I know nothing about war, but I understand grief. I know it extinguishes everything else, even victory I imagine.’ She twisted a piece of his hair and let it go. ‘How odd it must be to return home a hero and be confronted with celebration while grieving.’ She slipped her hand into his. ‘How ludicrous you must find the feasting as you count the empty chairs before you.
This is a quick one but felt it deserved a wee review cause I think… This is my favourite book so far of 2020. I know. I’m surprised too – relatively unknown and not a cult following fantasy read; but I just couldn’t put it down!
WOAH. This did a total 180 on me. Started incredibly slowly and I struggled to keep interest, however it definitely picked up by about a 1/3 of the way through. This is definitely a romance front and centre, so don’t assume anything else when you pick this up.
Some of the perspectives are a bit *ahem* sexist and degrading to women but I think this is the entire point and helps to present the contrast between the main character and her love interest nicely – in both senses of the word they are looking for the opposite of what ‘royal society’ is constraining and categorising them to.
My one bug-bear is that the world-building and characterisation is a bit empty… A lot more could have been done with this to help the story develop and help the reader become fully immersed within the read. That being said, some of the writing was truly beautiful and had me pause after reading (like the quote above) and think, “huh.”
For a free book on Kindle it is definitely worth a read – and there are loads more in the series! However, I feel I have been trapped as all others are £4 (Still cheap but now I need to buy them ALL to follow what happens next).
belle in pages 