Book Review – Fantastical (Fantasyland #3) by Kristen Ashley

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4.5 stars!!

What a fantastically fun ride!!

In a world full of curses, talking animals, soul-mates, castles, princes, and evil witches, Kristen Ashley once again weaves a story that kept me riveted to the book, laughing, swooning, squeeing, fanning myself and giving me happy shivers! I don’t know how she does it, but every book she writes just makes my heart oh-so-happy! <3

Cora wakes up in a parallel universe fantasyland. Literally. Complete with singing and dancing and tra la la la la. And only moments later, the world around her decends into a living nightmare and she’s being carted off to safety by a hot Alpha guy on a big horse who takes her to her cave, insults her and blames her for causing all this madness. Needless to say, she has questions.

“Do you have to have the last word?” I snapped.
“Yes,” he returned.
“Jerk,” I gritted out.
“Cow,” he returned.
Oh my God! He just called me a cow!
“I hate you,” I spat.
“That feeling, my love, is mutual,” he returned.“

Its turns out the Cora of our world is a screaming bitch (her words, not mine) and the hot guy, Tor, is a bit of a lovable jerk. The jerk part though is quite understandable given that it takes him a long time to actually believe that she is in fact a ‘different’ Cora because he really strongly dislikes the Cora he knows…. but the more time they spend together, despite their differences, they can’t help but start to fall for each other.

“Gods, I wish this was real,” he muttered.“

I found this to be a much lighter read than the previous book in the series – in fact, it was almost reminiscent of the first book in terms of its tone. There was great banter, and despite the evil baddies with their evil minions out to create misery, the whole feel of the book is quite light. Its also a fair bit shorter than the previous two so between that and the tone of it, the story moved along quickly, the pages flew by and I was able to finish it in one sitting.

And we are treated to a cool twist in this one where the Hero and heroine actually are in OUR world for half the book! And because of this fun twist, we get to meet Tor’s “alternate version” : Noc. Who is set up quite strongly for his own book! Seriously, that man commands the swoon. Cannot WAIT for his book!

But I thought it was such an awesome turn around to see Tor navigating out world. I loved it!! Freaking loved it!!! Meeting the parents, figuring out the TV remote, learning to drive, the whole shebang 🙂

I loved both Tor and Cora. They were a great match. Met each other head-to-head with their banter, and yet when they finally sorted out their issues, their love just melted my heart! <3

“…Tor murmured, “Only you.”

I got shivers, had a misty eyed moment or two, fanned myself a lot, read with a smile on my face and pretty much just all out enjoyed myself.

“Quiet,” he repeated with a growl, “I’m about to fuck my wife and the only words I want her saying when I do it are ‘yes’, ‘Tor’, ‘my prince, ‘baby’ and ‘oh my God’. Am I understood?“

I did find there were a few “omg-he-did-NOT-just-SAY-that” moments (one in particular that really stood out) but I found myself quite able to forgive it. I mean, yeah, it was a real horrible thing to say… but, I could see how there could have been a different way to take it, plus the fact that he did make me believe he was sorry afterwards so it didn’t detract from the story for me. Especially since only a few pages after the incident he was saying all sorts of heart-melting things so all in all, it was impossible to stay mad at him.

It was essentially a fun fairy tale – complete with hot guys, princesses and evil witches but written with that KA brilliance that makes you take it totally seriously. And, of course, it was all wrapped up with a gorgeous HEA and epilogue with a shiver-educing reunion with ALL the couples from the previous books as well as a little part that nicely set up the next book.

Kristen Ashley is seriously a writing machine of amazingness! May she never ever stop churning out these wonderful freaking books!!