Evie may have killed her cousin and become queen of Bellona, but her troubles are far from over. Morta continues to threaten her kingdom, and now she must make peace with Sully’s father to strengthen themselves against the enemy.
There’s a mystery of sorts as Evie must figure out the culprit behind a series of assassination attempts. Using her mysterious powers and her wits, she works to solve the mystery quite quickly, and though I was able to guess the killer ahead of her I did not find her slow on the uptake. The politics and the fight scenes engaged me as well.
But oh Jennifer Estep, what happened? I loved Kill the Queen, with its razor sharp lead and entertaining mix of violence and courtly intrigue, but that all falls by the wayside in this book. Here, we focus more on the romance between Evie and Sullivan, and though it had its high points in the last book, here it just felt clumsy, which is not a good thing considering that it is a central focus. Sully seemed to lose a lot of his personality, and with it the reader’s understanding of the relationship.
I also found the writing odd. I don’t remember anything in particular about it in the last book, but here I felt as though I was reading a rough draft of some sorts, with overwrought descriptions and lots of cliches. I think the fact that I did not grow too engaged in the story only made the pitfalls of the writing more obvious.
Overall, I wish I enjoyed this book than I actually did. But I will read the sequel anyway, to finish out the series, and am hoping it is much better.
