Review: Once Upon a Broken Heart Series by Stephanie Garber

If you’re passionate about romance, drama, fairytales, and happily-ever-afters, this trilogy will certainly be for you. I hope this review will help you on deciding whether or not you’ll read the infamous Once Upon a Broken Heart series!

You’ll Love Once Upon a Broken Heart If You Love…

Stephanie Garber does an amazing job at rolling so many different tropes into a magical trilogy! Here are just a few tropes that the Once Upon a Broken Heart trilogy has in store for you!

Enemies to Lovers

If you love a good enemies to lovers romance, there’s no other duo that does it like Evangeline & Jacks. With a beginning of conflicting goals, and mutual distrust, you’ll slowly start to see their relationship become something more.

Slow Burn

Slow burn is one of those tropes that everybody searches for, and sometimes, not everybody is satisfied by what they find. However, I can assure you, that this trilogy embodies the slow burn trope

The Chosen One

Many fantasy novels have this trope, and this one is no exception. Yet, Stephanie Garber is able to give this common trope a fresh new twist.

Fairytale-Inspired

I know that I love a good fairytale, especially books that draw their inspiration from fairytales. The Once Upon a Broken Heart Trilogy is very fairy-tale like. The castles and magical forests, plus the princes and princesses that are included add a certain “je ne sais quoi” to the book. Evangeline, the protagonist, even seems like she stepped right out of a Grimm’s fairytale.

Once Upon a Broken Heart Trilogy Review

Overall, I can’t believe I’m done with this trilogy. It’s the first trilogy of 2025, and I am so glad it is. It’s bittersweet for me to be writing this review knowing that I will never be able to read A Curse for True Love, and all the other books in this trilogy for the first time. I will miss Evangeline and Jacks. All three books were truly magical, and Stephanie Garber is able to execute the premise of all the books with perfection. 

The Books of the Once Upon a Broken Heart Series

Once Upon a Broken Heart

Unlike Garber’s first trilogy, the Caraval trilogy, there is only one point of view throughout the series. The first book of the trilogy, Once Upon a Broken Heart, kicks off this series. It centers around the female protagonist, Evangeline Fox, and her quest to finally find her happily ever after after an unfortunate ending to her previous first love. However, in an attempt to find her true love, she meets the fascinating Prince of Hearts. Through this meeting, her happily ever after seems to become further and further out of reach. 

This was an amazing start to the trilogy. It beautifully captured Evangeline’s essence and immerses readers in the icy setting of the Magnificent North. The book introduces the plot and characters well. It even ends on a nail-biting cliffhanger that will leave readers wanting to read the second book.

The Ballad of Never After: The Devastatingly Beautiful Second Book

The second book in the Once Upon a Broken Heart trilogy, The Ballad of Never After, has to be my favorite book in the trilogy, and definitely one of my favorite books of all time. In this book, Evangeline and Jacks continue to work together to achieve a common goal, but along the way friendships and relationships blossom, plot twists are twisty, and the ending will leave you in tears (I know I was). If I woke up one day with amnesia and asked which book I would read, this one would definitely be one of the top contenders.

A Curse for True Love: The Finish!

:The third and final book, A Curse for True Love, is an epic ending to this beautiful trilogy. The book aims to tie up all plot lines, and once and for all, determine the fate of Evangeline and Jacks’s relationship. There will be trials that are presented in this book, and it’s up to Evangeline as to whether or not she can overcome them. In my opinion, this book did feel a little drawn out, and I think that it could’ve been executed a little bit better. I think that out of the three books, this one is a little bit weaker than the other two, nevertheless, this does not take away from the fact that this was still a a good ending to the series.

Relationships, Characters, and Writing!

What I loved most about the Once Upon a Broken Heart series is the relationships between the characters. Stephanie Garber’s lyrical writing brings alive these relationships and friendships, often being the focus of the books. I believe that the characters from this trilogy will stick with you, even after you’ve finished reading it. 

Evangeline, a hopeless romantic, is one of my favorite female protagonists, and someone I can relate to! Often times in fantasy novels, female protagonists will be these absolutely amazing women who have a tough exterior and are able to fight well. While I love seeing women portrayed that way, it’s refreshing for me to read about a protagonist who is quite the opposite. A protagonist who daydreams, wants to live in a comfortable castle, and isn’t the most familiar with a dagger. It’s easy for me to relate to Evangeline, which is why she’s one of my favorite protagonists.

Jacks, a morally-grey immortal, is one of my favorite male protagonists. He’s always there to deliver those charismatic, sarcastic one-liners and sweep you off your feet with his devastatingly romantic scenes with Evangeline. If you’ve read Caraval before you’ve already seen a little bit of Jacks, however, OUABH is able to explore more of Jacks’s character and offer a depth that you can’t attain in Caraval. Garber was able to develop his character well and make readers fall in love with a villain (something she also does in the Caraval trilogy).

In addition, not only does Garber’s writing liven the relationships, it creates this magical and atmospheric setting. The trilogy is set in the Caraval universe, with Evangeline interacting with Scarlett and Tella in Once Upon a Broken Heart, something I enjoyed since it’s a callback to the trilogy’s roots. However, instead of being set in the warm and tropical Meridian Empire, the Once Upon a Broken Heart series is set in the icy cold Magnificent North. Garber’s writing is consistent and offers vivid descriptions that allows readers to be transported to the world of her books.

Is the Once Upon a Broken Heart series Spicy?

The Once Upon a Broken Heart series is part of the young-adult genre, so there is no explicit scenes. However, there are some scenes that create a lot of tension between the two characters, but nothing explicit ever happens.

Conclusion

If there’s one word that I use way too often to describe Garber’s books, but is 100% applicable, it’s magical. This series will always stick with me, and I’m excited to reread it in the future in hopes to recreate the magical experience I first got when I read these books. If you love romance, high-stakes magic, a fairytale-like experience, this series is certainly for you!

Notable Quotes

“Evangeline wanted to give love and be loved and feel love at just the sight of someone. She wanted butterflies and kisses. She wanted it so much that sometimes she thought her heart would burst from it.”

The Ballad of never after pg 217

“There was something fantastically bewitching about the idea that a person’s destiny could change in one single, wondrous night.” –Once Upon a Broken Heart, pg 137

“I believe there are more possibilities than happily ever after or tragedy. Every story has the potential for infinite endings.” –Once Upon a Broken Heart, pg 60

“It struck her how intimate words could be, how they could be spoken only once, for only one person, and they would never be heard again, they would disappear like a moment, gone almost as soon as you realized they were there.” –The Ballad of Never After, pg 312

“But the problem with wanting something you can’t have, or shouldn’t have, is that the second it seems possible, all reason flees.” –A Curse for True Love, pg 289