Since I already did a list of things I wished had happened in the book, here’s a list of things I loved:
Evangeline slapping Apollo it was just so perfect
The evajacks kiss. How reluctant Jacks was. I just love them so much.
Their happy ending in the Hollow of all places 🥹
Jacks knocking Aurora out. I mean usually I would find it terrible if a guy hit a woman but these people are hardly human and let’s be honest, Aurora is a tough bitch. And she had it coming I felt.
Jacks favourite day being the time he spent in the Hollow with Evangeline… I almost cried.
The part where Jacks said he couldn’t even remember what Donatella looks like. Like you’ve finally come to your senses I see.
The Tree of Souls scared me but a tree having a heartbeat is just insanely cool.
The fact that one of the first things we learn about Eva in OUABH is that she is always hopeful. And it is that hope that lets her and Jacks finally be together.
Apollo dying because he loves himself the most. He was so sure it was Evangeline that would die but he did it anyway and then he died. It’s just the perfect irony.
That scene where “Archer” is teaching Evangeline to defend herself and it’s pouring rain and their clothes are becoming sheer. The visuals I had while reading that are fucking fantastic I wish I could draw.
Despite it being utterly cruel and heartbreaking, that scene where Jacks tried to kiss Evangeline because he was just “giving her what she wants” knowing she would die anyway. It’s Jacks-core. And it’s hot.
When they take turns undressing each other. I mean you can’t even kiss it’s just so angsty!!!!
When Jacks says “I love you” best thing I ever read
Chaos and LaLa having a little spark between them
Jacks selling his soul so Evangeline can be safe (like he literally gave up his heart in exchange for a cuff to ensure no one could hurt her. It’s just so touching 🥲)
Evangeline describing him as an Angel
The fact that even after she forgot Jacks and before he came back as Archer that she was still insanely curious about him. She always wondered about him and was desperate to know about him.
The inclusion of another inn since the one in TBONA has so much relevance
When they toasted to curses. I thought that was so brilliant it just proves how nuts everyone is.
LaLa not being sure that she loves Dane anymore. It just felt so beautifully ironic that she never married because of him and now that he’s back she’s not sure. That’s what being a Fate is all about and I love it.
When Jacks tied them together and flowers started growing and he’s so offended when she asks if he made the flowers grow
The mental image of Jacks with torn clothes and a bruised and bloody face after his fight with the Valor siblings
I’m sure there are many more and I’ll update this post as they come to me. Feel free to share what you loved most in the comments!!
These were the whispers Evangeline heard whenever she was close to arches. At first, I thought everyone heard them or at least the arches spoke to a few people. Then I found out these whispers were limited to Evangeline who was the girl in the Valory Arch prophecy.
The arches want to be unlocked by her willing blood. When I read the book the second time, I had another thought. I thought the voices were trapped and they needed help. But now I think the voices are manipulating Evangeline to try to get her to open the arches, so they could destroy.
It matches up with what little we know of the Valors who were a powerful family with magical abilities.
As of right now, the Valory Arch is obscure, and it's mentioned in two versions that involve the Valors. To keep my ducks in order, I figure writing a post could answer a few questions I may still have (and there's a lot!)
Spoilers for Once Upon A Broken Heart below!
Rundown: What We Know Of The Valors 🤔👑🐺
(The Matriarch's opinions is in Purple, Jacks's is in Red, General Info is Orange, and Possibly True is Blue)
The Valors are the first reigning family of the Magnificent North.
The stretch of sea before entering the pier of Valorfell is called Valor Row. The Valors were buried there. Their monuments have their heads cut off. (This matches with both versions of the story).
Wolfric Valor built every hall, tower, and room of Wolf Hall for his bride, Honora.
Evangeline recognizes the language of the Valors (but doesn't know how or where from).
The Valors were human.
Wolfric Valor and Honora Valor were the first king and queen of the North.
Wolfric Valor was a warrior who could not be bested.
Honora was a healer who could mend anything with life in it. Even if they're close to death.
Their children had powers, too.
Vesper Valor, their daughter, could tell the future.
The second-eldest son (who is unnamed) could shapeshift.
When the Valors' powers are combined, they can infuse magic into inanimate objects and places.
The Valors were indeed powerful, and their subjects turned on them and cut their heads off. Then they went to war with what was left of their magic.
The Matriarch doesn't believe that is what happened.
The arches were created by the Valors.
They could be served as portals to different and unreachable places.
The doors are impenetrable and can only be unlocked by a special key.
If a sealed arch is destroyed, what's inside of it will forever be a mystery.
The arches were created to travel around the North.
Each arch, no matter if they were given as gifts, had secret back doors that only the Valors could access.
However, if this was true, it takes away the power of the Great Houses who wanted all arches to be destroyed except for the royal ones. Only gifted arches could be open by who they were given to like the Great Houses.
The Matriarch of the House Fortuna could access her gifted arch by her willing blood. Only hers.
Evangeline is the one who will open the Valory Arch.
The Valory Arch could never be opened.
The Two Versions of the Valors 🚪🗝
(Version A is Green, Version B is Yellow)
The Valory Arch, once accessed, could lead to the Valory.
The Valory is a magical prison where magic, dangerous magical objects of power, and magical persons are locked away.
It was said the Valory was built to protect the North from those with ill-intentions.
However, this was nothing but a lie. The Valory was not built to protect the North from enemies or threats. But to lock a horrible mistake the Valors had created.
The Great Houses turned on the Valors because of this and cut their heads off.
This gave the Valors no time to lock the abomination, so the Great Houses did it instead with a prophecy of a lock. If each line of the prophecy is filled in, the arch will unlock.
The Valory Arch was broken into pieces and given to the Protectorate--a secret society that promised to prevent the arch's reopening.
The Valory wasn't a prison but a treasure chest where the Valors held their most powerful magical objects.
The Great Houses chopped of their heads because of this. They wanted the powerful objects and magic for themselves.
The wardens of the Valory Arch locked the arch with a prophecy so that no one could take advantage of the Valors' magic and creations.
Theory: Is Evangeline a descendant of the Valors? 🌸🎀
I skimmed Once Upon A Broken Heart again and totally missed the fact that a character had brought up a particular princess who also had pink hair.
So, there was a girl who had pink hair before Evangeline was born. I'm assuming this princess was from the Age of the Valors. Possibly a daughter?
I don't know how I feel about Evangeline being a reincarnated princess. I think it makes things more complicated. If there was a princess with pink hair before, then shouldn't this princess have been able to open the Valory Arch? Which leaves Evangeline not the prophesized key after all!
Or maybe the princess tried to and something really bad happened to her to prevent her from opening the Valory Arch. So many possibilities...
But there's no doubt this brief mention would be important later on.
I wish I could say more about this but other than this mention in the beginning of the book, it's never mentioned again.
On the topic of Evangeline's pink hair, I wonder if she would lose the color once she opens the Valory Arch. Her hair is rose-gold--all pink with streaks of pale gold. If she were to lose the pink color, would it all be pale gold instead?
Hmmmmmm it'll be somewhat gold like Jacks's.
Phaedra of the Damned
Phaedra is a new character at the end of Once Upon A Broken Heart. She introduced herself to Evangeline as "Phaedra of the Damned" and looked visibly disappointed when Evangeline didn't recognize her name.
I always try a New Critical approach whenever I'm reading or coming up with theories. Always work with what's on the page instead of looking elsewhere for answers like the author's comments or other separate resources.
(Although Stephanie Garber does give out helpful information that's technically part of the book lol)
In this case, I can't help but notice the name "Phaedra" which sounds distinct enough.
Phaedra of the Damned is a magical being who can discover secrets that which people take to their graves. Not finding one secret from Prince Apollo, Phaedra and Havelock find out that Prince Apollo isn't dead but in a suspended state.
I have a feeling we'll see more of Phaedra in The Ballad Of Never After, so what more do we know of her?
The name Phaedra traces back to a mythological tale. She had a major crush on her stepson, Hippolytus, but she was married to Theseus. Of course, she couldn't keep this secret inside of her anymore, so her maid told Hippolytus everything, but he was disgusted.
Taking matters into her own hands, Phaedra went to her grave, along with her dark secret, and left a lie that eventually led Theses and Hippolytus to their deaths.
Pretty dark, but I'm sure the "keeping her darkest secret to the grave" was a thing Stephanie Garber was inspired by. Other than that, Phaedra of Damned has to be someone magical, someone who should have been familiar to Evangeline.
I can't get over this fact. But maybe she thought everyone in the North knew who she was. But if she was like a story, then was she immortal?
She is not any of the Fates, so she must be magical whose background is limited to the Northern's tales. Either way, I won't be surprised if she's involved with a particular death scene where either Evangeline or Jacks dies, and Phaedra has to tell either of them who they were in love with hmmm
But I rather Phaedra doesn't share their true feelings for them. I want Evangeline and Jacks to confess for themselves!
(UPDATE: I forgot to add these details)
In Chapter 53, Evangeline noticed something that Phaedra wore. A circle of skulls and Evangeline had tried to remember where she had seen that before.
I did some digging and found it! It appeared in Chapter 26! When Evangeline is waiting for Jacks to pick her up to meet Lady Fortuna!
Phaedra's headquarters is seemingly located in Capricorn Alley!
Names
The name "Wolfric" means "wolf leader." The Valors' symbol is a wolf wearing a crown.
The name "Honora" means "a woman of honor/honorable/valor."
The name "Vester" means "evening" or "evening star."
Keeping with the whole fairytale aspect, I wouldn't be surprised if the Valors turned out to be something like fairies.
Dragon Tease 🔥
Stephanie Garber posted fanart of Evangeline Fox and she teased that Evangeline will hold a little dragon in The Ballad Of Never After.
I thought the tiny dragons would appear more in the book but they were only mentioned. So, I'm glad we'll see more of them 🧡
I’m gonna put a warning right now and say that I did love the book but it was definitely lacking something. I don’t want hate because I 100% support Stephanie and love all of her books and her imagination and her writing style but here is what I was hoping for in the final book (please remember this is my opinion and feel free to disagree but do it respectfully):
I wish that Jacks had known it was Apollo who stole Evangeline’s memories from much earlier in the book. I think it would have made such an interesting plot point and I imagine he would have wanted to murder Apollo but he’d be far more focused on begging and pleading and trying everything he could to get Evangeline to remember him.
I really thought that the letter Evangeline wrote to herself in the beginning on Ballad would have played a more significant role in ACFTL because it never appeared again in the second book. I assumed after she had her memories erased that Apollo would frame Jacks or at least try to ruin Jacks in Evangeline’s eyes and then when she found that letter in her room Apollo’s stories would have only been confirmed. This would have made it ever harder for Jacks to convince her he is not the villain and harder for her to trust her memories.
I didn’t like that Jacks masqueraded as “Archer” I thought it was a pretty weak plot point. I know he couldn’t tell her his name but as a reader and avid lover of Jacks, it felt weird.
I loved that trees played such a significant role in the story but I do wish that magical trees would have been mentioned at least once before they became a main plot point. Like anything, even a story Evangeline could have come across in the library about all the magical trees in the Magnificent North.
I wish Evangeline did more digging. I felt her sitting there trying to remember wasn’t really enough. I think it would have been interesting to see if she looked through old copies of The Daily Rumour and (I actually can’t remember what happened to Kutlass so correct me if I’m wrong) but she didn’t end up going to see him after he gave her his card right? I know she wasn’t allowed to leave but it was just kind of forgotten.
I was very happy to see a Jacks pov it’s what I always wanted but I did like the mystery of not knowing what he was thinking or feeling. This one’s not a complaint or anything I just missed the mystery that was Jacks of the Hollow in TBONA.
I was shocked when she used the word “bitch”. I mean she’s never used it before in the OUABH trilogy and for me it set ACFTL even more apart from it’s prequels. As many others have noted the third book did have an entirely different vibe from the first two. And while I loved it it was quite an adjustment because I re-read them before diving into ACFTL.
There were many missing characters and underdeveloped/unnecessary characters. I hate Marisol but I at least wanted to know if Luc ended up doing away with her or what even happened to Luc. I felt he was quite relevant even as a side character. I felt like Belleflower (was that his name? Something like that) just appeared and then disappeared just as quickly. And was he the one who sent that man to kill Evangeline slowly and painfully? That was never confirmed but I assume so. And then the man with the bird who bit Evangeline. I think his name was Garett but please do correct me because I can’t really remember. Him and his whole band of guards had soooo much potential, but as with a lot of things in this book I feel they were underdeveloped. If she’d just etched them out a bit more or made them do something very relevant to the story it might have made all the difference.
There may be more and if there are I will edit this. But for now, this is my list of wishes for what the story could have been. I rate it a solid 4/5 because I loved it regardless of these points and I loved the ending and was so happy that Jacks finally found his true love and that Eva got her happily ever after.
Soon I’ll make a post of everything I loved in the book ! It will be a very long post ;)
I might write a post about the Valors mentioned in Once Upon A Broken Heart. Reading about them had me a bit confused, especially so when Jacks and the Matriarch kept countering each other about what's true or not.
And that section was heavy lol
It'd be more of a rundown than a theory post.
Also, to remind me of a few things before The Ballad of Never After comes out 🍎💘🦊
