Fearful by Lauren Roberts will break your heart in the best way. If you’ve been anywhere near BookTok lately, you already know Lauren Roberts has completely taken over the romantasy scene. Her Powerless trilogy has become a staple for anyone who loves morally gray heroes, high-stakes romance, and the kind of courtly drama that makes you forget you have homework due at 11:59 p.m.
With her newest novella, Fearful, Roberts doesn’t just expand the world of Ilya; she reshapes it, delivering a story that’s haunting, thought-provoking, and devastating in the best possible way.
An overview
Fearful is book three-and-a-half in the trilogy, set during the same timeline as Fearless. Instead of focusing on the female lead characters from past books, like Paedyn or Adena, the story follows Mara, who’s literally the personification of Death. She’s sent back to the kingdom of Ilya with one task: to understand the soul of Kitt Azer.
Yes, that Kitt Azer, the crown prince who already had us all a little heartbroken or mad from his proposal at the end of Fearless. What begins as an otherworldly mission quickly becomes something much deeper as Mara unravels not only who Kitt is, but also what it means to live, love, and eventually lose.
Perspectives
Mara’s perspective is what makes this novella so unique. She isn’t human, and Roberts never lets you forget that, yet she comes across as oddly relatable. Her voice is curious, blunt, and unfiltered, and the questions she asks cut right to the core of what it means to exist. Seeing Kitt through her eyes brings his complexity into sharper focus, and by the end, it feels impossible to view the trilogy the same way again.
Just as powerful as Mara’s voice is what we learn about Kitt himself. Through her observations, readers see layers of Kitt that the main trilogy only hints at: his guilt, anger, sense of duty, and the quiet longing he tries so hard to hide. Instead of just being the charming prince or the romantic lead, he becomes achingly human.
Kitt’s fears and flaws make him more relatable, and his heartbreak feels almost unbearable because we see it so intimately. For fans who thought they already knew him inside and out, Fearful shows that his story runs much deeper than we realized.
My Review
Reading Fearful is an emotional rollercoaster, and I don’t say that lightly. One minute, I was smiling at Mara’s honesty, and the next, I was gasping at a revelation that hit me harder than I expected. By the final chapters, I was curled up in my room, tissues scattered everywhere, wondering why I had willingly signed up for this kind of heartbreak.
Roberts has mastered the art of balancing pain with beauty, weaving together passages you want to savor alongside scenes that make you want to throw the book across the room. It’s chaotic, consuming, and unforgettable.
From a collegiate perspective, Fearful is the perfect kind of read. It’s short enough to finish in a single weekend, which makes it easy to sneak in between classes, binge when you’re putting off a study session, or if you’re trying to bump up your number of books read for the year.
On top of that, if you’re someone who loves annotating, this novella is a dream. Mara’s narration is filled with poetic, thought-provoking lines that beg to be underlined, highlighted, color-coded, and covered in sticky notes.
Final notes
If you’re looking for something quick but emotionally intense, Fearful is absolutely worth picking up. Just don’t make the mistake of starting it the night before an exam — trust me. Save it for a weekend when you can fully immerse yourself in the story, recover with your comfort snacks, and maybe debate the meaning of life with your friends or roommates afterward. Think of it as the ultimate gameday recovery read: instead of crying over football scores, you’ll be crying over fictional characters.
As a bonus, Lauren Roberts shared a tandem reading list between Fearless and Fearful, where you can read in order of the story’s timeline. You’ll catch me doing this in the next few days with my annotation materials stocked.
At the end of the day, Fearful is haunting, heartbreaking, and unexpectedly hopeful. It proves that even in the hands of Death itself, stories about love and loss can feel achingly alive. Just be sure to keep tissues nearby, maybe warn your roommate about the impending tears, and prepare yourself for a book hangover that lingers long after the final page.
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