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Ace of Queens #1
Queen Material
"My heart is in your hands...do with it as you please."
Rye Alden counted herself lucky for not inheriting the werewolf genes from her mother. She was content with her ordinary life and her human father. But when tragedy strikes and her father is killed in a car accident, Rye discovers just how deeply her faith has been intertwined with the werewolf world.
King Xavier has waited 200 years for his mate, but now that she is finally here, she wants nothing to do with him. How will he ensure her safety and crown her queen?
Rye Alden counted herself lucky for not inheriting the werewolf genes from her mother. She was content with her ordinary life and her human father. But when tragedy strikes and her father is killed in a car accident, Rye discovers just how deeply her faith has been intertwined with the werewolf world.
King Xavier has waited 200 years for his mate, but now that she is finally here, she wants nothing to do with him. How will he ensure her safety and crown her queen?
- GenresWerewolves
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 10, 2022
Absolutely terrible, and beyond all over the place. This was actually like six books that didn't know how to have a cohesive narrative, themes, or characters. Honestly, I have no idea how to explain why this book was so bad without explaining every bad thing that happened, so here's the book:
It's got the first 100 or so pages, which are about various things: Rye (the protagonist) not wanting to have a soulmate but finding one anyway, Rye being kidnapped by her mother and sent to a boarding school where nothing happens, Rye being wooed by Xavier (her soulmate, also the werewolf king), and Rye feeling conflicted due to the way she watched her parents' mated relationship deteriorate and her mother's infidelity. This would've been okay as its own narrative or the interwoven half of a related narrative, but that's not what happened.
My favorite bit of the entire book was where the author introduces a school friend named Lexi, who invites Rye to a party. Then neither Lexi nor the party she wanted Rye to go to are ever mentioned ever again. Did Marcy Swales think this was going to be a magic boarding school book and just forget to keep going with it? I was bewildered.
The rest of the book is a different type of hot mess (or maybe several types). On the one hand, we have Xavier going off to solve a series of murders, which are solved really quickly! Huzzah! But then he confronts the murderer, who is a witch that he wronged hundreds(?) of years ago. So, with her dying breath, she casts a curse that compels Xavier to kill Rye. But don't worry! It's somehow both a non-issue for most of the book and the only persistent problem throughout the entire book? Like, this whole time Xavier, Rye, and their entourage are trying to stop this curse that really doesn't seem to be affecting them at all. Xavier explains that if they spend too much time together or are too intimate with each other, the curse will cause him to snap and kill her, but they still spend a lot of time together and they have plenty of intimate moments. I'm convinced that if they'd just pretended it'd never happened, they'd've been fine.
Xavier's next course of action in the prolonged narrative of combatting the extremely ineffective curse is to cast a spell upon the whole village to erase their memory of Rye and to remove her scent so that no one knows who she is. He has to do this to make Rye unidentifiable because other witches were trying to cast hexes on her, but they need to know what she looks like to do this. So, you know, obviously, he doesn't tell her that he does this, and she's very confused as to why no one knows who she is. I know it's like romance-writing 101 to have the overprotective male lead take safety precautions behind the heroine's back which cause drama when they're revealed, but this was pretty flimsy as far as miscommunication tropes go.
Then Kit/Exton shows up.
Let me explain: Kit (AKA Exton) is Rye and Xavier's son, but from another timeline, who came to visit Rye (because she's dead in his timeline and he never got to know her). I think it was supposed to be a twist, but it was really obvious from the moment Kit was introduced. This is very bad news for the writing (or maybe the story?) because, if you'll allow me to explain, when my first instinct is to assume the newly introduced character is actually a family member from the future, when there's no precedent for time travel in the book so far, nor have the main characters had unprotected sex, then something's gone terribly wrong). That was a whole thing.
Next, there's a werewolf-y couples' festival, and Rye is heartbroken the whole time because, to reiterate, Xavier mindwiped the whole village to not know who she is (meaning Xavier and Rye can't be seen together, except for when they're not following this rule, which is all the time). It finally felt like we were building to a romantic climax for them during this part of the story: there's a couples' festival, poorly-plotted angst, the clash between royal responsibilities and personal desires, and lots of puppy eyes from across the room. But at the end of the festival, when we're supposed to have them finally solidifying their relationship with each other and committing, the author, instead, gives us a synopsis of all the lovey-dovey shit that I might've actually enjoyed reading. It was something along the lines of "Rye and Xavier became mates, then got married, then Rye had her coronation." The climax was supposed to happen here, I'm sure of it, but instead of getting to feel the strong emotions of the romance coming to a peak, we were given a couple of sparse sentences that pushed the main romance plotline into essentially a footnote.
In case you thought that the book was going to be near its finale, now that the romance had unfolded, you'd be very wrong. The whole curse problem remains (not that it was a problem during the romantic synopsis, huh?), and Kit/Exton is all grown up and dealing with his own timeline's problems. I'm not usually a cliffhanger-person, but I think I would've respected a cliffhanger around this point. It's really about time to throw the towel in on the story and come to peace with the idea that time spent poorly is a sunk cost? Cutting the narrative off at this point would've made whatever the rest of this story is supposed to be a more engaging narrative, since it would've maybe cut the plotline into more distinct pieces rather than the odd amalgamation that they become. Alas, we continue.
There's a mermaid king and there are pixies thrown in, and their whole narrative purpose, as far as I can surmise, is to give us infodumps about the curse and explain to Rye and Xavier how to finally solve it. Essentially they need to let the curse run its course and then resurrect Rye. This, of course, seems like the nuclear option. It's actually at this point that I recall that at the start of the book, somewhere around when the curse was first cast, it was mentioned by one of the resident magic-experts that one way to break the curse would be to have another witch lift it. This seems like it would've been an easy option, but instead, for the past two/three-hundred pages, Rye and Xavier have been experimenting with magic clay and iron gloves to try to remove the curse. And now that they've exhausted that well of creativity, they're ready to jump to their last resort, never having tried Plan A. So the main problem with the last resort is that it requires Exton/Kit to find a witch who can resurrect people, but it has to happen before Exton/Kit finds his soulmate. This kind of seems like it'll be a bunch of waiting around, which is 100% true and very boring.
I'm a big girl; I can handle an infodump just fine (it's lazy writing, but I can deal). What I can't handle is when the author meant to infodump on something, maybe somewhere along the line decided to weave the information gracefully into the narrative, forgot to write in the information at all, and then references backstory and characters that were never introduced. I'll explain what I'm talking about, I promise. In the last hundred pages of the book, the characters start talking about someone named Lafayette and someone else named Truman, who I infer from the bare minimum of context must have been important figures in the recent witch's history. But really, I can't begin to describe how jarring it is to read about Exton/Kit threatening to turn a young woman over to Lafayette because of the revenge(?) Lafayette wants on Truman's descendants(?), when Truman and Lafayette were not previously mentioned in the book. It's a mess.
The young woman being threatened? A witch (Gemma) who happens to be Kit/Exton's mate and who can bring dead things back to life. And he has to convince her in the last fifty pages to participate in the breaking-of-the-curse. I fully applaud the author for not trying to fit Kit/Exton's and Gemma's entire romantic arc into the last fifty pages, because based on my experience reading this book, that's exactly what I would've expected her to do. But Exton turned into a womanizing d*ck somewhere around page 475 for no reason whatsoever, and so the last bit of the book was mostly spent having him be a d*ck towards the witch, which was kind of just annoying to read. When writing an enemies-to-lovers arc (which I assume will be a main element in the second installment, which I will not read), it's important to balance kindness with cruelty and to make the attraction between the characters seem realistic, so that it can be a foundation for growing respect and appreciation. Instead, Exton hurled brutish insults at Gemma for about fifty pages straight. Ick.
If it seems like my review was all over the place, it's because this book was all over the place. I'm not sure what story Marcy Swales wanted to write, but it seemed like she wanted to write several and didn't know how to bring them together. Lots of plotlines were abandoned (Murder mystery? Werewolf school? Parental affair? Toby and Eli's forbidden doomed romance? Repairing the relationship between the merfolk and werewolf kingdoms? Or the witch and werewolf kingdoms? The title alludes to a becoming-royalty plotline that didn't really happen. Even the main romance was abandoned), lots of side characters were given an excessive amount of backstory that made them seem like they'd be more important to the narrative, the main character was supposed to be strong and rebellious (I think) but came across as whiny and wishy-washy, and the book frequently contradicted itself.
If this sounds like the kind of book you'd like to read, I applaud your bravery and self-sacrifice. I did not enjoy it.
It's got the first 100 or so pages, which are about various things: Rye (the protagonist) not wanting to have a soulmate but finding one anyway, Rye being kidnapped by her mother and sent to a boarding school where nothing happens, Rye being wooed by Xavier (her soulmate, also the werewolf king), and Rye feeling conflicted due to the way she watched her parents' mated relationship deteriorate and her mother's infidelity. This would've been okay as its own narrative or the interwoven half of a related narrative, but that's not what happened.
My favorite bit of the entire book was where the author introduces a school friend named Lexi, who invites Rye to a party. Then neither Lexi nor the party she wanted Rye to go to are ever mentioned ever again. Did Marcy Swales think this was going to be a magic boarding school book and just forget to keep going with it? I was bewildered.
The rest of the book is a different type of hot mess (or maybe several types). On the one hand, we have Xavier going off to solve a series of murders, which are solved really quickly! Huzzah! But then he confronts the murderer, who is a witch that he wronged hundreds(?) of years ago. So, with her dying breath, she casts a curse that compels Xavier to kill Rye. But don't worry! It's somehow both a non-issue for most of the book and the only persistent problem throughout the entire book? Like, this whole time Xavier, Rye, and their entourage are trying to stop this curse that really doesn't seem to be affecting them at all. Xavier explains that if they spend too much time together or are too intimate with each other, the curse will cause him to snap and kill her, but they still spend a lot of time together and they have plenty of intimate moments. I'm convinced that if they'd just pretended it'd never happened, they'd've been fine.
Xavier's next course of action in the prolonged narrative of combatting the extremely ineffective curse is to cast a spell upon the whole village to erase their memory of Rye and to remove her scent so that no one knows who she is. He has to do this to make Rye unidentifiable because other witches were trying to cast hexes on her, but they need to know what she looks like to do this. So, you know, obviously, he doesn't tell her that he does this, and she's very confused as to why no one knows who she is. I know it's like romance-writing 101 to have the overprotective male lead take safety precautions behind the heroine's back which cause drama when they're revealed, but this was pretty flimsy as far as miscommunication tropes go.
Then Kit/Exton shows up.
Let me explain: Kit (AKA Exton) is Rye and Xavier's son, but from another timeline, who came to visit Rye (because she's dead in his timeline and he never got to know her). I think it was supposed to be a twist, but it was really obvious from the moment Kit was introduced. This is very bad news for the writing (or maybe the story?) because, if you'll allow me to explain, when my first instinct is to assume the newly introduced character is actually a family member from the future, when there's no precedent for time travel in the book so far, nor have the main characters had unprotected sex, then something's gone terribly wrong). That was a whole thing.
Next, there's a werewolf-y couples' festival, and Rye is heartbroken the whole time because, to reiterate, Xavier mindwiped the whole village to not know who she is (meaning Xavier and Rye can't be seen together, except for when they're not following this rule, which is all the time). It finally felt like we were building to a romantic climax for them during this part of the story: there's a couples' festival, poorly-plotted angst, the clash between royal responsibilities and personal desires, and lots of puppy eyes from across the room. But at the end of the festival, when we're supposed to have them finally solidifying their relationship with each other and committing, the author, instead, gives us a synopsis of all the lovey-dovey shit that I might've actually enjoyed reading. It was something along the lines of "Rye and Xavier became mates, then got married, then Rye had her coronation." The climax was supposed to happen here, I'm sure of it, but instead of getting to feel the strong emotions of the romance coming to a peak, we were given a couple of sparse sentences that pushed the main romance plotline into essentially a footnote.
In case you thought that the book was going to be near its finale, now that the romance had unfolded, you'd be very wrong. The whole curse problem remains (not that it was a problem during the romantic synopsis, huh?), and Kit/Exton is all grown up and dealing with his own timeline's problems. I'm not usually a cliffhanger-person, but I think I would've respected a cliffhanger around this point. It's really about time to throw the towel in on the story and come to peace with the idea that time spent poorly is a sunk cost? Cutting the narrative off at this point would've made whatever the rest of this story is supposed to be a more engaging narrative, since it would've maybe cut the plotline into more distinct pieces rather than the odd amalgamation that they become. Alas, we continue.
There's a mermaid king and there are pixies thrown in, and their whole narrative purpose, as far as I can surmise, is to give us infodumps about the curse and explain to Rye and Xavier how to finally solve it. Essentially they need to let the curse run its course and then resurrect Rye. This, of course, seems like the nuclear option. It's actually at this point that I recall that at the start of the book, somewhere around when the curse was first cast, it was mentioned by one of the resident magic-experts that one way to break the curse would be to have another witch lift it. This seems like it would've been an easy option, but instead, for the past two/three-hundred pages, Rye and Xavier have been experimenting with magic clay and iron gloves to try to remove the curse. And now that they've exhausted that well of creativity, they're ready to jump to their last resort, never having tried Plan A. So the main problem with the last resort is that it requires Exton/Kit to find a witch who can resurrect people, but it has to happen before Exton/Kit finds his soulmate. This kind of seems like it'll be a bunch of waiting around, which is 100% true and very boring.
I'm a big girl; I can handle an infodump just fine (it's lazy writing, but I can deal). What I can't handle is when the author meant to infodump on something, maybe somewhere along the line decided to weave the information gracefully into the narrative, forgot to write in the information at all, and then references backstory and characters that were never introduced. I'll explain what I'm talking about, I promise. In the last hundred pages of the book, the characters start talking about someone named Lafayette and someone else named Truman, who I infer from the bare minimum of context must have been important figures in the recent witch's history. But really, I can't begin to describe how jarring it is to read about Exton/Kit threatening to turn a young woman over to Lafayette because of the revenge(?) Lafayette wants on Truman's descendants(?), when Truman and Lafayette were not previously mentioned in the book. It's a mess.
The young woman being threatened? A witch (Gemma) who happens to be Kit/Exton's mate and who can bring dead things back to life. And he has to convince her in the last fifty pages to participate in the breaking-of-the-curse. I fully applaud the author for not trying to fit Kit/Exton's and Gemma's entire romantic arc into the last fifty pages, because based on my experience reading this book, that's exactly what I would've expected her to do. But Exton turned into a womanizing d*ck somewhere around page 475 for no reason whatsoever, and so the last bit of the book was mostly spent having him be a d*ck towards the witch, which was kind of just annoying to read. When writing an enemies-to-lovers arc (which I assume will be a main element in the second installment, which I will not read), it's important to balance kindness with cruelty and to make the attraction between the characters seem realistic, so that it can be a foundation for growing respect and appreciation. Instead, Exton hurled brutish insults at Gemma for about fifty pages straight. Ick.
If it seems like my review was all over the place, it's because this book was all over the place. I'm not sure what story Marcy Swales wanted to write, but it seemed like she wanted to write several and didn't know how to bring them together. Lots of plotlines were abandoned (Murder mystery? Werewolf school? Parental affair? Toby and Eli's forbidden doomed romance? Repairing the relationship between the merfolk and werewolf kingdoms? Or the witch and werewolf kingdoms? The title alludes to a becoming-royalty plotline that didn't really happen. Even the main romance was abandoned), lots of side characters were given an excessive amount of backstory that made them seem like they'd be more important to the narrative, the main character was supposed to be strong and rebellious (I think) but came across as whiny and wishy-washy, and the book frequently contradicted itself.
If this sounds like the kind of book you'd like to read, I applaud your bravery and self-sacrifice. I did not enjoy it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 30, 2020
The typical werewolf-mate love story. The guy waits forever for his mate, he finds his mate, the awkward female protag, who happens to be a badass (she's just suppressing her full potential badassery). It was the perfect cliche and I was going along with it (stayed up till 3 reading it) until that "plot twist". After that, I completely lost my sanity and my motivation to continue.
Another element that annoyed me was how the author tried hard to portray Rye as a headstrong character. She spent the first few chapters supporting that characteristic, but somewhere in between we lost the headstrong Rye and got stuck with the lovestruck "will-do-anything-for-mate" Rye. She completely lost her charm and I, the reader, completely lost track of why she is "Queen Material".
Since it was a Wattpad read, I won't go too much into the grammatical errors. However, the story was very difficult to follow because of the improper use of transitions and grammatical structures. This story needs a run through the mill.
Another element that annoyed me was how the author tried hard to portray Rye as a headstrong character. She spent the first few chapters supporting that characteristic, but somewhere in between we lost the headstrong Rye and got stuck with the lovestruck "will-do-anything-for-mate" Rye. She completely lost her charm and I, the reader, completely lost track of why she is "Queen Material".
Since it was a Wattpad read, I won't go too much into the grammatical errors. However, the story was very difficult to follow because of the improper use of transitions and grammatical structures. This story needs a run through the mill.
March 26, 2022
Came here from wattpad. AMAZING series. Read it 4 times now.
August 13, 2023
Rating: 4.50/5.00 —> ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is my second time rereading and let me just say, I LOVED IT!!! Everyone who loves werewolf books with a bada** FL (FOR ONCE) and an actual loving and supportive mate definitely needs to read this!!!
ngl though, their relationship isnt perfect which is exactly realistic and they both keep trying for each other which is why I love them😭✋the curse had me on my bed at 4 am praying for Rye to survive & SHE DID!!!
• HEA: ✔️
• OW/OM Drama: eh
- there is a scene where they’re both trying to make each other jealous but they don’t do anything with the other person; she just dances with her ex boyfriend and him with other girls
- he has an ex-fiancée (who doesn’t do anything with him & doesn’t even like him) but he has to be around her cuz of something to do with the curse (but don’t worry, they both don’t like each other and they don’t do anything)
• Spice: a bit ✔️
This is my second time rereading and let me just say, I LOVED IT!!! Everyone who loves werewolf books with a bada** FL (FOR ONCE) and an actual loving and supportive mate definitely needs to read this!!!
ngl though, their relationship isnt perfect which is exactly realistic and they both keep trying for each other which is why I love them😭✋the curse had me on my bed at 4 am praying for Rye to survive & SHE DID!!!
• HEA: ✔️
• OW/OM Drama: eh
- there is a scene where they’re both trying to make each other jealous but they don’t do anything with the other person; she just dances with her ex boyfriend and him with other girls
- he has an ex-fiancée (who doesn’t do anything with him & doesn’t even like him) but he has to be around her cuz of something to do with the curse (but don’t worry, they both don’t like each other and they don’t do anything)
• Spice: a bit ✔️
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 10, 2022
Can I simply just say that this book is LOVE. It's a series of books and although I have read it three times on Wattpad, I loved it so much that I bought the kindle version (since physical copy was not available in my country).
Getting back to the story, there are mermaids, pixies, witches, werewolves and whole lot of romance with just right amount of twists and climaxes that will keep you on your toes. I say go for it if you are looking for something like this.
P.s. Reading just the first book in series, you end up desiring for more, and that's why this book deserves a whole series because there the storyline is so vast with every character having their own arc. So, don't judge the book too fast and give it time.
Getting back to the story, there are mermaids, pixies, witches, werewolves and whole lot of romance with just right amount of twists and climaxes that will keep you on your toes. I say go for it if you are looking for something like this.
P.s. Reading just the first book in series, you end up desiring for more, and that's why this book deserves a whole series because there the storyline is so vast with every character having their own arc. So, don't judge the book too fast and give it time.
March 5, 2022
A book that has my heart, it is everything I need and want, the comfort it brings is like no other.
August 30, 2022
I just loved this book till the last word. But I must agree, at the end of the day it's Exton (or our Kit) who literally stole the entire show or entire book. Without him, this book would have been incomplete & meaningless.
It's true that a child completes the parents' life & Exton (throughout all his ages) is a living proof of that.
Loved this story so so so much..❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
It's true that a child completes the parents' life & Exton (throughout all his ages) is a living proof of that.
Loved this story so so so much..❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
October 2, 2022
1.5 but the .5 is just because I finished the book even if I’m not sure how. I honestly find Rye very childish & hard to like, randomly pushing a person into the pool, being very disrespectful etc.. that is NOT bad ass. and it seemed the Rye & Xavier became side characters like… ?
May 26, 2025
The Ace of Queens series has had my heart since I was 17 (now 22). I love this series so much, it is exactly what I need in my books. I read it on wattpad and now I can finally have it outside the app. There is a lot I can say about this series, all great things. Marcy Swales bless your heart for writing this, you did an amazing job. Every bad review you get is undeserved as everyone has their own cup of tea that they like. If you didn't like the book why even leave a review? To be a troll?? Ignore Ignore it all dear author. You'll always be my favourite writer on wattpad. I remember your username like the back of my hand. Cannot wait for you to finish this series completely so I can treasure it more. Amazing Amazing Job❤❤
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December 8, 2022How to read this book
May 16, 2023
I have read 15 chapters oon Wattpad but I'm new to goodreads I'm unable to open the chapters can someone plz tell me by steps how to open it
May 15, 2025
I very much enjoyed this book. Would have loved to read the rest of the series but can't seem to find them. No matter what link I try I am not able to get them.
February 21, 2022
At first it's kinda boring, but Xavier love for Rye is too cute 😭
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews