Raisa has managed to make it back to the Fellsmarch, but her troubles aren’t over. In fact, they seem to have multiplied. Her mother has died, possibly murdered, and there are those who are trying to put her thirteen year old sister on the throne. Plus the various factions that do support her have some different ideas of how they should proceed. Throw in the fact that Han now knows her true identity and feels betrayed by her, Raisa has her hands full keeping herself alive and making it to her own coronation.
This book focused on Raisa much more than the previous two which were pretty evenly split between Raisa and Han’s stories. It also takes place over a much shorter time span. But it works really well and is clearly setting the stage for events in the final book. A lot of times in books it’s easy to forget that a teenage protagonist is a teenager, but even with her maturity Raisa does still feel like a teenager, even if she does have a lot of responsibility. You get a much clearer picture of just what Raisa’s dealing with and the political situation.
I also really appreciated the way Raisa’s identity reveal was handled. The liar revealed is not one of my favorite tropes, but it did work well in this case. Both Raisa and Han’s reactions were believable and felt in character for them. The slow burn of their relationship is starting to heat up, but I doubt we’ll get to see Raisa and Han getting together until the next book. Once of things that I’m really enjoying about this series is the way that I get invested in the characters. Every time a book ends, I’m ready to jump into the next one. I’m really hoping that the last book in the series lives up to the rest of them. Four out of five stars.
Bingo – Purple