Huh. The world hadn’t ended overnight. That was a bonus.

So This is Ever After by F.T. Lukens

My Review

“The prophecy doesn’t mention true love’s kiss or long hair or guessing names.”

“You pulled it out just to tell us that?” Lila crossed her arms and quirked an eyebrow.

Matt’s lips twisted into a frown. “I’m making a point.”

“Is the point that you’re pedantic?” Bethany asked, fake smile plastered on her face despite looking a little green around the gills. “Because we’re aware.”

“You have vomit in your hair,” Matt shot back, stuffing the scroll into his pack.

Out of the three F.T. Lukens novels I’ve read so far, I think So This is Ever After is my favorite. (When I read Otherwordly hopefully soon, I’m thinking of doing a tier list.) It’s got my favorite tropes of theirs – sassy humor and protagonists, found family, and a reasonably well-developed romance.

I liked Arek. I also think he’s the best of all of the Lukens’ leads I’ve read (so far). He’s kind and a teeny bit sassy, and he has no idea what the heck he’s doing. I also liked that he could hold his own, as opposed to Tal from In Deeper Waters, who frequently annoyed me with some of his whining and incompetence (even though he did get better by the end of the book). But he was also more engaging of a main character to follow than Rook from Spell Bound, who was kind of boring to follow the perspective of.

Matt, following the trend of deuteragonists in these books, was the more interesting character. Yep. Just like Sun and Athlen. I’ve always liked wizard characters though, and I wasn’t more interested in what was going on with him than Arek. Which was a first for me regarding Lukens’ MCs.

The rest of the party was also great. I loved their dynamic with one another, they all had a good rapport, and it was easy to tell from the dialogue how much they all cared about each other. I also really liked how they riffed on D&D party dynamics: there was a paladin (Arek), a mage (Matt), a bard (Bethany), a fighter (Sionna), a tank (Rion), and a rogue (Lila).

My only real problems with So This is Ever After are a couple of smaller things. The first: the stupid communication problems. Just, like, talk to each other? Please?! But this is a YA novel, and seventeen year olds are notoriously bad at communicating IRL, so it made sense and honestly didn’t bother me that much.

My other issue was the pacing. I like a good ol’ fast-paced novel, but parts of this book were almost too fast-paced. Like, it was pretty much action, action, action, with little time relegated to giving the characters moments to breathe and develop. Again, this wasn’t too big a problem for me, but it still irritated me somewhat. Other than these things, I didn’t really have any problems with this book.

So yeah, I totally recommend this book, especially to fans of F.T. Lukens’ other works. If you haven’t read this one yet, definitely pick it up. I also recommend So This is Ever After to people who like medium to fast paced YA fantasy novels with a sense of humor. Also, the LGBTQIA+ rep is pretty good, so if you’re into books with that, what are you waiting for?

But yeah, as always, thanks so much to everyone who continues to read my blog posts. I always appreciate it, and I hope you all have a fantastic day/night!

See ya ~Mar

My Favorite Quotes

I’d been envisioning what it would be like to behead the Vile One since the old wizard had shown up at my door the day after I turned seventeen and told me my destiny- that I would be the person who ended the dark shadow of evil that ruled our realm. Well, okay, not that specific second because who believes a drunken stranger with a crooked hat carrying around a humming staff? No one. That’s who. At least, you shouldn’t. That’s unsafe.

“Yes, um, well, give me a moment.” I pitched my voice low. “What do we do?”

“Opening the door seems like an appropriate action,” Rion said, completely seriously. “It is time for breakfast.”

It took every ounce of my limited restraint not to roll my eyes. Rion’s earnestness didn’t deserve my ire. “Yes. But what if he’s here to kill us?”

“You,” Bethany said brightly. She had her harp clutched in one hand, the other on her hip cocked jauntily to the side. “If he’s here to kill anyone, it’s you. Not us.”

I did roll my eyes at that. “Thanks, oh so helpful.”

“There are thousands of prophecies in the world,” he said. “Not all of them are true. This one happened to be. I’m marking it down in my records.”

“Wait, what?” Matt asked again, his voice a screech. “You keep data?”

Though I echoed Matt’s outrage, I felt like he missed the bigger issue. “Do you mean to tell us there was a chance we could’ve failed?”

I’d never felt more betrayed in my life. The one bedrock of this whole journey was the prophecy, and it could’ve been wrong? My entire world tilted. “We could have died? What the fuck?”

“You didn’t,” the wizard offered helpfully. “This prophetess has a ninety- five percent accuracy rating. It’s quite astonishing.”

“Barthly?” Matt asked, his tone mirroring my own incredulity. “The evil wizard who used dark magic, usurped the throne, and kept our realm in shadow for forty years was named Barthly?” He flailed his hands. “Barthly!”

Harlow squinted. “He did not prefer to use his name.”

“Well, would you? If your name was Barthly?”

“But you continued to work here. Why didn’t you find another job? Somewhere else? Like in the village we stormed through?”

Harlow wrinkled his nose. “Find another job? That pays well? In this economy?”

“You were literally hanging out of a window this morning, trying to escape,” I said.

She shrugged. “The situation has changed.”

“How?”

“We had breakfast.”

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