Name: Fairydale
Series: Standalone
Author: Veronica Lancet
Publisher: Self-Published
Format: Immserive Reads (Audiobook & Kindle Unlimited)
Genres: Adult, Gothic, Dark, Paranormal, Fantasy, Romance
Spice Rating: Explicit & Plentiful 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Rating: (Rating has been amended to 5 stars!)
Synopsis: Goodreads
𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐲 𝐠𝐨 𝐰𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐭𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐫𝐡𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐞?
August 1955,
When Miss Darcy O’Sullivan, an orphaned English teacher from Boston, receives a letter that her biological father passed away, she is surprised to find herself included in his will.
There is only one condition.
She must travel to Fairydale to attend his funeral.
With the promise of a sizable inheritance, Darcy decides to journey to the small coastal town that holds the secrets of her birth. But the moment she steps foot into Fairydale, things start to go amiss.
Odd residents. Odd rumors. Odd…deaths.
Everything about Fairydale is odd.
Including brooding Caleb Hale—part of the infamous Hale family.
During the day, she falls deeper and deeper under his spell as he forces her to step out of her comfort zone and embrace her inner sensuality.
But at night it’s another man who haunts her dreams—Amon d’Artan, a nobleman who lived two centuries ago.
Amon is sweet and suave where Caleb is intense and dangerous, and Darcy feels more torn than ever. Soon, she finds herself embroiled in a web of lies, deceit, and inexplicable events that make her question her sanity.
When an ancient evil threatens the town and everything Darcy holds dear, she must make the ultimate choice.
But will she survive it?
Review:
Guys, I don’t even know where to start with this review. I would like to summarise in advance and say I spent a lot of this book confused – but it is purposefully confusing, so it did exactly what it was supposed to do. And ultimately, it does explain itself as the books go on and I think it did it so well.
Lancet’s writing pulled me in… eventually. Unfortunately, the first 7% I was struggling to stay interested and I was confused. It was at this point I switched to the audiobook so I could listen and play Animal Crossing. This was also a bad move. Gosh, I couldn’t win with this one!
Then I did an immersive read, I think this is the first time I’ve done a proper immersive read, and I loved it. Fairydale has a duet narration (again, my first experience with this and I loved it!) and the narrators enhanced Lancet’s writing and drew me in 100%. And I think it was necessary for me, else I may not have convinced myself to read it (it’s a rather chunky book!).
But I am so glad that I read this because for as much as it gaslit me, had me in a chokehold, messed with my emotions and had me thinking about nothing other than what the hell was going on in this book… I still loved it.
Our three timelines did feel separate to each other, but in the same breath, connected. So, as we’re going through and learning more and more about each of these FMC’s and Amon and Caleb, everything slowly starts coming together and making sense and I felt like it was done really well. When the gaslighting ended, I wasn’t disappointed with the truth of the matter, at all! Darcy was the must infuriating FMC, unfortunate given that we spend a lot of time with her, but again I forgive her because when things start making sense… things start making sense!!
The romance was intense, there is a lot of spice and it is very posessive spice, so please be aware of that if you go into it. The author did do a note at the start of the book with content warnings, so please read that. Other than that, please know that this is not a straight forward read, it is not a book to be skimmed (authors own words). It takes a bit of work, but I loved it.
Also, a very very minor spoiler about nicknames in the below…
For some reason “Lizzie mine” and “Sela mina” gave me the good kind of chills, but “Darcy darlin’” and “Lass” gave me the ick. I struggled with those. But Lizzie mine and Sela mina were just damn adorable and they made my heart soar and do little happy dances every time they were mentioned.
I love a standalone, finding them however is difficult! So, if anyone has any fantasy standalones they can recommend, that would be amazing! This has been picked up for traditional publishing, which means I can’t get a copy of the book right now for my shelf – but you better believe I will be buying the traditional copy once it is out!
“My madness recognizes yours; just like my essence recognizes yours. As individuals, we’re semi-whole. Only together do we feel finally fulfilled.”
Reading With Tyler 
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