“Born to fly isn’t strictly true, of course. I’d been born, if anything, to be a very minor game piece in the interstellar games of houses and bloodlines, married to someone the Empire or my family deemed suitable or at least convenient. I’ve never been one for living under illusions. I can still hope however. My main hope is that I am just not that important.”

When I first began this book, I was elated and excited, I’ll confess. 99p on the Kindle store?! Royalty and a sci-fi vibe? An obvious romance and relationship development from the get go? A Powerful female protagonist? SIGN ME UP.

I devoured the first 50% of this book. It was fast-paced, engaging, and the world-building was magnificent. The characterisation left something to be desired, apart from Bel, I felt that the two main male love interests where a bit gappy and transparent – they held no real ‘content’?

I loved the transition of Bel’s character in line with the different settings she encountered. I LOVED the sci-fi element of this, and the notion of a warrior princess to be queen. She wants to be a soldier and won’t let anyone tell her no? YES?! This is the sort of female character I’m here for!!!
(I’ll admit that this is a frequent character cocktail for ya fantasy and sci-fi, but Jessica Thorne did well with her female character.)

The second half of this book, though? Meh. What happened, you ask? Not much. There was some semblance of conflict, rebellious occupation, but nothing that made my heart race or blood boil! I didn’t really care that there had been an overthrowing by their rival race. And I should have. With a good book, you always should. The ending was also a bit… for want of a better word.. half-arsed? It felt rushed and a bit cliche. I saw every plot-turn coming from about 50 pages away.

As it was so cheap and not an overly coveted fan-favourite as of yet – I won’t overly complain. I’ll definitely give it another chance and re-read it, because it was good, but it just wasn’t GREAT! The 2nd book in this series, The Stone’s Heart, is already out and I’ll pick it up when I feel ready to engage in this story again. If it is of the same nature then it’ll be a worthwhile read, but not my most anticipated…

Interested to hear what others thought of this?
A xo