Tournament of Losers

Title: Tournament of Losers
Author: Megan Derr
Publisher: Less Than Three Press
Release Date: February 10, 2016
Genre(s): Romance/Fantasy
Page Count: 229
Reviewed by: LenaRibka
Heat Level: 2 flames out of 5
Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Blurb:

All Rath wants is a quiet, peaceful life. Unfortunately, his father brings him too much trouble—and too many debts to pay—for that to ever be possible. When the local crime lord drags Rath out of bed and tells him he has three days to pay his father’s latest debt, Rath doesn’t know what to do. There’s no way to come up with so much money in so little time.

Then a friend poses an idea just ridiculous enough to work: enter the Tournament of Losers, where every seventy-five years, peasants compete for the chance to marry into the noble and royal houses. All competitors are given a stipend to live on for the duration of the tournament—funds enough to cover his father’s debt.

All he has to do is win the first few rounds, collect his stipend, and then it’s back to trying to live a quiet life…

Once upon a time there was a kingdom…maybe it was not much different from many other similar small kingdoms, except it had a very old tradition:

The plot:

Every seventy-five years one member of the royal and noble families must marry a peasant as reminders of arrogance and hostility that had nearly destroyed a kingdom many centuries ago.
It is how the Tournament of Charlet, commonly known as the Tournament of Losers was established. Only THOSE who could prove their suitability could marry into noble families.

Rath, our peasant hero, who indeed belongs to the lucky generation WHO could dream about this tiny possibility to marry a prince, but whose actual worries are in the first place about having something to eat and a roof over his head. And, who knows, if not his father’s debts, if he would decide to take part in the competition. Once upon a time the Tournament of Losers was his boy’s dreams, but could these dreams come true? He doesn’t plan to win, the only thing he cares about is money, but…who knows…

I LOVE IT! THIS BOOK is charming and easy and there are so many great things in the story, YES, it brought my childhood back. It is a fairy tale, but even if there is not a lot of ADULT content in it, at least not in THAT details we maybe got used while reading MMs, but honestly, I didn’t care. I don’t think that smut would have made it better. It is perfect how it is, it is a perfect it-made-me-happy-read. I LOVE EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

My final verdict:

Predictable from the very first page (I don’t care!), light as a feather (it took a heavy weight of the sad news of the last days a bit away), wonderful (I felt myself like a little girl again!), sweet (as a delicious piece of Lindt chocolate after one year chocolate’s abstinence!), ingeniously simple (do we really need to rate highly only very sophisticated books?!)…

THIS BOOK MADE ME HAPPY.
Thank you, Megan!

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