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Book: “Crown of War and Shadow” by J.R. Ward
Publishing Info: Bramble, February 2026
Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!
Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound
Book Description: The Fulcrum is failing, and demons are slipping into the mortal world, stalking the night. No one is safe. Especially not Sorrel. An orphan and an outcast, she’s spent her whole life within the walls of her small village, ostracized for her mystical abilities. She wants to survive…and maybe find somewhere she can call her true home. But Fate has other plans.
Sorrel has been chosen. Cursed. She must cross the Badlands to return the Queen’s crown and convince the fearsome female to save their world from destruction. Well aware she’s no brave hero, Sorrel makes a dangerous deal with Merc, a brooding, commanding mercenary known only by his unscrupulous profession. The deal? A night in his bed that she will never forget, in exchange for her safe passage. But Merc has secrets of his own, and even though passion runs hot between them, enemies are around every corner, and danger and betrayal threaten at every turn.
Review: One of my fellow book club librarians is a big fan of this author, so I’ve been wanting to check out her books for a while. That said, her primary series is, uh, long. So I was excited to see she was releasing the first book in a brand new series this spring, an excellent place to jump in!
Overall, this book didn’t quite live up to my expectations. That said, I can definitely see the author’s strengths, so without having read her other books, I can’t say whether this was a diversion from quality or not. But to start, her writing is incredibly “readable” right from the start. Readers are quickly brought into this world and given enough information about it, its history, and our main character to quickly become invested in what was going on. So much so that there was one side character who, I believe, only appears in one brief scene who later brought me to tears, all in the first quarter of the book!
I also liked the broad strokes of Sorrel’s character. Unlike many romantasy heroines, she didn’t actively annoy me much of the time. That said, she also fell into a few too many silly tropes. We have her repeatedly denying her own beauty, impulsively throwing herself into dangerous situations where she is actively unskilled, and then miraculously discovering previously unknown abilities, etc., etc. You get the gist. It was all quite familiar and predictable, if still well executed overall.
I did enjoy the slow reveals of her history, even if it felt like these were too easily telegraphed at times. Naturally, it doesn’t make sense for Sorrel to put things together as quickly as the reader, but it was still frustrating to watch her stumble around for as long as she did. Part of this speaks to the pacing issues I had, however. This is a long book, and by the middle portion, I was definitely feeling it. The mysteries that had been hinted at were still only the barest brushes, even if the reader was already a mile ahead of things. And instead of making progress, the book became bogged down in tedious traveling adventures. Sure, there were action-packed scenes happening on the page, but the actual plot itself felt mired in tedium.
This was then contrasted by the breakneck speed of the romance, which jumped immediately into insta-lust on both sides. I liked the general idea of the MMC; he even had some interesting backstory that I enjoyed learning about. But the story opened with a truly ridiculous misunderstanding between these two characters and proceeded to just…go with it. The entire thing could have been cleared up so easily, and it was just such a stupid element that was thrown in as a wrench between these two understanding each other. Honestly, I rolled my eyes so many times at both of these characters.
Overall, I didn’t love this book. The author is clearly talented, and I think there are the bones of a good story to be found here. Unfortunately, this was badly in need of an editor to trim down the fat and focus the story on the plot that actually mattered. With some adjustments to pacing, both of the romance and the actual plot, this could have been a much more fun read. That said, I’d guess that this will still hit well for fans of this author, so if you’ve enjoyed her other books, this is probably for you!
Rating 7: At least a hundred pages longer than it needed to be, this book is a key example of failing to follow the mantra “sometimes you get more with less.”
Reader’s Advisory:
“Crown of War and Shadow” can be found on these Goodreads lists: Epic High Fantasy/Romance/Mythology in 2026 and 2026 Most Anticipated Romance Releases.
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