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Throne of Vengeance and Desire
218 pages, Paperback
Published September 21, 2025
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October 23, 2025
**Thank you to William Liu and Booksprout for providing me with an e-ARC copy in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.**
✨️ Book Title: Throne of Vengeance and Desire
✨️ Author: William Liu
✨️ Genre: Fantasy
✨️ Tropes: Morally grey hero(ine), warrior princess, monster in human form, rebel leader, orphan hero(ine)
⭐️ Star Rating: 2.5 / 5 stars
🌶 Spice Level: 1 / 5 peppers (warm/fuzzy - closed-door intimacy)
⚠️ Trigger Warnings: Death, violence, murder, poison, assassination attempts, abuse, hostages, war
📅 Release Date: September 21, 2025
"I'm helping you because Valdris destroyed the only person who ever saw me as human."
"And because you have her eyes. That same way of looking at people like they matter."
After surviving the brutal assassination of her family, Princess Lyralei has become a weapon motivated by vengeance and a desire to reclaim the throne as its rightful heir. In her battle to reclaim the throne and rid the kingdom of corruption, will Lyralei also become the monster she fears the most?
A fantasy involving magical creatures, powerful mages and witches, feminine rage, with a small side of romance, Throne of Vengeance and Desire sounded like an ideal book for me. However, the story slowly started to lose me at the beginning of chapter two with minor plot inconsistencies. I was then really lost at just over the halfway point, with major plot holes in chapters five and six. With a total of only six chapters, I was too stubborn to DNF so close to the end of the book.
As an overall concept, Throne of Vengeance and Desire is solid. An exiled princess seeks to exact revenge on the monster who killed her family to steal the throne. Combined with leading a rebellion, learning to use her newly discovered magic, and becoming the Queen her kingdom needs, there is so much room for this book to really take readers on an adventure. Especially with the multitude of villains Lyralei encounters, Throne of Vengeance and Desire could have easily become a duology. Instead, it felt like two books were crammed into one, with detail and essential plot points being eliminated from the book to do so.
One of the biggest struggles for me was the major flaw in Lyralei’s use of power. She starts out as a Shadowborn, undergoing intensive training specific to her new power, all to help her achieve her goal of revenge. However, in the middle of the book, our FMC switches from shadows to fire. Shadows, or being Shadowborn, are then not mentioned again for the remainder of the book. I felt Lyralei’s discovery of being a Shadowborn was a major component of her character and her character development. To abandon this part of her with no further information felt unjust to the growth she had previously achieved.
Unfortunately, the switch-up from shadows to fire wasn’t the only inconsistency that had me struggling to understand the plot. In one chapter, the reader can be relieved by a villain’s death, while in the chapter to follow, the Lyralei hasn’t even defeated this villain yet (despite the battle occurring in the previous chapter). Somehow, a brother who was supposed to be dead is still alive (and will be saved), only to never be addressed again. A cousin to Lyralei (who is used as a pawn in our villain's plan) somehow becomes her deceased older brother's personal guard with no familial relation. Some random characters, deaths, and villains are mentioned, with a plan for our FMC to address… until you start the next chapter, where we’re onto a whole other plot line now. In the last chapter, we have two name changes… for our FMC and MMC, which isn’t addressed at all. I felt like I was constantly getting invested in the characters and their storylines, excited to see what came next, wanting to know more, and then the next chapter would start, leaving me lost and wondering what I was missing.
Despite its inconsistencies, Throne of Vengeance and Desire has some serious potential to be a fantastic read. I just feel like we need more consistent detail to become fully invested in the characters and their world.
✨️ Book Title: Throne of Vengeance and Desire
✨️ Author: William Liu
✨️ Genre: Fantasy
✨️ Tropes: Morally grey hero(ine), warrior princess, monster in human form, rebel leader, orphan hero(ine)
⭐️ Star Rating: 2.5 / 5 stars
🌶 Spice Level: 1 / 5 peppers (warm/fuzzy - closed-door intimacy)
⚠️ Trigger Warnings: Death, violence, murder, poison, assassination attempts, abuse, hostages, war
📅 Release Date: September 21, 2025
"I'm helping you because Valdris destroyed the only person who ever saw me as human."
"And because you have her eyes. That same way of looking at people like they matter."
After surviving the brutal assassination of her family, Princess Lyralei has become a weapon motivated by vengeance and a desire to reclaim the throne as its rightful heir. In her battle to reclaim the throne and rid the kingdom of corruption, will Lyralei also become the monster she fears the most?
A fantasy involving magical creatures, powerful mages and witches, feminine rage, with a small side of romance, Throne of Vengeance and Desire sounded like an ideal book for me. However, the story slowly started to lose me at the beginning of chapter two with minor plot inconsistencies. I was then really lost at just over the halfway point, with major plot holes in chapters five and six. With a total of only six chapters, I was too stubborn to DNF so close to the end of the book.
As an overall concept, Throne of Vengeance and Desire is solid. An exiled princess seeks to exact revenge on the monster who killed her family to steal the throne. Combined with leading a rebellion, learning to use her newly discovered magic, and becoming the Queen her kingdom needs, there is so much room for this book to really take readers on an adventure. Especially with the multitude of villains Lyralei encounters, Throne of Vengeance and Desire could have easily become a duology. Instead, it felt like two books were crammed into one, with detail and essential plot points being eliminated from the book to do so.
One of the biggest struggles for me was the major flaw in Lyralei’s use of power. She starts out as a Shadowborn, undergoing intensive training specific to her new power, all to help her achieve her goal of revenge. However, in the middle of the book, our FMC switches from shadows to fire. Shadows, or being Shadowborn, are then not mentioned again for the remainder of the book. I felt Lyralei’s discovery of being a Shadowborn was a major component of her character and her character development. To abandon this part of her with no further information felt unjust to the growth she had previously achieved.
Unfortunately, the switch-up from shadows to fire wasn’t the only inconsistency that had me struggling to understand the plot. In one chapter, the reader can be relieved by a villain’s death, while in the chapter to follow, the Lyralei hasn’t even defeated this villain yet (despite the battle occurring in the previous chapter). Somehow, a brother who was supposed to be dead is still alive (and will be saved), only to never be addressed again. A cousin to Lyralei (who is used as a pawn in our villain's plan) somehow becomes her deceased older brother's personal guard with no familial relation. Some random characters, deaths, and villains are mentioned, with a plan for our FMC to address… until you start the next chapter, where we’re onto a whole other plot line now. In the last chapter, we have two name changes… for our FMC and MMC, which isn’t addressed at all. I felt like I was constantly getting invested in the characters and their storylines, excited to see what came next, wanting to know more, and then the next chapter would start, leaving me lost and wondering what I was missing.
Despite its inconsistencies, Throne of Vengeance and Desire has some serious potential to be a fantastic read. I just feel like we need more consistent detail to become fully invested in the characters and their world.
Displaying 1 of 1 review