Book Review: Woven by Gold

You are my mate,” I say. “Submit to me. Let me claim you as mine. And in return, I will show you our love has always been inevitable

This is the first BookTok special of the year. Last year was full of them and some were good, and others were… questionable. But so far, the ‘Beats of the Briars’ series is actually good fun. Our Heroine Rosalina finds herself in the ‘Vale’ a magical realm where four princes are cursed to become beasts every night whilst the treacherous Prince of Thorns drains their magic. She needs them to find their 'mates’ to break the prince’s curse and free their magic. Essentially a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, but spicy ;)

As this is book 2 we lift off with Rosalina back in the human world trying to fight off an abusive ex all the while longing to be back in the Vale. I mean, she does – but I’ll let you find out how – if you’re not familiar with the series, I highly recommend you find out. As I have mentioned, this is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, but a lot more complex. In this book, we see the growth of certain characters, particularly the Autumn Prince who is indecisive, shy and lacking courage. As this book focuses on the Autumn Realm, we see why the Autumn Prince was cursed by the Enchantress and watch him come full circle and ultimately break his curse.

Now I love a good fairy-tale and I think anyone raised on Disney princesses cannot help but love them. The problem with Disney is that it looks at fairy tales with rose-coloured glasses, if you read the original Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson tales – they are a lot darker and, arguably, more fun. My point is the authors Elizabeth Helen do a good job of reminding us what fairy tales are: dark, dangerous, and magical, but characters go through a lot of trauma. Rosalina for example has an abusive, gaslighting ex-boyfriend/fiancé who doesn’t like the word ‘no’ it is a classic Fairy Tale trope - Hansel and Gretel escaped an abusive stepmother and a wicked witch (cannibalism) before finding their happy ending, so trauma is not uncommon. I did think that a lot of the action in this book happened rather quickly – I know from social media that this is book 2 of 7. Some of it seemed a little too easy? Some of the battles came and went too quickly, there wasn’t enough build-up to the war or to Autumn breaking his curse. I wonder where the next 5 books will go afterwards? There are the other realms: Summer, Spring and Winter – so what could possibly happen next? I guess I’ll have to be patient.

That being said, there are still 5 more books to go in this series – so Rosalina’s ‘happily-ever-after’ has still to come. this book isn’t just a simple cut-and-run ‘Romantasy’ (I think that’s what it’s called on BookTok) it is a fairy tale. A very long fairy-tale mind you. I look forward to reading the rest of the series, the only thing I lament is that parts do lean into predictability. I love a good twist and, I hope that the next few books throw me a few along the way. Woven by Gold however was a good follow-up to ‘Bonded by Thorns’.