After finishing Fate of the Sun King by Nisha J. Tuli, I knew I had to continue with the final book in the “Artefacts of Ouranos” series, Tale of the Heart Queen as soon as possible. I did, it was my fore last book of 2024, and I therefore finished the entire series within a year. Did it live up to my expectations after that brutal cliffhanger?

About the book

Tale of the Heart Queen by Nisha J. Tuli
Series: Artefacts of Ouranos #4
Published by Forever on November 26, 2024
Pages: 656
Genres: Fantasy, New adult, Romantasy

Tale of the Heart Queen is the spellbinding conclusion to the Artefacts of Ouranos romantasy sensation, filled with enticing magic, perilous action and sizzling romance. Fans of A Court of Thorns and Roses and Serpent and the Wings of Night will be hooked! 

After Lor makes the biggest mistake of her life, she finds herself on the run from the Aurora King and decides it’s time to end this, once and for all. But when a new enemy emerges to claim her freedom, the entire fate of Ouranos comes to rest on her shoulders.

As the land continues to rebel, Lor must admit she is the key to saving the continent, whether she likes it or not. To fight for Nadir, she must lie, steal, and do whatever it takes to hunt down the remaining arks. Growing more and more desperate, she worries her actions are turning her into something she doesn’t recognize, dooming her to repeat her grandmother’s mistakes.

When the Aurora King finally comes for her, Lor ventures into the Underworld’s shadowy depths, where, once again, she finds herself at the heart of another deadly test. Only this time, she’s competing for everyone’s future, not just a crown.

The only thing Lor ever wanted was to be free, but she may soon find she was always destined for a cage.

My review

Before reading

As I already mentioned, the cliffhanger in the previous book was horribly brutal. I didn’t see that one coming and I wasn’t happy about these events to say the least. I therefore had high expectations for Tale of the Heart Queen. I was wondering how the story would unfold and how Lor would react to all of this. Meanwhile, she still has to reclaim what belongs to her and there we still hurdles to overcome, battles to be fought. I expected this final book in the series to be tense and action-packed, but with a satisfying conclusion. I am glad to say that most of my expectations have been met, but unfortunately it didn’t fully live up to my anticipation.

Characters

Whereas I really liked the characters and their growth in the previous books, I wasn’t really fond of them here. It felt to me that the character development came to a standstill. Don’t get me wrong, these characters still are likeable, but less so than before. This is not really strange, because this book was all about tying all loose ends together. We still follow multiple POVs, with of course Lor, Nadir and Gabriel getting the main focus. Lor and Nadir were the main characters yet again, but they felt quite repetitive this time around. I find it a pity we don’t get to see more about our side characters, I would have enjoyed to see more about Willow and Tristan for instance. I still have the feeling that we don’t know them that well. Apart from this, the characters have been written well again.

Writing

Just like the previous books, the writing is accessible and easy to follow. However, I wasn’t sucked into this story as I was before. I’m not sure if this has to do with the execution of plot and characters, or with the timing. I was quite tired as I usually am around the holidays. Furthermore, this book is long and also feels this way. The POV switching and necessary flashbacks are logical and clearly indicated, which I really enjoyed. These are a nice addition to the plot, especially the flashbacks. The POV switching is necessary too, but I can’t go into detail about this because of spoilers.

Plot

As I already indicated, the book feels very long to me and the characters quite repetitive. I wasn’t really intrigued by all the events. Even though the atmosphere is pretty tense, I just couldn’t get fully sucked into it. This didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy my reading experience, but I expected to get more out of it than I did right now. This book contains much more spice and whereas this is logical because of the bond between Lor and Nadir, it takes away from the character development. The previous books all deal with trauma and healing, this book is more about reclaiming Heart. It’s heavily plot driven and less character riven. Not bad, absolutely not. Only different from what I expected.

Final thoughts

Even though I enjoyed my time spent with Tale of the Heart Queen by Nisha J. Tuli, I didn’t find it a satisfying conclusion to the series. The character growth felt like had come t a standstill, which I don’t particularly enjoy. The plot was much less tense to me, and I think the amount of spice was partially to blame for that. It’s logical but takes away from the character development. I wasn’t sucked into this book as I’d hoped to be and therefore it feels pretty long to me. I won’t say I had a bad reading time, but this is a meticulous 4 stars instead of a fully convinced 4 stars.