Once a Queen; a Review

Hello, all! 🥰 How are you? 🤗

I’ve got another review for you all today. 😉 I hope you enjoy it! 🩷

✨ Once a Queen by Sarah Arthur ✨

Blurb:

An American teenager discovers that her estranged English grandmother was once a queen in another world in the debut novel from bestselling author and speaker Sarah Arthur.

When fourteen-year-old Eva Joyce unexpectedly finds herself spending the summer at the mysterious manor house of the English grandmother she's never met, troubling questions arise. Why the estrangement? What’s with the house’s employees and their guarded secrets? Why must Eva never mention trains, her father, or her favorite childhood fairy tales?

After strange things start happening in the gardens at night, Eva turns to the elderly housekeeper, gardener, and the gardener’s great-grandson, Frankie, for answers. Astonishingly, they all seem to believe the fairy tales are true--that portals to other worlds still exist, though hidden and steadily disappearing. They suspect that Eva’s grandmother was once a queen in one of those worlds.

But Eva’s grandmother denies it all. After a horrific family tragedy when she was young, her heart is closed to the beauty and pain of her past. It’s up to Eva, with Frankie’s help, to discover what really happened, whether family relationships can be restored, and if the portals are closed forever. As she unravels generational secrets, Eva wrestles with the grief of a vanishing childhood--and the fear that growing up means giving up fairy tales forever.

5✨

🌛⚔️🦌💚👑✨🪻

This one was wonderful. 🥰🥰🥰 Though it was, to be perfectly honest, a little bit slow for me personally to get into, after about half I was sucked in and devoured it. 🩷 The sheer beauty packed into it was unbelievable, and that alone almost left me in tears. 🥹🫶🏼

💕 Favorite characters 💕

Frankie 🖌️✍️

Great Aunt Bertie 🌧️🪞

Mr. Rastegar ☕️📚

CWs: Talk of rail, bike, and car accidents leading to much death. 

Have any of you read this one? 🤔 If so, I’d love to hear what youn thought! 🥰 And what have you all been reading lately? 🤗 I’d love to hear about that too! And again, if you’d like more in-depth reviews, definitely check out my friend Natalie’s wonderful blog! LINK 🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼

That’s all for now! 😉 Until next time! 🥰

—Sara Noelle