Author: Julie Hall
Overall Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice Rating: 🌶️

“To those who once dreamed of being princesses but found their strength in becoming warriors.”

ARC Disclosure: I received an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) of this book in exchange for an honest review. Receiving a complimentary copy did not influence my opinions. As always, all thoughts, reactions, fangirling, suspicious side-eyeing, and sleep-deprived ramblings are entirely my own.

My Thoughts & Opinions:

You know those books where you tell yourself you’re just going to read one more chapter because you’re a responsible adult with things to do, and then suddenly you’re several chapters deeper, your coffee has gone cold, and whatever you were supposed to be doing has officially become tomorrow’s problem? 😂🖤 Well, The Secrets of Everlight turned into one of those books for me.

Although, in my defense, Julie Hall really should accept some responsibility here because she gave me fae, magic, secrets, a royal competition, an assassination mystery, a thief pretending to be a princess, and a prince she absolutely should not be developing feelings for. At some point, Those are basically all my bookish weaknesses gathered together and weaponized against me, so really, what did anyone expect me to do?

I went into this expecting a fun fantasy romance, but what surprised me was how invested I became in everything happening around the romance. There is a mystery running underneath the story from the very beginning and a growing feeling that Everlight is hiding far more than Rowan realizes. Julie Hall doesn’t immediately hand us all the answers tied up with a pretty little bow, either. She lets those secrets unfold gradually, and every time I thought I had a decent grip on what was happening, another piece of the puzzle would fall into place. And suddenly I had a whole new set of questions.

Naturally, this meant I became suspicious of practically everyone. I don’t care if you’re a sweet old lady handing out cookies; if you are standing anywhere near an unsolved fantasy assassination attempt, I am watching you. 😂

At the center of the chaos is Rowan. A nineteen-year-old thief who grew up on the streets and has spent most of her life just trying to survive. She ends up trapped in a ten-year contract to serve a very corrupt master. She steals from the wealthy while holding onto the hope that someday she will finally earn the one thing she never had: Her freedom.

This was one of the first things that made me connect with Rowan. Because she had something she desperately wanted before Dryden ever entered the picture. Her entire existence doesn’t just suddenly begin because some handsome fae prince wanders into her life. Her freedom means everything to her because she has spent so much of her life without any control over what happened to her. With that being said, I could easily understand why she was willing to take such enormous risks.

The mysterious fae named Neo buys her contract and offers her the freedom she craves in exchange for one job. Rowan obviously listens and accepts. Unfortunately, the job is slightly more complicated than just stealing somebody’s expensive jewelry and disappearing into the night. Someone is trying to assassinate Prince Dryden of the Ember Kingdom, and whoever is responsible may be hiding among the princesses that are competing for his hand. Neo needs Rowan to go undercover as one of the princesses, figure out who wants Dryden dead, and keep him alive long enough to earn her freedom.

Basically, they throw her into a palace full of actual royalty, put her in a dress, ask her to find a murderer, and protect the prince. And they presumably hope she doesn’t accidentally fall for the man somewhere along the way. I’m sure you can imagine how beautifully and uncomplicatedly all of that goes. 😂🖤

Honestly, the entire setup was ridiculously fun for me because Rowan is both completely wrong and weirdly perfect for the job. She knows how to steal, sneak around, read dangerous situations, and get herself into places where she probably shouldn’t be. Pretending to be a princess, however, requires a slightly different résumé. I personally would have lasted eleven minutes before somebody realized I didn’t belong there, so I was already rooting for the woman.

What really made Rowan work for me, though, wasn’t simply that she is clever or capable. I liked that Julie Hall allows her to be uncertain. Rowan isn’t instantly fearless, and she doesn’t suddenly discover that she is the most powerful, smartest, and most irresistible woman in Everlight before solving everybody’s problems by lunchtime. She questions herself, gets overwhelmed, makes mistakes, and sometimes has absolutely no idea who she should trust.

There are even times when she doesn’t completely trust herself, and I appreciated that because I can relate considerably more to a heroine who occasionally has no freaking clue what she is doing than one who somehow has her entire life figured out at nineteen. I’m in my fifties and still occasionally walk into a room and forget why I went in there, so Rowan and I can give ourselves a little grace. 😂

There is plenty of toughness in Rowan, but it feels earned because so much of it comes from survival. Underneath that toughness is vulnerability and an almost automatic instinct to protect herself because relying on herself is what she knows. Watching those walls gradually shift as she begins forming relationships, trusting people, and realizing that maybe surviving isn’t quite the same thing as actually living gave her character so much more depth for me. Her confidence grows throughout the story, but she never stops feeling like Rowan, and I loved that.

Then, of course, there is Prince Dryden, which is where my questionable relationship with fictional men becomes relevant to this review. 😂🖤 Dryden could easily have been nothing more than the standard gorgeous fae prince who stands around being mysterious and attractive while Rowan does all the interesting work. I’m certainly not saying I wouldn’t have appreciated the scenery, because I’m only human, but thankfully there is more to him than that.

I really enjoyed gradually getting to know Dryden as Rowan does. There is the prince everyone sees and then there is the actual man underneath all those expectations, and I liked watching that distinction become clearer. Rowan enters his world thinking of him as just part of a job so she can finally earn her freedom. But the more time she spends around him, the harder it becomes to keep him neatly tucked inside that little box.

Their relationship also doesn’t immediately become one of those romances where two people see each other across a ballroom and, three minutes later, they are prepared to burn seven kingdoms to the ground in the name of eternal love. I enjoy an unhinged fictional man as much as the next woman, but sometimes I would actually like these people to have a conversation first. 😂 Rowan and Dryden’s connection has time to develop through attraction, curiosity, trust, emotional vulnerability, and those smaller moments where you begin realizing that two people are becoming important to one another before they are necessarily ready to admit it.

That is the kind of romance that gets me invested because I can appreciate a fictional man ripping someone’s throat out and declaring “mine” with the best of them, and my reading history has already provided plenty of evidence for the prosecution, but I still need the author to make me care about the relationship underneath all that possessiveness. Rowan and Dryden gave me something to care about, which made the romantic tension work even without a high spice level.

Of course, there is also the tiny and extremely inconvenient fact that Dryden doesn’t actually know who Rowan is. She is lying about being a princess, participating in a competition for his hand under false pretenses, and secretly investigating who is trying to kill him while simultaneously beginning to care about him. The woman had one job, and somehow feelings still managed to sneak their way into the assignment. 😂

That underlying deception is actually one of the things that made the romance more interesting for me because the more genuine their connection becomes, the heavier Rowan’s secrets feel. Rowan has legitimate reasons for keeping things from Dryden, and she also has something significant to lose by telling him the truth. I could understand why she was scared, even while part of me was sitting there knowing that this situation was eventually going to become a giant emotional mess.

I also really enjoyed the other princesses, which surprised me because I initially thought I knew exactly where that part of the story was going. A royal competition involving a handsome prince and several women could very easily have turned into endless jealousy and sabotage. Instead, the relationships had more substance than that. Rowan begins making genuine connections, and I loved seeing people who could have been reduced to romantic competition become actual characters she starts caring about.

Those relationships also make Rowan’s investigation more complicated because she enters this world knowing that somebody could be dangerous. Every person she gets closer to becomes another person she has to question and another relationship that makes the mission messier. Apparently, I like my fantasy relationships the same way I like my coffee: strong enough to interfere with my sleep. 😂

The mystery was probably one of my favorite parts of the entire book because I genuinely wanted answers that had nothing to do with whether Rowan and Dryden were going to end up together. Obviously, I wanted to know who was trying to kill Dryden because keeping the poor man alive seems fairly important, but the deeper Rowan gets into Everlight, the more it starts feeling like the assassination attempt may only be one piece of something much bigger. There are secrets surrounding this world, questions Rowan doesn’t have answers to, and little discoveries that kept changing the way I looked at things.

I love when a fantasy does that to me because I don’t want every answer handed over immediately. I want enough information to become dangerously confident in a completely ridiculous theory before the story pulls the rug out from underneath me and proves that I had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. I will probably be offended, I may accuse the author of betrayal, and I will absolutely be having a fantastic time while doing it. 😂🖤

The worldbuilding worked really well for me for the same reason. Julie Hall never made me feel as though she had sat me down on the first page and handed me 147 years of political history, twelve kingdoms, eight magical bloodlines, seventeen dead kings, and a study guide for the test on Friday. My hyperactive-squirrel brain would have packed a tiny suitcase and left the building before chapter three. Instead, the world opens gradually as Rowan experiences it, giving us magic, fae, kingdoms, royalty, politics, history, and hints that there is still much more waiting underneath the surface without overwhelming us with information.

That made me genuinely curious about Everlight instead of simply trying to remember Everlight, and there is a big difference between the two. By the time I reached the later parts of the story, I wasn’t only invested in Rowan’s immediate mission anymore. I wanted to understand this world, learn more about its magic, uncover its secrets, and figure out how all these pieces connected. Basically, Julie Hall successfully turned me into the nosy neighbor of an entire fantasy kingdom, and now I would like to know everybody’s business. 😂

Even though this was an easy five-star read for me, I did have one small issue with the pacing because the beginning takes a little while to find its footing. There are quite a few pieces being put into place early on, and initially I was waiting for everything to click. I don’t mind slower beginnings, especially in fantasy where some setup is obviously necessary, but I do think tightening those opening chapters a little could have pulled me completely into the story sooner.

Once the story found its rhythm, though, my free time was pretty much done for. Suddenly, I had places to be in Everlight, people to investigate, and a prince whose continued survival had somehow become my personal concern, so whatever was happening in my actual house could apparently wait. This is probably why nothing gets done around here. 😂🖤

Now we need to discuss the question that I know some of you are going to ask because I know my people, and frankly, I am one of my people. The spice level in this one is definitely on the low side. The relationship between Rowan and Dryden focuses much more on slow-building attraction, chemistry, trust, emotional connection, and romantic tension than explicit sexual content. Surprisingly, I didn’t miss the heavier spice at all.

I know. Who am I and what have I done with Sassy?

Don’t worry, I haven’t suddenly become wholesome. There’s no need to call for help. 😂 I love a spicy book when the spice belongs there, but I have never believed sex automatically makes a romance better. You can put two attractive characters in bed for half the book, but if I don’t care about the their story or whether they stay together afterward, then what’s the point in reading it at all. I need chaos, chemistry, tension, vulnerability, conversations, and those little moments that make me start rooting for two people before they even realize what is happening themselves. Once you give me all of that, you are more than welcome to burn the furniture later. 😂

For this particular story, the sweeter slow burn worked because Rowan and Dryden’s relationship isn’t supposed to be the only thing we’re invested in. There is an assassination mystery happening, Rowan is discovering an entirely different world, secrets are unraveling, friendships are forming, and Rowan herself is changing. The romance just adds another layer to everything happening around it instead of swallowing the entire story, and I think the book is stronger because of it.

Ultimately, The Secrets of Everlight earned its five stars from me because I became invested in the whole story rather than one particular element carrying the book. I cared about Rowan and wanted her to finally have the freedom she had spent years fighting for. I wanted to know Dryden is much more than simply the handsome fae prince. I became invested in relationships I wasn’t expecting to care about, wanted to solve the mystery, understand the magic, and dig through every secret Everlight was hiding like the completely unqualified fictional detective I had appointed myself to be.

Most importantly, when I reached the end, I wasn’t ready to leave. That is always the real test for me with the first book in a fantasy series. An author can give me beautiful prose, an elaborate magic system, gorgeous fictional men, dragons, fae, wolves, vampires, or the entire supernatural kitchen sink, but if I close that first book and don’t care what happens next, we’re done. The Secrets of Everlight left me wanting more of Rowan, more of Dryden, more of Everlight, more magic, more secrets, and definitely more answers. Apparently, I also needed more fictional people occupying valuable space inside my already overcrowded brain, so at this point I may have to start charging these people rent. 😂🖤

If you love fae fantasy, magical kingdoms, hidden identities, royal competitions, assassination mysteries, court intrigue, slow-burn romance, secrets hiding underneath secrets, low spice, genuine character growth, and a heroine who doesn’t arrive on page one already knowing exactly who she is supposed to become, I definitely think The Secrets of Everlight is worth giving a chance.

Just don’t come complaining to me when “one more chapter” turns into five and suddenly it’s 3 a.m. I am merely the book reviewer, which means Julie Hall is officially responsible for your poor life choices now. 😂🖤

Now It’s Your Turn…

Have you read The Secrets of Everlight? Now it’s your turn to leave your own thoughts and feedback on the book below. Tell us what you loved, what didn’t quite work for you, and what you would rate it. Feel free to include both your ⭐ overall rating and 🌶️ spice rating too!

All honest opinions are welcome here—whether you loved the book, landed somewhere in the middle, or it simply wasn’t for you. Your opinion doesn’t have to match mine because we all connect with books differently. The only thing I ask is that any criticism stays constructive. If something didn’t work for you, tell us why and, when you can, what might have made it stronger. You can dislike the plot, pacing, characters, or the entire book without making it personal. We’re here to talk books and help our authors grow, not tear them down or each other.
🖤 SASSY