story craft

Title

Genre: YA Fantasy

Format: Hardcover

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Cautions: violence: medium frequent violence; an invasion and several murders and bloody battles and attempted assassinations; romance: a few steamy kisses, but nothing more than that.

Favorite quote: “Then all you can do is decide each day what you will do and what you won’t do. Just because you feel something doesn’t man you have to act on it.”

Review:

Rise of the Vicious Princess strikes that magical balance between dark and emotive and delightful and romantic. And the book is magical in so many ways.

I think Redwine does such a beautiful job of creating strong father-figure-type characters, and in a world where absentee fathers are an ever-increasing norm, her take is such a breath of fresh air. In Vicious Princess, I found one of my favorite portrayals of a strong father-daughter relationship between Charis and her father. His priority is always and ever her care and safety, to the point that when a spy is found in her room during a party, her father sends his personal guard to watch over her.

Enter Tal.

And my, don’t we love him? He’s quiet, calm, supportive, and loyal. Charis has experienced so much loss and chaos, and Tal seems to be the perfect solid presence in her life. Like a safe harbor. At least, she thinks, and she needs it to be true now more than ever as she steps into her mother’s shoes to run the kingdom when the queen’s injuries won’t allow her to get out of bed, let alone lead their country.

As tensions rise between Calera and Montevallo, Charis struggles to see how to protect and care for her people, lead the country, and take care of herself. Thankfully, each time one of those begins to slip from her grasp, it seems Tal is there to catch it before it shatters. Before she shatters.

But then, Charis wouldn’t be the princess of Caldera and the rising leader that her people need if she believed things could be so simple. Throughout the book, we see her ping-pong between trust and openness, confidence and absolute defeat.

In Vicious Princess Redwine once again delivers vivid scenery with magical characters who somehow feel so similar to ours. They grow and they change; they hurt and they heal; and they continue moving into the next chapter despite the pain and heartache.

And so, I guess we’ll have to wait and see how it all ends up, if Charis can be the leader her people need, in Return of the Vengeful Queen.

My take:

All families have issues that money, power, and control cannot solve. It’s love, compassion, and humility—those qualities heal, hold, and make whole.