Paladin by Sally Slater Book Review

"Imagine Game of Thrones with less blood and more gender confusion and you get a taste of this knightly epic." — The Guardian 

Brash, cocky, and unbeatable with a sword (well, almost), Sam of Haywood is the most promising Paladin trainee in the kingdom of Thule… and knows it. The only problem is that Sam is really Lady Samantha, daughter of the seventeenth Duke of Haywood, and if her father has his way, she’ll be marrying a Paladin, not becoming one. 

But Sam has never held much interest in playing damsel-in-distress, and so she rescues herself from a lifetime of boredom and matrimonial drudgery. Disguised as a boy, Sam leaves home behind to fight demons-—the most dangerous monsters in Thule—-alongside the kingdom’s elite warriors. Pity that Tristan Lyons, the Paladin assigned to train her, is none other than the hero of her childhood. He hasn’t recognized her–yet–but if he does, he’ll take away her sword and send her packing. 

Sam is not the only trainee hiding secrets: Braeden is a half-demon with a dark past that might be unforgivable. Whether he can be trusted is anyone’s guess, including his. 

As demons wreak havoc across the land, rebellion stirs in the West, led by a rival faction of warriors. 

A war between men is coming, and Sam must pick a side. Will saving the kingdom cost her life–or just her heart?

My rating: One and a half worm!

I was kindly given a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Paladin enticed me with its freaking amazing premise, I mean a girl looking for justice for her mother’s death who joins a group of soldiers pretending to be a boy where she befriends a half-demon?

It was fucking awesome!

Unfortunately, and yes there is an “unfortunately”, this book is nothing we haven’t seen before, including a lame MC who is, despite the summary, a typical damsel in distress whose only “badass” moments are when she says stupid and offensive things and then goes crying to arms of her two love interests when the bad guys come at her.

Sigh.

The story starts of well, despite her “I’m not like other girls crap” moment:

“He is young, handsome and wealthy. A catch by most ladies standards.”

She lifted her chin defiantly, “I am not most ladies.”

But I was willing to let it pass, the book had just begun and Sam could grow into a decent character, right?

No.

The pibotal moment of the novel is when Sam’s mother is killed by a demon. After storming out of an argument with her father, during which he gave her a deadline to find a husband, her mother goes to find her in the woods.

Her character and death were extremely important for the story; she is the one who understands that Sam’s oddness are not a phase or something to fix but rather who she is, and she respects her daughter as person besides of loving her like her daughter. Her death, and being left in the care of her father, were things that truly shaped Sam’s character, or at least it would have if she had had any character development at all.

Tsalene’s death was too fast and of little importance to Sam, she got over it the second Tristan (one of the love interests) entered the scene.

I just couldn’t take it seriously, this is the only person in the world who seemed to understand her, her rock and confidant, and when she dies she’s just “Oh no, she died! This is so sad but it’s in the past now, I have to move on.” NO! She should be screaming bloody murder, or silent as a stone, cold, trying not to feel anything. But no, her death is meaningless, just an excuse for Sam to join the guard and begin the story, and that really pissed me off.

From that point onwards, things started to get worse.

The description says Sam is cocky and brash, she is the best Paladin in training after all! But, despite everything, Sam wasn’t a strong female character and I hate when authors think that male equals strong, because this is what the author tried to do here.

You don’t need to hate all things girly to be strong, you can wear a freaking dress and be strong, not just physically but mentally. You can kick as many ass as you want but what really defines strength in a person is their will, their character, Sam lacks in all departments and yet the story thinks that because it presents a girl who hates girly things, who can’t do shit to save her life but that for some reason everybody (especially guys, because their opinion is the only one that matters here) says she is badass, then it’s creating a good, strong female character.

Something that bothered me a lot was how Sam always felt like she had to apologize for being good at fighting, whenever everybody complimented her or said “Damn, you kicked my ass!” She would hurry to try and make the dude feel better, blush included. It was as if she couldn’t be better than them, even though she trained harder, just because… why? Because she was a girl?

And yet, despite being one of the best with a sword and again, the summary promising us that Sam “is far from being a damsel in distress” all she did when in danger was being a freaking damsel in distress!

I have no clue on how to fight, and yet I knew more than Sam! It wasn’t hard, really, because as asomewhat rational person, I knew that the best way to evade an attacker was to mmm… I don’t know, dodge, run? instead of LYING ON THE FUCKING GROWND IN FEETAL POSITION WAITING FOR SOMEBODY TO RESCUE ME.

And don’t even get me started on the blushing, I don’t know what is it with YA authors and their blushing heroines but you need to stop. Yes, blushing is something natural that cannot be controlled, God knows I know that, but this girl blushed every fucking second! And for no reason at all, she could be eating popcorn and she would divert her gaze to her lap, while a deep red stained her cheeks.*Reads dramatically*

“Braden’s silver eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. Sam blushed.”

“Her face flamed to red. “You did not.””

“Sam looked down at his lap, his face slowly flaming to red.

“I lost to Tristan today.”

“You do that a lot.” Braden said.

“Do what?”

“Blush.””

Sam found herself blushing.

Sam blushed a brilliant shade of red, dropping his wrist. “S-sorry,” he said, stammering. “I was just curious.”

Sam stammered, hoping that the shadowy light was poor enough to hide her blush.

Sam blushed in spite of herself, not that it would show through all her war paint.

Sam was grateful that he couldn’t see her blush.

She blushed just thinking about it.

And then, the cherry on top of the rotten cake:

“Your feet. They look funny.” Gods, she never giggled. Wearing a dress must have addled her brain. Her giggles increased.

Are you fucking kidding me? First, the whole idea that wearing a dress makes you dumb because it makes you feminine is just… you can’t… fuck this entire idea. Fuck the idea that anything feminine is dumb or unworthy or less.

AND she always giggles, it’s one thing that bothered me about Sam, because just like her blushes I have no clue on why this girl is fucking giggling.

She giggled at his formality, her cheeks dimpling.

Tristan’s mouth flapped open and closed a few times. Sam had to restrain an errant giggle.

Once Master Collop was no longer in sight, a helpless giggle escaped Sam’s lips.

The writing style was alright, though I didn’t care in particular for any of the characters, their emotions were too simplified, one moment they were alright and then it would go “Now he was angry, now he was upset!” Mmm… alright. It wasn’t believable.

The chapters were narrated in third person and corresponded to the three main characters, Sam, Braden and Tristan but sometimes one character new thoughts and reactions that it was impossible they would know, like the author forgot who she was writing about and started switching back and forth, it could be annoying sometimes.

Not recommended.

The Tiger's Curse by Colleen Houck Review

Passion. Fate. Loyalty.

Would you risk it all to change your destiny?

The last thing Kelsey Hayes thought she’d be doing this summer was trying to break a 300-year-old Indian curse. With a mysterious white tiger named Ren. Halfway around the world. But that’s exactly what happened. Face-to-face with dark forces, spellbinding magic, and mystical worlds where nothing is what it seems, Kelsey risks everything to piece together an ancient prophecy that could break the curse forever.

Tiger’s Curse is the exciting first volume in an epic fantasy-romance that will leave you breathless and yearning for more.




My rating: One worm!

My first buddy read! And with Sibil :D 

I had heard about this book for quite sometime, but never got around to read it (or read its goodreads reviews) that was, of course until a few days ago.

So, considering how this is my first buddy read and I have never written a review for one before, I'll just write whatever comes to my mind, regardless of sense, logic or grammar as usual So here I go:

This was a extremely ridiculous book.

There is no other way to say it, really. It felt as if it had been written by a child, with long and unnecessary descriptions, no plot, cringe-worthy dialogue, cookie-cutter characters and a lot of offensive content.

Here is a summary:

Girl with no experience whatsoever is hired to take care of endangered species on a circus. Legal guardians think it's totally cool for the seventeen year old girl to go and live on a place with no social security, health inssurance and surrounded by strangers *insert angst about lost parents here and how hot guy will cure it*.
She there meets a white tiger who is somehow bought as a pet, even though it's an endangered species, and for some reason the rich guy who bought it wants her to go with the tiger all around the world to... help him settle in? Why? How can she help? And if it's because the tiger got attached to her, what will happen when she goes back home?

When she arrives she will only get to know the extremely rich part of India, completely negating the majority of the population and their problems. Somehow managing to walk around with a freaking white tiger without anybody giving a crap about it.

But! turns out that the hand-licking tiger with "blue eyes that pierce into her soul" is a hot Indian prince that can somehowtransform into a man wearing clothes that were in no way appropiate for his time, place, culture and social position, but that somehow coincide with American standards of beauty.

After that we learn that the white, north american girl who has never given a shit about Indian culture, is somehow the savior of its people.

*Stops to cry because this book is a best-seller*

From this point onward we see an awkward (at best) insta-love between her and the prince. And we also witness how this somewhat capable young woman turns into a complete moron who can't do anything without a man by her side, but yet believing herself too plain and simple to deserve one.

The investigation the author conducted about India is insultingly flimsy and merely consisted of info-dumps that were (sadly enough) the best parts of the book. It would go like this:

"Wow, this sweet orange juice is really sweet and refreshing." I said as I savored the sticky sweetness off My glass. It wasn't as good as lemon merengue pie, my favorite, but it was close enough.

"Well," Ren said exposing his perfectly white teeths in a sunburning smile. "The orange (specifically, the sweet orange) is the fruit of the citrus species Citrus × sinensis in the family Rutaceae. The fruit of the Citrus × sinensis is considered a sweet orange, whereas the fruit of the Citrus × aurantium is considered a bitter orange."

"Oh goodie!" He knows so much, and he is so hot. I blush at my own thoughts.

Not recommended at all.

Buzz Books 2015: Young Adult FALL/WINTER

Hello everybody! Today I'll talk about Buzz Books 2015 that it's a small publication available through NetGalley that provides readers with exclusive excerpts from highly anticipated books.

The idea is to promote these new books by allowing readers to read a chapter and thus deciding whether they want to request them through NetGalley or simply wait for them to come out.

For those of you who have no fricken idea of what NetGalley is (At least I didn't until a few months ago) It's a place where readers can request for e-books of unplished books in exchange for an honest review. You only need to create an account to start requesting books, though you might not be approved for all of them. Some publishing houses have estrict rules when it comes about giving their arcs (Like whether we have a blog, the traffic of it and our location, considering how some books will be available first in some countries,)

This edition of Buzz Books has over twenty new titles and is definetely worth a read if you are interesting in something new!

Let's be followers!

This is a pretty simple and fun iniciative to promote our blogs and meet new people. The idea is to follow someone and leave your Blog in the comments, that way they can follow you back and anybody can check out your blog!

If you want to participate you can post this image on your blog so that more people can find out. I thought this was a good idea because it is often rather hard to get people to see your blog when you are just starting, and this seemed like a fun way to meet other bloggers as well. What do you guys think?

Daughter of Deep Silence by Carrie Ryan Sneak Peek

I was kindly provided with an ARC for this preview by the publisher.

I’m the daughter of murdered parents.
I’m the friend of a dead girl.
I’m the lover of my enemy.
And I will have my revenge. 

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS IDEA. LOVE IT.

Now, the preview only disclosed one chapter and you can’t really know much from that, but I’ll do my best to be the annoying bookworm and over analize it until you are sick of it. Ready? Ready.

The story begins with Frances being rescued from the sea after spending seven days adrift with her best friend who died only an hour before the rescue. In shcok and still remembering the horrifying experience they both went through, Frances learns that her summer love and his father also survived the attack that took the life of her parents, best friend as well as other two hundread people. But that’s not all she discovers, it seems that, instead of the men with guns that excuted the crew the senator and his son have lied and said it was a huge wave that hit the boat and killed everybody on board.

They were the reason the search for survivors never happened, her friend could have lived had it not been for them.

I thought it was rather rushed, actually, to start the story from this point and hope more of the past will be explored in the rest of the book because from this point we don’t know the characters, their relationships or anything and yet we are presented with this extremely emotional moment of Frances being rescued when her friend had died only an hour ago. 

Her relationship with her boyfriend and her reaction to his lie is indifferent to me because I barely know them. How deep were their feelings before the attack? How much did they know about each other?

I’m sure the book will go more into detail as it continues, I guess I just really want to know more.

So far I would absolutely recommend it!

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer Review

Summary:

Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second thrilling installment of the bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She's trying to break out of prison--even though if she succeeds, she'll be the Commonwealth's most wanted fugitive.

Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit's grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn't know about her grandmother or the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother's whereabouts, she is loath to trust this stranger, but is inexplicably drawn to him, and he to her. As Scarlet and Wolf unravel one mystery, they encounter another when they meet Cinder. Now, all of them must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen Levana, who will do anything for the handsome Prince Kai to become her husband, her king, her prisoner.

My rating: Two and a half worms!

I was finally able read the sequel to Cinder, Scarlet that tells the story of red riding Hood in a futuristic world!

 I have to be honest, I had forgotten how satisfactory it was to actually continue with a series and reuniting with the characters to see them dwell in new adventures. I had missed it, especially when every series I had read had been so unmemorable that I didn’t want to read past the first book.

Now, there are some improvements in Scarlet, especially as we already know most of the characters, but unfortunately for me this was not as good as Cinder and most of it had to do with the protagonist herself.

When we first meet Scarlet she is a farmer with a habit of cleaning tomato stains in her jeans (She did that EVERYTIME she had tomato in her hands and it drove me crazy, why not a napkin or tissue? 

The tomato acid destroys the cotton’s cellulose making it impossible for the stains to come off AND she would have to drive everywhere with sticky wet jeans, eww.) who is also upset because her grandmother is missing and the police is doing nothing about it, believing she left town by her own means instead of Scarlet’s suspicions that she was taken against her will. When she gets home and finds her estranged father in a state of shock and mumbling about the torture he went through, Scarlet realizes that there is more to her grandmother’s disappearance that she first thought and so she sets off to find her, accompanied by a guy named Wolf who may know more than he lets on.

Now, I think it was admirable that Scarlet went to such lengths to get her grandmother back, it shows a lot of determination and courage and I respect that. However, Scarlet was my biggest problem with the book, because regardless of the actions mentioned above, that doesn’t make up for her pettiness, hypocrisy and down right stupidity.

Scarlet reminded me a lot off Celeana Sardotien from Throne of Glass, and that is never a good comparison. She had the same habit of speaking up to people when she shouldn’t, simply because she thought she was being brave for doing so, instead of dumb. She blamed people for things she caused and was incredibly gullible.

Her grandmother was missing and she suddenly comes across a stranger with a weird personality and who is prone to violent attacks but, instead of being suspicious, Scarlet thrust him right away. Funny thing is, there is no love at first sight but once Wolf is forced to confess that he had been lying to her the whole time she falls instantly in love with him.

“It’s true I know more than I told you, actually I was send to get info from you, and was part of the group that came here to take your grandma… but I’m totally sorry now, I swear.”

Expected reaction:

What we get:

I simply don’t get the logic behind the characters sometimes. Scarlet knew that Wolf was one of the bad guys AND that he was there to get info from her but she doesn’t think he might still be doing that? The fact that she falls in love with him one day after she learns of his betrayal makes no sense and it only made me hate her (her pettiness didn’t help).

Also, I don’t know what is it with these people and their inability to realize that Cinder is princess Selene. Wolf and Scarlet had to take the prize on most clueless, they knew that Selene had been rescued by a man of a last name Lihn and they knew that there was an escaped Lunar with that last name and who was desperately being searched by Queen Levana… I mean, it’s not that hard.

 In the end Wolf wasn’t such a bad guy, so he made up for the crappy relationship between him and 

Scarlet but I would have been 100% on board with it if they took her out of it, just a nice single Wolf, or at least a better love interest.

Now, on to the good stuff! We not only get chapters from Scarlet’s point of view but also from Cinder and Kai!

We get to see more of Cinder and Thorne, and man! It is really nice to see a relationship between straight people of the opposite sex not leading up to romance. Cinder is conflicted with her newly found Lunar powers, especially since she seems to enjoy using them but thinks that is something bad. 

Her inner struggle was interesting, and I loved it because she really liked her power (Unlike so many heroines who think they are monsters for it) and tried to handle it so she could use it but not hurt other people. Also, she decided she would stop feeling sorry for herself, so yeay!!

Then there is Kai, sweet and dumb Kai. I’m sorry but he is the perfect example of why there shouldn’t be monarchies in the future. I know he’s trying to be great at his job and that he really cares about his people, but he’s extremely inexperienced and unprepared for this posicion. My favorite part was, after the Lunars attacks, when he gave a conference saying “Yeah, you know those people who murdered thousands of citizens in a matter of seconds? Well, turns out they have always been on Earth, we just chose to pretend they weren’t here letting them pull together an army to massacre us all. Peace out.”

No honey, you can’t say that on national television. Eventually his plan to stop the Lunar invasion was well intentioned… but it simply made things worse for the Earth.

To be honest nothing really happened in this book, we didn’t learn anything significant or important to the plot or the characters.

The next book is Cress that is about the girl Cinder talked to in the first book. Has any of you guys read it? What did you think? And what did you think of Scarlet?

From A Distant Star by Karen McQuestion book review

Summary:

Seventeen-year-old Emma was the only one who hadn’t given up on her boyfriend, Lucas. Everyone else—his family, his friends, his doctors—was convinced that any moment could be his last. So when Lucas miraculously returns from the brink of death, Emma thinks her prayers have been answered.

As the surprised town rejoices, Emma begins to question whether Lucas is the same boy she’s always known. When she finds an unidentifiable object on his family’s farm—and government agents come to claim it—she begins to suspect that nothing is what it seems. Emma’s out-of-this-world discovery may be the key to setting things right, but only if she and Lucas can evade the agents who are after what they have. With all her hopes and dreams on the line, Emma sets out to save the boy she loves. And with a little help from a distant star, she might just have a chance at making those dreams come true.

I was given an ARC by the author in exchange for an honest review.

My rating: One Worm!

I love alien stories. Don’t ask me why, but I do. I was the only reason I gave Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout a chance and my excitement behind Form A Distant Star by Karen McQuestion. The premise sounded a lot like Invasion by Robin Cook and that probably should have been a warning that I wasn’t going to like this book.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked that book but I found the idea that “love” could stop an alien apocalypse was rather dumb, and although the same happens here, From A Distant Star lacks interesting-or even likeable- characters, gripping storytelling and a decent plot.

The main character is Emma, who is struggling to find something to cure her terminally ill boyfriend. 

If well she was a nice turn from the usual “shy and useless” main character. Emma was dumb, selfish, inconsiderate and a slut-shamer.

I understand that when you’re young and in love you’re bound to make mistakes, and especially when your boyfriend is ill and dying, but she was simply too selfish for me to relate to her. She wants her boyfriend to live, no matter the cost. It doesn’t matter to her that her boyfriend may not want to live as a terminally ill patient, she just thinks of how much she loves him and how much she needs him.

She never leaves his side, even though it’s a great inconvenience to his parents. Imagine this, they are trying to mourn for his dying son and she is always there, always listening and not letting most people go near him, acting all enraged because they  want her to go back to her house. The kid is dying for Christ sake! And they can’t even cry for him because she won’t leave his fucking side.

She keeps talking about how she’s the only one who loves him, and how the cheerleaders were just dumb whores who were preying on him because he was a great player but that he “knew what was good” the second he saw her. Are you serious?

The teachings and reasoning’s of the alien were kind of dumb and unoriginal, of the kind “You say this but you actually mean something else? *shocked*”

The writing is rather immature and cliché which didn’t help with the bland characters.

Not recommended.

Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout Book review

Summary:

Starting over sucks.

When we moved to West Virginia right before my senior year, I’d pretty much resigned myself to thick accents, dodgy internet access, and a whole lot of boring… until I spotted my hot neighbor, with his looming height and eerie green eyes. Things were looking up.

And then he opened his mouth.

Daemon is infuriating. Arrogant. Stab-worthy. We do not get along. At all. But when a stranger attacks me and Daemon literally freezes time with a wave of his hand, well, something… unexpected happens.

The hot alien living next door marks me.

You heard me. Alien. Turns out Daemon and his sister have a galaxy of enemies wanting to steal their abilities, and Daemon’s touch has me lit up like the Vegas Strip. The only way I’m getting out of this alive is by sticking close to Daemon until my alien mojo fades.

If I don’t kill him first, that is

Oh how I wished you had killed him, Katy!

Alright, when I checked this out the first thing that came to my mind was Twilight, I mean, how couldn’t I? Girl moves to a small town with only one parent, hates it, has dodgy internet access and there is a family of hot, weird people that everybody stays away from.

However, it’s much more similar to The Vampire Diaries (Daemon, really?) and some say “I am number four” but I haven’t read it, so I can’t vouch for that. The writing was simple, but the dialogues were cringe worthy; it was stiff and awkward, people just don’t talk like cardboard.

My biggest problem (as you can guess) was the dickwad appointed as the “love interest”, who is, of course! An asshole to the MC because he wants to protect her; because it’s hard to find a book where the guy’s abusive behavior isn’t pinned down as the girl’s fault.

“Oh, I was just mocking you, insulting you, humiliating you and doing stuff that borderline sexual assault because I’m dangerous and you have to stay away!”

Well how about you stay away you little piece of shit?

Right from the start he is treating her like crap:

“Can I help you?” Full, kissable lips turneddown in annoyance.”

“You know, all I wanted was directions. This is obviously a bad time.” One side of his lips curled up. “Anytime is a bad time for you to come knocking on my door, kid.”

“You look like you’re twelve. No. Maybe thirteen, but my sister has this doll that kinda reminds me of you. All big-eyed and vacant.”

We are supposed to believe that Daemon is this way because they met another human before and things did not end well, so he’s not only trying to protect Katy, but him and his sister as well. The fault in that theory is that once our MC proves she’s loyal and won’t rat them out, and dear Daemon is no longer pushing her away, you would think he would start treating her with love and respect. HA HA HA, no he’s still the same condescending and abusive asshole he was before.

And the whole plot is so stupid I can’t even write properly.

Hot aliens are being chased so they need to hide, that’s why they go to a small town where being new and weird is the same as writing “I’M A FUCKING ALIEN” in big, green letters all over their body. But of course, to keep people away they just act like assholes, because if the bad guys ever find them, the citizens will, in no way whatsoever point them to their house and set it on fire. Brilliant!

Katy, I gotta be honest I liked her at first. How she dealt with moving to a new place after her father’s death, how she wanted to make friends but was a little nervous about meeting new people. I could identify with all of that, Katy even recognized that Daemon was an asshole when she met him. But it all means nothing when she keeps going after him and accepting his assholish behavior as something normal. He insults her and pushes her against a tree and all she can think is of how hot he is, and how much she wants him! Not that he’s a crazy dickwad that she should stay away from.

Horrible book, horrible characters. Horrible.

Peace out

The Winner's Crime by Marie Rutkoski Book Review

Book two of the dazzling Winner's Trilogy is a fight to the death as Kestrel risks betrayal of country for love.

The engagement of Lady Kestrel to Valoria’s crown prince means one celebration after another. But to Kestrel it means living in a cage of her own making. As the wedding approaches, she aches to tell Arin the truth about her engagement... if she could only trust him. Yet can she even trust herself? For—unknown to Arin—Kestrel is becoming a skilled practitioner of deceit: an anonymous spy passing information to Herran, and close to uncovering a shocking secret.

As Arin enlists dangerous allies in the struggle to keep his country’s freedom, he can’t fight the suspicion that Kestrel knows more than she shows. In the end, it might not be a dagger in the dark that cuts him open, but the truth. And when that happens, Kestrel and Arin learn just how much their crimes will cost them.

I was kindly provided an ARC by the publisher in exchange of an honest review. 

TheWinner’s Crime is the new novel by author Marie Rutkosky, and the sequel to the acclaimed book The Winner’s Curse. In this fairly interesting story of political games, war, love and betrayal the author uses rich vocabulary in beautiful prose. If well the writing style is lovely, the story is fairly simple and excessively long for its plot.  

As I’ve said, this novel is part of a trilogy, and I recommend reading the first book if you want to see how the relationship between Kestrel and Arin developed. However, you can easily read The Winner’s Crime and understand it, even if you have not read the first book. Everything is well explained and there are constant references to the events occurred on The Winner’s Curse that are well explained, which I thought was nice and well done.

The story begins after Kestrel’s engagement to the emperor’s son, a decision she made to free the Herrani and her beloved, and former slave, Arin.

I will admit that, with the hype this series was getting I thought of two possibilities for this book:

1.       That it would be a typical love story, boring and clichéd.

2.       That it would be an interesting and captivating novel with well-formed characters, an intriguing plot and some fun political game.

In the end, it was both and neither. Don’t get me wrong, this was a decent book but it simply dragged on for too long.

One of the greatest problems with The Winner’s Crime is that nothing really happens up until 70% of the story. Before that we see Kestrel attending parties and being part of the gossips and funs of the high class society while she balances that with her desire to see Arin again and to save Herran from any more trouble. Arin is struggling with his new position as governor of Herran, especially now that after the liberation the Emperor has set high taxes they cannot afford and his reluctance to see Kestrel again at her engagement party, an honor that Arin as the new governor of Herran must fulfill.

I was excited with Kestrel for the first few pages. She seemed smart, resourceful and cunning. It appeared she could play the game and quite well in fact.

“No? You urged me to put an end to the Herrani rebellion by giving that territory self-governance under my law. You argued that this would free up troops and money to fuel my eastern war, and lo”- He flourished a hand- “It did. What clever advice from one so young.”

I liked her relationship with the Emperor, how he saw himself on her and wanted to teach her to be the ruler his son could never be. And how Kestrel was unsure if she wanted to be someone like him. Someone who ignored and belittled his son but who wasn’t sure whether it was inevitable. After all she already saw things in her that resembled him and she was unsure whether it was by choice or whether he was playing the strings.

“She could have asked why he had summoned her to dinner, and where the prince might be, but Kestrel had seen how the emperor loved to shape silence into a tool that pried open the anxiety of others.”

The Emperor is aware, of course, of the time she spent as Arin’s prisoner and of the, let’s say, “fondness” she had for him before the rebellion. It would be natural to assume that her stay there was not entirely against her will and he even admits that it doesn’t matter if she slept with him or developed a relationship with him. After all it was her who sent the army there and who solved the problem of the rebellion war. The Emperor then tells her that most people at court will assume the same and, if they think she shared his bed, they would believe it was “for the right reasons”. The legend of Jadis was one of my favorite parts of the book, so I won’t spoil it.

The first few pages, yes, Kestrel was all of this and more. I had my hopes high on her but when Arin comes again into her life it all goes to hell. Kestrel wants Arin but she believes that if she were to tell him of the deal she made with the emperor to free him and his people, Arin’s honor would get in the way and he would persuade her to run away with him. Or, at least he could do something really foolish to angry the Emperor, which he did the second he saw her. Sigh.

So she tries to act cold and uninterested but it really does not work when she changes her mind at every moment; Kestrel could be succeeding in pushing him away but then she would feel sorry and try and convince him that she still cared for her. Lady, it’s one or the other. I wished you would stick with a choice and go through with it.

Finally, he said, “I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I know,” He muttered.

At first it was understandable, this reluctance to speak to him because it could put him in danger but at the same time wanting him near. Eventually however, it became annoying and down-right dumb. If they had just sat down and talked (which they actually did but it was more of the same) none of this would have happened and the book would have ended at thirty pages. But nooo, we needed the unnecessary angst, apparently.

“Arin, it wasn’t me.”

Literally seconds later:

“I could have arranged for it. That’s my dagger. That’s my seal. Why do you believe what I say? Why do you believe me at all?” “Don’t joke. You should blame. You must.”

“Kestrel, why are you trying to convince me of your guilt? … A moment ago, you insisted you had nothing to do with this,”

Arin, it was difficult at first, because he had been a slave, invisible and feeling worthless during most of his life. It was understandable that he did not want to give up on the first person that had shown him kindness and love. This soon became a problem, especially because he was risking not only his life but Herrani’s and Kestrel’s life as well just to see Kestrel again and convince himself that there was something going on, that he had not imagined everything between them. But he never stopped to think, “Hey, maybe there is a reason why she is acting this way and maybe it has something to do with the freaking Emperor who hates Herrani people.” But he never did, only moped because she had changed/he had never really known her.

It was this back and forth, back and forth between she cares for me and she hates me.

I was not fond of how this things usually resolved themselves, how the characters could discover the entire story by simply assuming things about one another just to make the plot move forward because they didn’t realize it forty pages before. At first I could let it slip but doing that more than three times was an abuse, it was impossible either of them could discover such intricate plans randomly. It became funny after a while, “Of course you could unravel a secret plan of such magnitude when you crave for her lips!”

To me surprise I ended up liking Verren, Kestrel’s fiancé and the Emperor’s son. At first he seemed like the typical hot-headed spoiled brat but once we get to know him we can appreciate him better and discover that he, in fact has the mind his father thought Kestrel had.

In the end Kestrel was rather dumb, doing foolish things that would anger the Emperor because “She does not fear him” yet when he confronts her she is terrified and tries to lie to him, lie when she knew there had been witnesses.

The plot was the mystery of what was the emperor really planning and for which Kestrel became a spy to Tensen, Herran’s Minister of Agriculture, passing off as a maid to gather information without being discovered. This was mostly what kept me going, I wanted to know what the heck was going on and who was behind what but, unfortunately, the end wasn’t all that shocking and definitely not worth all that waiting. It was rather simple and, once finished, I wondered why didn’t Kestrel/Arin/Tensen thought about it before.

 The Winner’s Crime wasn’t a terrible book, there was no Insta-love, love triangles or girl/girl hate. It did suffer from the “Second book Syndrome” since it was clearly setting up things for the third book. Overall a regular book in which could have been avoided if people talked instead of doing dumb things. Do I want to know what happens next? Yes but if it’s more of the same I rather read a spoiled review and don’t waste my time.