I Blew Through the Forgotten Kingdoms Series This Week (Send Help)

Okay. So. I said I was slowly easing into my fall reading… that lasted approximately four days until I went all-in with the Forgotten Kingdoms series and, much like a black hole consuming a dying star, did not stop until I finished.

In case you’ve not heard of it, this is the premise: a bunch of standalone romantasy books, one each by different authors, with a different heroine, same world, different territories/ lands, different love story, loosely connected in the shape of a shelf, but just enough that you can technically read them in any order, but I didn’t because apparently I’m not able to have that kind of self-control and read things out of order when I have the opportunity not to.

And, of course, before I even opened a page, I bought the special edition box set from Kickstarter, beautiful and probably far too much for the number of books I haven’t even read yet. I am not sensible when it comes to lovely books. I saw the cover art, I saw the sprayed edges, it all looked like a witchy fever dream in a row on a bookshelf and my brain just went “yes, that one of course” before I read a single review. Not an ounce of regret.

It begins with a bunch of women abducted from a Vegas casino and dragged through The Veil into the unfamiliar world of Terrea; by the time each book has finished, the characters are exploring eight different magical courts, dragon kingdoms, mage battles, whatever. Fated mates, forced proximity, a kingdom at stake... All the tropes I apparently love way more than I would like to admit, just bent eight different ways by eight different writers.

Map of Terrea grabbed from GK De Rosa.

And that honestly was the part that hooked me. I approached it for the premise, and I came out with a list of new authors I will now be reading everything by.

L.J. Andrews was one of the authors who contributed to this shared universe, which, if you’re familiar with SSA at all, was a little bit emotional for me given the active licensing agreement... Now I have more Nordic-inspired merch to make!

But I also came away with a couple of authors I genuinely never would have looked at before this.

That’s really the fun of a multi-author anthology, isn’t it?

It’s like a buffet that still leaves you full.

I’m not going to lie and say I loved each book equally, because I didn’t; a few were the “drop everything” kind, and a couple were more of a “S’okay” kind. But overall? Read it cover to cover. Immediately looked at my bookshelves, wondering what to read next.

Just tell me you’ve read this series. Tell me who your favorite author was out of all of them. Please tell me I’m not the only one to have lost an entire week to this.

Under the same stars,
Alexis