Title: Fairest Hunter

Series: The Favored’s Curse #1

Author: M.K. Felix

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Retelling, Romance

Rating: 4.5 stars

Review:

A rebellious huntress. A cursed prince. A coup to change it all.

The king spreads darkness with his words, and when he asks me to kill his own son, it’s the final tipping point for me. Guess that solves the issue of how to overthrow the tyrant. We’ll put Prince Alvor on the throne. Except, the Alvor before me is not the same one I knew growing up. This Alvor, well he’s entirely too alluring. He keeps tearing my walls down, reminding me that I’m not the only one who needs to fight for this kingdom.

With one glance into Rowena’s eyes, something changed. She has magic, and the more I reconnect with her, the more I’m sure she’s the key to saving our kingdom. But time is not on our side. I need to claim the throne before my father drives our kingdom into the ground with his greed. The only problem? I’m not ready to let Rowena sacrifice herself for me or my people. Especially not after she broke my curse and rekindled the sparks in my heart.

Fairest Hunter is an incredible gender-bent Robin Hood and Snow White retelling with magic, an evil king, and rebellion!

This book was so much fun and I loved it! I can’t believe it has taken me this long to read this book. This story is right up my alley and has everything I love in a book.

The characters were amazing! I loved Rowena so much. She was a wonderful character, and I loved the different sides of her. She was a very dynamic character, which I enjoyed. She was a court lady, a huntress, and a leader to a band of rebels. She was very kind and caring, and I loved how much she wanted to protect those around her.

I liked Alvor, as well. He had an interesting storyline, and I loved how the author wrote him breaking away from his curse. I loved this storyline, and him realizing what his people needed from him and the struggles they had been facing. He also had to deal with the reality that his father was not a great person, which lead to some emotional scenes.

The romance between Alvor and Rowena was adorable, though a little rushed. They were childhood friends, which is one of my favorite tropes, but I don’t think enough time was spent on exploring them as friends before we jumped into a relationship. I still really enjoyed their relationship, and they are absolutely adorable together, but a little more time on the base of their romance could have made it even better.

The magic was wonderful! I love a strong magical system, and this world has one. This is the first book in the series, so you can tell that things are still being set up, but it is wonderful. I love the lore behind the magic, and the way the magic manifests is really cool.

I have been seeing more and more Robin Hood retellings but haven’t read many of them. I really enjoyed the combined Robin Hood and Snow White retelling. It was well done, and I love how the author melded the different elements together. I also love how the roles were reversed! The Merry Men were really interesting, and I loved the unique characters, especially Marius!

Lady Marian and William were wonderful side characters! I loved their parts in the story and cannot wait to see more of them in the next book!

One of my favorite aspects of this book was the forgiveness present. There was some blame happening to people where it wasn’t deserved, but the characters were quick to realize this and forgive each other. I loved that there wasn’t anger or miscommunication over this!

Fairest Hunter is a wonderful Snow White and Robin Hood retelling with magic, romance, and rebellion!

Quotes:

“‘Rowena de Frossard, I love you. I will not abandon you in the hour when you save my people. Our people. I will guard your back with my sword. I will be there in the shadows, waiting to steady you when you waver. Nothing will keep me away from standing beside you in the light or in the dark.’”