Fantastical by Kristen Ashley

Fantastical (Fantasyland, #3)

by Kristen Ashley

Cora Goode has woken up in a fairytale world where she can understand what birds are saying to her, men ride horses and have fluffy feathers in their hats and furniture zigs, zags and whirls in miracles of construction.

The problem is, she thinks she’s in a dream but she’s actually taken the place of the parallel universe Cora and without realizing it, our Cora does something that starts a centuries old curse that will sweep the land if she gets captured by the evil Minerva.

At this point, her dream world becomes a nightmare.

Luckily, hot guy, fantasyland Noctorno is there to save her from the clutches of the grotesque vickrants sent by Minerva to capture her. Unfortunately, hot guy, fantasyland Noctorno doesn’t like the Cora of his world all that much (to say the least) and he thinks our Cora is her. And no matter what our Cora says or does to try to convince him, he won’t be convinced.

But Cora needs Tor to keep her safe and guide her through this fantastical world as she hopes one day to wake up in her not-so-great apartment in her not-so-great life in her world. The problem is, the more time she spends with the gorgeous warrior Tor, the faster she falls in love with him.

Reviewed by nitzan_schwarz on

4 of 5 stars

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I did a re-read of the first 75% of the book on Oct 20, 2018. I'm not going to mark it as another read because I didn't finish (mostly because of my mood. I've been jumping between books for the past few weeks. Can't seem to land on anything that sticks). Anyways, I am struck, once again, with how much I shouldn't like this. It has SO many things I typically hate with a passion, and yet somehow, this ridiculous creation stands against it. I wish I could explain it!


YOU CAN ALSO FIND THIS REVIEW ON MY BLOG

The Fantasyland series is such a huge guilty pleasure for me. It's the type of series I shouldn't love, and yet I do. I acknowledge all that is wrong with these books (and there is plenty), but at the same time I just don't give a damn. It's been so long since that has happened.

And I can honestly say, without a shadow a doubt, that Fantastical is my favorite out of the four books published in it so far.

This book was simply so much fun!

Books one & two (and four, but that's getting ahead of myself), featured some very questionable decisions the heroes did. Decisions I can't excuse no matter how much the books try to make me do so, and that had me questioning my own sanity for loving the heroes despite them. In Fantastical, I encountered no such moral dilemma, leaving me to simply love the hero in peace. Hurrah!

And love the hero I did. Tor is just so much fun, and even if he's slightly hard headed about believing Cora, you can't deny how well he takes care of her, and how sweet he can be to her... even if he's as hard core alpha male as all the heroes in this series.

Cora is my favorite heroine in this series so far. All the heroines in Fantasyland are eerily similar, both in their mannerism and their speech pattern, but this is again just one of this things these books made me not give a damn about. That said, I found Cora to be the most fun of them all -- and the most individualistic in her voice. She is diligent, she is hard working, but she is still vulnerable. That scene after they reach Tor's castle, where she breaks down because every one hates Original!Cora... totally broke my heart.

And together? Holly canolly, hot as hell. Not only were sparks flying, but they were starting fire wherever they landed. And, once again... they were just so much fun!

Not to mention, we finally got to see more of our world! It was interesting to see the Fantasyland characters move about our world, although they did so with super perfection it was slightly jarring. Oh well, just another one to my list of things I don't give a damn about when it comes to these books lol

And can we talk about the fact things are finally starting to come together?

And finally, the one thing I do give a damn about and I just want to thank the gods because Ashley finally took the pedal off those horrendously tedious and page consuming descriptions! I had to suffer through massive amounts of descriptions in books one and two, and this was the one thing I couldn't shake off. But here, they're finally more appropriately dashed out! Banzai!


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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 18 June, 2016: Finished reading
  • 18 June, 2016: Reviewed