Blog Tour: “My Boyfriend Merlin” by Priya Ardis – Review + Giveaway

Welcome to my stop of the My Merlin series blog tour! This is ONE AWESOME TOUR, guys. It’s not just about one book, it’s about the series. Some of the stops have reviews of one book of the series or ALL OF THEM. Others have excerpts, top tens or other fun stuff. Oh yeah, and giveaways. Can’t forget that. Basically, you need to check out what’s all going on HERE.

Now let’s get this started! Meet author Priya Ardis!

 Priya Ardis loves books of all kinds—but especially the gooey ones that make your nose leak and let your latte go cold. She started her first book at sixteen, writing in notebooks on long train rides during a hot summer vacation in India. Her favorite Arthurian piece is the poem The Lady of Shalott by Lord Alfred Tennyson. A hopeless romantic, she’s a longtime member of the Romance Writer’s of America. When not living in her characters’ world, she might be found at the local coffee shop—her nose buried in a book.

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My Boyfriend Merlin (My Merlin #1) by Priya Ardis

Goodreads | Amazon

He was a little older than he was letting on. By a few eons…

In this modern day Arthurian, 17 year-old Boston high schooler Arriane, aka Ryan, DuLac just found out the guy she’s been crushing on, hot biker Matt, is a little older than he was letting on. In fact, he is really Merlin—the Merlin, King Arthur’s Merlin, the greatest wizard who ever lived. Frozen in a cave for over fifteen hundred years, he’s woken for a purpose. But Ryan’s not impressed. Tired of being a relationship loser, she’d rather kick his legendary behind.    

Sure, the world has been crazy ever since the sword and the stone fell out of the sky like a meteor. But despite gruesome gargoyles, a deadly new world of magic, and the guy driving her crazy, Ryan knows that family is everything. Will Merlin sacrifice hers to save the world? Will she be able to stop him?

3 1/2 stars

Now, I’m going to be honest. The blurb above is not the one I read originally when I decided to read My Boyfriend Merlin. This one isn’t better or worse, but the one I read seemed to encompass more of the things that were a big drive in this book. I originally wrote this review while staring at the other blurb with the different set of information, but trustme when I say nothing I’m going to outright discuss is that big of a surprise.

Okay, I’ll be frank–I didn’t come at this book with exceedingly high expectations. I mean, right from the get go, it’s clear: there’s a love triangle coming. I understand it’s the big thing now to tout these kinds of things, but come on. Really? For me, it’s not a selling point. But the blurb promised me Merlin, and for that I’m willing to test out someone else’s probably trite love triangle.

Despite promising us “my boyfriend Merlin,” Ryan and Merlin/Matt actually begin the book broken up and stay that way. They just totally aren’t over each other. There is, of course, a cosmic reason they can’t be together and blah blah blah. BUT WAIT.

THE PLOT DECIDES TO PUT THE ROMANCE IN SECOND PLACE FOR A WHILE.

Nothing ever makes me so happy as this. Once we get past Ryan going “Oh Matt, I miss you!” all of the sudden there are gargoyles everywhere and magic battles and Ardis holds zero punches. By the way, this is the first three chapters I’m talking about. The book certainly takes off like a rocket and promises you a wild ride.

After that intial action, though, it slows down again. Ryan gets whisked off to Hogwar– Avalon High School to learn how to defeat magic and weild a sword. (She’s no wizard, though. But you can find out WHAT she is if you read the book.) This, of course, results in some high school drama. However, I was fairly impressed on how minimal all that is.

Of course, that’s probably because all the drama emphasis is on the love triangle. Once again, I had a large problem with it. It’s bad enough that it’s between Merlin and his brother. It’s worse that Vane is clearly a not so nice guy. What’s even WORSE is that Ryan really doesn’t like him in the beginning and he gives her NO reason to like him and then all the sudden they’re friends. Her change in tune is ridicusouly unwarranted and out of character, but makes the love triangle viable. No, people, no.

That said, though, the second half of the book was really impressive. The action kicks back up again, and the love triangle is mostly forgotten under EVERYBODY SAVE THE WORLD. In the rush of action, there were a few MAJOR things that were introduced and then not dealt with at all, which was annoying, but I let is slide because honestly I didn’t want to deal with them then either. BEHEAD THE GARGOYLES!

The ending was a little interesting, though I mostly guessed it. It still leaves our characters in a VERY interesting place for book 2 to take off from, and I look forward to seeing how this all progresses. Despite my problem with the love triangle, I really like Ryan as a character enough to swallow my hatred for love triangle and keep on keeping on with the series. (The amount of action doesn’t hurt.)

Check out the other two books in the series here! My Merlin Awakening | Ever My Merlin

GIVEAWAY TIME!

This giveaway is INTERNATIONAL! There will be TWO WINNERS! These two lucky entrants will win either Books 1 & 2 in paperback form (US) or Books 1 & 2 in ebook form (INTL). That’s right, TWO winners will win TWO books! Enough jabbering! If you want to enter, click HERE.

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