My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Summary from GoodReads
I am the perfect weapon.
I kill with a single touch.
Twylla is blessed. The Gods have chosen her to marry a prince, and rule the kingdom. But the favour of the Gods has it's price. A deadly poison infuses her skin. Those who anger the queen must die under Twylla's fatal touch.
Only Lief, an outspoken new guard, can see past Twylla's chilling role to the girls she truly is.
Yet in a court as dangerous and the queen's, some truths should not be told...
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REVIEW
This is one of the few times, I am not exactly sure on what to write. Not because I didn't like the book but because there were parts which were WOW and others that were MEH.
So, Twylla lives in a fantasy world in which exist three regions and two of them hold the power. The third one has the form of warring tribes. The description of the geography was a nice one and I wouldn't mind a map on the ebook. I like maps on the books. In "Throne of Glass", "The Remmant Chronicles", even on the "Young Elites" maps offer a good visual of the author's world.
But where the world-building offers some pros on the book, the character development gives the cons.
Twylla has lived in the palace all her life, as the assassin of the Queen, whose touch kills everyone. She lives in a golden cage and despite her POV, in which she both fears and resents the court and the Queen, she actually DOESN'T do anything about it. The Prince is a good for nothing, pawn of the Queen, there is a horrible royal tradition of incest which reminds me a little of "Game of Thrones" and Leif, the guard held the only surprise in the book's ending.
Twylla's life was hard I get it, and she made some really selfish choices which led her to the palace. But she was a kid so in a way she didn't know. I also don't know why but the name "Leif" reminds me of Yelena's brother from the "Poison Study" series but I'll ignore that.
The bonus in the story was the mythology. I adore when the myths about the sun and the moon are used in the books altered or as a whole. With the slight addition of the fairytale about the Pied Piper of Hamelin by the Grimm brothers, this book was a mix of great plot which at the same time failed to deliver good developed characters.
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