Broken Kingdom: Royal Hearts Academy, Book 4

Overall Rating - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️+Wicked PrincessWell, this book has left my mind all over the place! What did I just read, wow!Bianca was the Covington I was most looking forward to. She’s the Queen B, super-bitch and oozes attitude from the pages in the previous books and waiting to see her be tamed by her man was something I couldn’t wait for!In this book, this is not the Bianca we get after she loses her memory in a car crash. I must admit, waking up thinking you are eight when you are in fact eighteen must be frightening, although her memory does start to come back slightly there is still so much she doesn’t know and she constantly feels left in the dark. Especially since the new Bianca is nothing like who she believes she is now.I don’t want to say too much about this story except it’s nothing that I was expecting and Ashley has played us so well with what happens and the little bombshell she dropped right at the end has my mind reeling with theories and so many questions!This is a standalone, but I would read the previous books in the series, especially since the previous characters appear so frequently in this book.Broken KingdomOk, this book was PHENOMENAL and I don’t know where to start with this review. I finished it before bed last night and woke up thinking about it this morning. I loved every angsty, raw, tortured minute of it and was a read I was so consumed with that I could not put it down.After reading WP and knowing this ain’t the Bianca we know and love to hate and then her involvement with Stone (shivers), I was desperate for everything to play out in BK the way it should have. I never doubted Ashley for one moment and what she gave us was nothing short of phenomenal.We start where WP finished and slowly we are introduced to the man that made my heartache, flutter and fell so hard for, Oakley. Oakley is now out of prison and needs to get his life back together and gets a job as a janitor at Duke’s Heart, where Bianca is a student. Although he has every intention of staying away from her, when two souls are meant to be, they just can’t stay apart and by coincidence, Bianca seeks him out, initially not knowing who he is due to her amnesia.“Because she hurt me in ways she doesn’t remember…and I hurt her in ways I can’t forget”Unfortunately, her overprotective brothers see this chance meeting and threaten him, leaving Bianca wondering who he is to her. From here things slowly progress, both of them coming together by chance meetings and finally agreeing to be friends, but only in secret due to the tension with her brothers and that’s she’s engaged to someone else, someone else that doesn’t make her feel anything like what she feels when she’s near Oakley.Bianca. As the story evolves we get glimpses of the past and flashbacks of her memory returning, getting into her head and understanding her motivations had me hurting and feeling so sorry for her but also had me laughing and smiling with her. She was holding onto secrets and guilt and couldn’t get past it, but was a girl who knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to go after it.“Bianca Covington is the type of woman who could steal a man's soul and then destroy his existence when she’s done”As the flashbacks happened, in the present time parts of the old Bianca started to come through shaping who she is now, becoming stronger and realising just how important Oakley was to her and how wrong Stone was for her.“There are times she looks so lost…so full of pain…it takes my breath away.”I feel I should mention Stone, since he is part of the story but as you read this, you will come to realise who he really is and no sympathy will be needed.Move over book boyfriends, there is a new guy in town, Oakley. I can’t express how much his character seeped into my heart. Did I think it was wrong he had slept with his step mum in a previous book, yes, was I prepared for the pure loving man he was, no. I don’t even think words can do his character justice. He was suffering and in pain for the devastation he caused people, Bianca included, but the way he loved her, even when she didn’t know, was what made my heart skip a beat.The story will take you on a journey and your emotions will be all over the place, there’s twists, turns, heartache, suffering, betrayal, but also deeply routed everlasting love that filled my heart with happiness.One of the best things about this book is that it’s an in-depth story, no couple of hundred pages here and I honestly never even noticed how long it was until near the end. I do love a chunky read and devoured this. The story got me hook, line and sinker and I don’t know when it will let me go. A must-read book!