One Second to Forever - Bree Harlow - ★★★

AUTHOR: Bree Harlow

GENRE: Parody Romantasy

PUBLICATION DATE: November 17, 2025

RATING: 3 stars.

In a Nutshell: A parody of a Sapphic romantasy with portal magic and an adventurous quest. ‘Alice in Wonderland’ with a twist. Works better if you keep the ‘parody’ angle in mind. Some stricter editing and some more fleshing-out of the quest would have helped this short novel deliver better. Still, it could work more for NA fantasy enthusiasts looking for some mindless entertainment.

Plot Preview:

Twenty-one-year old Liss loves reading but hates the romance genre for all its tropes. So when she is sucked into the pages of a romantasy book that she had been explicitly told not to touch, it is like her worst nightmare come alive.

Foreverland seems strange and its denizens, even stranger. As Liss guessed correctly, she is expected to complete some trials – one each in the four kingdoms of Foreverland – if she wants to return home. The only people she has for help are the gorgeous guide Tarran, whose mental issues seem to get worse as she journeys along with Liss, and the twin Carls, whose hearts function better than their heads.

The story comes to us in Liss’s first-person perspective.

Bookish Yays:

👬 The author's note at the start, which helps go into the book with the right expectations.

👬 The parody, with its entertaining ribbing of all common tropes in fantasy-romance novels. A clever idea and quite funny in its implementation, though the humour is balanced with seriousness as well.

👬 The worldbuilding of Foreverland, which seems like a twisted version of Alice’s Wonderland. I enjoyed the ode to the Lewis Carroll classic, with several characters and quotes referencing the original. (Mind you: This isn't promoted as a retelling, so don’t expect one.)

👬 The trials that Liss needs to complete. Though I feel that the book should have had a few more pages to develop each of these better, I am impressed at the creativity of the quests. It’s awesome that they explore not just physical challenges but mental ones as well, showing the characters’ vulnerability in both ways.

👬 The two Carls. A much more appealing version of Tweedledee and Tweedledum from Alice’s story. Loved them both!

👬 Only 184 pages long, and fairly fast paced.

Bookish Okays:

🎩 Liss as the protagonist. Acts her age, with impressive sarcasm skills. But her life before the quest is kept somewhat vague, with only random references to family members. This doesn’t help us understand her reactions better in certain later scenes.

🎩 The use of first-person narration. Works well to see Liss’ annoyance at romance tropes, but the repeated mention of attraction is tiresome. (Then again, I am not sure if this was a problem in the writing or if it was a masterful way of poking fun at the abundance of such thoughts in actual YA/NA romantasies.)

🎩 The ‘portal’ concept. Liss touched a book she was warned against touching, and that’s how her troubles began. There are so many questions I have about that book (and the bookseller!) but these stay unanswered.

🎩 Tarran’s character. There was so much potential here to create an outstanding character but most of Tarran’s development is restricted to being the target of Liss’s lusty thoughts and a few lines on her mental issues. Tarran deserved better, given that she was the only other main character (and possibly based on the Mad Hatter.)

🎩 The ending – abrupt with many dangling threads. It’s happy though – thank heaven for small graces.

Bookish Nays:

👑 The budding romance. No chemistry at all. Not necessary at all. Had no contribution to the plot.

👑 The extended, explicit sex scene that has no business lasting 5+ pages in a book of only 184 pages. The use of certain crude words were a huge turn-off. (Oh, the irony of being turned off when characters are turned on! 🥴) Of course, those who like *spicy spice* will be quite happy with this scene. To me, this single inclusion brought the whole happy experience down.

👑 I generally ignore grammatical errors in unproofed ARCS, but this one had too many of them, most going beyond mere typos. (Who uses “I’s” instead of “mine”?!??)

Overall, this is still a decent debut that entertains quite well. If you read it as a Sapphic romance, you might be disappointed at the minimal chemistry. If you read this as a fantasy-romance, you might be irked by the number of tropes it includes. If you read this as an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ retelling, you might dislike how far it strays from the original story. But if you read it as a parody, which is what was promised anyway, you might enjoy this as the author intended. It is not a book that takes itself seriously, so it helps to keep your brains aside and enjoy the wild ride with a tub of popcorn.

Recommended to NA readers who would enjoy a tongue-in-cheek jab at one of the most popular genres today and don’t mind explicit scenes and lacklustre romance.

My thanks to Wildfire Literary for providing the DRC of “One Second to Forever” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

The digital version of this book is currently available on Kindle Unlimited.