Name: Avalon Tower
Series: Fey Academy for Spies #1
Author: C.N. Crawford & Alex Rivers
Publisher: Scarlett Press
Format: eARC
Thank you to Scarlett Press & Netgalley for an ARC. This is my honest review.
Genres: Adult, Romantasy
🌶️: 🌶️🌶️
😭: No tears
Rating:
Synopsis: Goodreads
Avalon Spy Academy rules: spy on the fey, resist falling for your mentor, and try not to die in the process.
I spent five years saving up for a European vacation. But instead of drinking champagne on the beach, I get swept into a war of espionage between the humans and the fey.
It turns out, I have a magic power needed to fight an evil fey king. I’m quickly whisked off to an elite spy academy–in the hidden realm of Camelot. There, in the ancient and gothic halls of Avalon Tower, snobbery is as much a tradition as the veneration of Merlin and Arthur.
As if I didn’t have enough trouble, my new mentor is Raphael Launcelot, a maddingly sexy demi-fey who already ruined my life once. Now, I have to push his distracting allure out of my mind to focus on our mission. We’re going into the Fey realm together. If we get captured, we’ll die horrific deaths–and humanity doesn’t stand a chance.
Review:
Firstly, a big thank you to Scarlett Press and Netgalley for the early copy of Avalon Tower in the form of an eARC. This is my honest review.
Avalon Tower is being traditionally published by Scarlett Press – so you may have already read it! I however, had not! And just in case anything was changed from the Indie version to the Trad version, I wanted to hold off and wait to read the Trad version. Now, unfortunately this review is coming out after the book has released despite me reading it before release, but that does mean you can already get your hands on it!
Now, this is a FANTASY FREAKING SPY novel!! This premise immediately hooked me! Then you add on top of that the Arthurian legend inspiration and I was sure we had a reciepe for success here. And I stand by that, becuase this was excellent. I need more fantasy spy books, and I will definitely be continuing this series! I have high hopes for it, so let’s talk about it a bit.
Nia is our FMC, a human who finds herself assisting some Demi-Fey and getting herself noticed by the rebellion of this world. As a result, she’s thrown further into a situation she didn’t ask for in order to help fight back against the evil Fey King.
She finds herself at a spy school, learning to help use magic she didn’t realise she had. The best part? She makes friends – and the ones she befriends, Tana, Serana and Darius (though I’m pretty partial to Darius, I love him!) were excellent characters too. Tana freaks me out a little, but you’ll probably understand why when you meet her…
I liked the romance, though I didn’t love it. But if I had to explain why, I think it’s easily done: we meet a dark, cruel, terrifying Prince who is clearly the bad guy and yet my heart pulls his way… No, nothing suggests he is on the table as a romantic interest, and yet. I’ve read enough fantasy that I can trick myself into believing he is an option!
The pacing for Avalon Tower starts off slow, it’s a bit tricky to get into because of it and it did slow down again towards the end – though I argue I was stubbornly reading this when I knew I was tired so it’s possibly my fault that it was feeling slow… But the stakes were just so high that I couldn’t put it down. So I can’t really fault it for that. I’m absolutely looking forward to the sequel becuase the mic drop at the end of the book… ohhhh boy I think it’s going to be epic.
I don’t know if there was a bonus chapter in the Indie version, but there was in the Trad version and I loved this!! The inclusion of this gives us a bit of an insight into a character we barely know and I won’t lie, it has me so excited for more of them!
So yes, it’s a 4 star, but I really think that this series has the potential to be a 5 star series! I think it’s 3 books in total, so a trilogy, but I could be wrong on that front! Either way, I’m looking forward to picking up the sequel.
“I’m scared of failing—but I’m also scared of succeeding.”
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