The Bibliophile's Bookshelf

Title: The Ballad of Never After

Series: Once Upon a Broken Heart #2

Author: Stephanie Garber

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance

Rating: 4.75

Review:

After Evangeline learns that Jacks betrayed her, she vows to never trust him again. She has found her own magic and can restore her happily ever herself. But when a new curse is revealed, Evangeline finds herself entering into a new deal with Jacks. But the situation has changed. There are more forces to be contended with and Jacks may be the only one she can trust.

That ending!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, it was so good! It made me hate Apollo and fall in love with Jacks even more!

This was a fun book. There was some political drama, and a lot more adventure. Jacks and Evangeline were going around to actually find the Valory Stones. There were even more curses in this book as well, which made the book even better.

I feel like these books have more of a history than the Caraval series did, if that makes sense. All of the characters have a history which adds such a depth. I loved getting to know more about Jacks history and want more of it.

It was also super interesting and fun to see Jacks and Evangeline’s growing relationship. Having seen Jacks around Tella in Caraval, the way he acts around Evangeline is very different. Honestly, I just love their whole relationship!

I absolutely loved the Hollow scenes. No spoilers but those scenes were absolutely amazing. The setting was magical and how these parts played into the story deepened the story and relationships.

There were vampires! There was one really good vampire scene, and Luc was in this book way more than the previous book. I wish there were a little bit more vampires, but the book wasn’t affected by the lack of them.

I know I didn’t talk about LaLa and Chaos much in the review for Once Upon a Broken Heart, but I do really like these characters. I think the additional information on them offered in this book helped grow my liking of them. LaLa and Chaos were still the helpful side characters. We learned some important things about their past, too.

This was a really good sequel, with a growing romance and fantastic characters. There was more magic and backstory in this book, as well. I highly recommend this wonderful romantasy series!

Quotes:

“In the morning, you can forget it. You can go back to pretending you don’t like me, and I can pretend that I don’t care. But for tonight, let me pretend you’re mine.”