Quest Fantasy Reminiscent of Princess Bride with D&D Vibes

 

Image Copied from Goodreads

Billed as The Princess Bride meets The People We Meet of Vacation, This Will Be Fun by E. B. Asher a nom de plume for authors Bridget Morrissey, Emily Wibberley, and Austin Siegmund-Broka, also reminded me somewhat of last summer's Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves film. 

The story revolves around the three remaining heroes who saved the kingdom of Mythria, reuniting ten years later. Sadly, the group of legendary questmates, Beatrice, Elowen and Clare, split up and went their separate ways to lick their respective wounds after suffering a tragic loss in their final showdown against evildoers. The trauma of what they endured and what they lost has driven Beatrice, Elowen, and handsome rogue, Clare Grandheart to different extremes to deal with their losses. Beatrice seeks solace in marriage to a wealthy lord, while Elowen has become a recluse living in a treehouse in the Forbidden Forest. Clare has stepped up to fill the void left by the others' retreat from society to be the hero he feels the country needs as Mythria rebuilds, becoming the face of the legendary crew by making public appearances and accepting sponsorships for various sale products, much to the disgust of Beatrice and to some degree, Elowen. Now, Queen Thessia, who they saved years ago has summoned them all to attend her royal wedding. Reluctantly, they agree, but upon arriving for the festivities soon learn that the evildoers they thought they'd defeated for good have reemerged and it is up to them to once more save the kingdom. 

While I did think the novel was reminiscent of The Princess Bride in tone and humor, I also found some references to modern society with a medieval twist to be similar in nature to last summer's D & D movie. References are made to ride sharing and soap opera dramas only with medieval or medieval and magical elements. Additionally, though there is adventure and questing in This Will Be Fun, the first half of the novel deals more with the individual traumas of the characters and how they interact when they are forced to come together once again to celebrate the nuptials of their queen. It isn't until they arrive at the palace that the real quest begins. Once the adventure gets underway, I loved how it starts off as you'd expect, but then the authors have the final showdown take place in a funny and totally unexpected location. I don't want to give away too much, though. You'll have to read it for yourself to see how they change things up. 

Along with the very real struggles the characters must overcome to move forward and be the heroes Mythria needs once more, there is also plenty of spicy romance of the slow build variety. All in all, I really did enjoy this fantasy adventure. The only thing that kept it from being 5 out of 5 stars for me was the fact that it took longer than I would have liked to get to the actual quest. While I do think the authors did a good job of portraying the very real scars that can result from battle and loss with these characters, I thought they dwelt on that aspect of the story a bit longer than I'd have liked. But I sort of felt that way with Emily Henry's The People We Meet on Vacation as well, which this book has been compared to. So, as a medieval fantasy version of that, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by the slight issues with pacing I had with this tale. But if you love romantasy quests in the same vein as William Goldstein's The Princess Bride, or even Travis Baldree's more recent cozy romantasy Legends and Lattes series, you will thoroughly enjoy This Will Be Fun by E. B. Asher. It is set to come out this September and I was very pleased and grateful to both NetGalley and Avon Books for giving me a free eARC of the book to read in exchange for this honest review. 

Stay tuned in a couple of weeks as I review my next summer read, The Only Purple House in Town by Ann Aguirre. It is the fourth in the Fix-It Witches series. But it is the first book in the series I'll have read. This one really appealed to me with its blurb more than the previous three and I'm hoping I won't have had to read the previous books to enjoy this one. We will see. Here is an image and blurb about it copied from Goodreads. 

Iris Collins is the messy one in her family. The "chaos bunny." Her sisters are all wildly successful, while she can't balance her budget for a single month. It's no wonder she's in debt to her roommates. When she unexpectedly inherits a house from her great aunt, her plan to turn it into a B&B fails—as most of her plans do. She winds up renting rooms like a Victorian spinster, collecting other lost souls...and not all of them are "human."

Eli Reese grew up as the nerdy outcast in school, but he got rich designing apps. Now he's successful by any standards. But he's never had the same luck in finding a real community or people who understand him. Over the years, he's never forgotten his first crush, so when he spots her at a café, he takes it as a sign. Except then he gets sucked into the Iris-verse and somehow ends up renting one of her B&B rooms. As the days pass, Eli grows enchanted by the misfit boarders staying in the house...and even more so by Iris. Could Eli have finally found a person and a place to call "home"?