of by Naia’s bad luck.
I liked Daxia and Naia’s close friendship and how they are there for each other. In this book it develops into something more. Some of those scenes with this developing into romance felt a bit off to me, it’s hard to put my finger on why. I did like it when they finally did establish themselves as a couple, it’s just the transition that felt a bit off to me. Then the ending was quite bittersweet, but it does make me curious what is next for them.
I struggled a bit with this book, something about it just wasn’t quite working for me. I still don’t have a very good feel for the world. There are some interesting elements like the springtime coming-of-age type event when young Fae strike out on their own and try to amass riches, but I also thought the whole focus on wealth and riches didn’t quite work for me. And something about the world building just felt kinda confusing and off to me. I just hope in future books this all starts to make more sense to me. I also am just not as interested in the world and characters and I would’ve liked.
To summarize: This is the prequel to this series and follows Naia’s point a view, a very unlucky Fae. I liked her friendship with Daxia, which turns to romance in this book. Something about this book didn’t quite work for me, I felt Naia’s unlucky personality was a bit overdone with it being such a big part of her personality and it wasn’t very interesting. I also didn’t really like the transition from friendship to romance, but I did like their friendship and when they are a couple at the end. I struggled to get a good feel for the world. There are some interesting elements, but this series hasn’t really grabbed my attention yet, I plan to give the first book a try and see how that goes.
Too bad you didn’t enjoy this one as much as the other. But it’s good if you’re going to give one more book in the series a try. It does have a nice cover! Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
https://lisalovesliterature.bookblog.io/2025/12/31/arc-e-galley-review-beth-is-dead-by-katie-bernet/
It was a bit weird to have started with the companion novel first as I thought at first the series would follows those characters. I hope the next book is a good one.