Overview

My rating: 2/5 Stars

Honestly, I’m extremely disappointed in this book. It took me almost a year of off-and-on reading to push through. It was slow, too detailed, and in my opinion, most of the book was totally unnecessary. The plot was directionless and there was little to no action until the end of the book.

Synopsis/Details

• Pages: 470, Hardcover
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Series: Book #2 of the Remnant Chronicles
• Buy it on Amazon
• Goodreads
• Mary’s site

Held captive in the barbarian kingdom of Venda, Lia and Rafe have little chance of escape. Desperate to save Lia’s life, her erstwhile assassin, Kaden, has told the Vendan Komizar that she has the gift, and the Komizar’s interest in Lia is greater than anyone could have foreseen.

Meanwhile, nothing is straightforward: There’s Rafe, who lied to Lia but has sacrificed his freedom to protect her; Kaden, who meant to assassinate her but has now saved her life; and the Vendans, whom Lia always believed to be savages. Now that she lives among them, however, she realizes that may be far from the truth. Wrestling with her upbringing, her gift, and her sense of self, Lia must make powerful choices that will affect her country… and her own destiny.

My Review

I really wanted to love this book. I loved the first book-I devoured it, actually. My hopes were so high for this. It had fantastic reviews on Goodreads, so maybe it was just me but this book was incredibly slow.

After reading the first hundred pages, I put this book down for several months. Yesterday, I got really tired of seeing it on my TBR, so I decided to push through the next 300 pages.

Don’t get me wrong, this book is very well-written, but most of the plot is political intrigue. If you are a fan of the power plays and lies in the court of a kingdom, then perhaps this book will be for you. I am normally okay with this, but without at least a little action here and there, it gets old really fast. I didn’t understand where the plot was going, it felt weakly driven. Many useless scenes were described in tedious, unnecessary detail, and it took all I had not to chuck the book at the wall.

I did enjoy the characters as separate individuals, but all of them except for Lia lacked depth. We saw one trait from everyone: Rafe, the clever one; Kaden, the mislead one; the Komizar, the power hungry. Even Lia barely managed to break through her indignant front. The relationships between the characters were weak at best, especially the so-called “love” between Lia and Rafe, which basically consisted of them kissing all the time.

The last 20 pages were honestly the only part of the book worth reading. Pearson shoved all of the action into the last few chapters, and I can only imagine how good the book would have been if the whole thing were like that. Whenever the book is bad but the ending is good, I am always faced with the same struggle: do I continue the series? What do you guys think? Has anyone read these?

Thank you for reading! See you later.