Wildest Dreams by Kristen Ashley

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The first book I picked up for the Black FaRoFriday Readthon was Wildest Dreams by Kristen Ashley. This is the first book in her Fantasyland series. The series has been on my radar for a little bit, but when Smart Women Read Romance did an episode on the 2nd book The Golden Dynasty, I moved it up my fantasy tbr. This counted for the prompts New to You Author, Epic Fantasy, Witches, Post a Cover Pic & Tag FaRoFeb and Been on TBR Awhile. 

Seoafin, aka Finnie, is an adventure junkie. Her parents were the same and after they passed when she was 15 in a plane crash, she's followed in their footsteps. When she learns about an alternate universe with twins to our reality, she pays a witch to contact her twin and facilitate swapping bodies for a year. What Finnie doesn't realize is that her twin hasn't been as forthcoming as herself and when she gets teleported to the new world things are not as expected. Her parents are alive in this world, but don't seem to like her very much. Oh, and she's on the way to her wedding with Frey, "The Dragon." When she's abandoned in a hunting cabin, Finnie makes the best of things as usual and works about making the best of her adventure. When Frey comes back and picks up more clues that Finnie is not his actual betrothed, they start to connect and he doesn't want to let her go. Finnie is his fated Ice Bride and together they may be the keys to bringing certain changes to the world.

Now, to start off I can see how a lot of people can and would have issues with Frey. Is he a little domineering and overreaching about some things? Yes, most definitely. I can forgive those though because not only is it talked about between the two characters, but Finnie herself also deals with being in this separate world. Yes I do wish that she wasn't quite as accepting of some of the things, but I also understood her reasoning why. Not only is she the type of person that "rolls with the punches" and just moves on whatever the situation, but she also doesn't want to draw even more attention that she isn't who she looks like.

I did wish that Frey let on earlier about knowing that she wasn't the original Seoafin, but I also loved how he partly felt guilty about keeping it from her but also he loved seeing her mistakes and how she would cover them up. I just could see from the first moment that Frey comes back how taken he was with Finnie. He was constantly calling her love and his wildest dream and he was so swoony to me. Yes he was barbaric at times and maybe a little over the top alpha, but I really enjoyed this. I considered dropping it down to 4-stars for that and it just felt a little long, but even though this took me a while to read (due to reading it during the week and over Thanksgiving), I was completely swept away. This book had me laughing and tearing up. There were quite a few times where I could hardly keep my eyes open at night but I had to know what was next.

I can't wait to read more in the series and am so intrigued. I've seen that a lot of people's favorite of the series is the second book Golden Dynasty, so I'm preparing myself. Hopefully it meets the hype. I might not get to it as quickly as I want, but I'm thinking it'd be a good option to read come February if I haven't gotten to it yet. We also get a couple of hints on who future books might be about (hero wise) and I'm intrigued to see how the world will grow and evolve.

Have you read Wildest Dreams?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Wildest Dreams, Kristen Ashley, 5-stars, 4 days, eBook, 494 pages, published in 2011