Hmm. That was. Well. A book, for sure.
I liked the first book well enough—enough that I wanted to read the sequel, anyway. Unfortunately, it seems the author should have probably stuck with a one-off.
This book was just rather...bland. First off, Alex and Sage, the main characters and love interests, really should not have gotten together in the first book. Half of the reason why I found this book so mind numbingly boring was that they were already together, and the plot points the author used to cause friction and angst were so horribly forced that they wound up being irritating rather than interesting.
Like, Sage, the royal tutor and not a trained spy/soldier by any stretch of the imagination despite her experiences in the first book, throwing a hissy fit that her army officer fiancé will not let her come with him on what is basically a secret, black ops mission? Like... what the actual, literal hell? Alex was 100% right in not wanting Sage to come along, and Sage, as well as the author paint him as some terrible, exclusionary monster who doubts Sage's abilities. It absolutely infuriated me.
Also, I'd really love some world-building consistency as to the role of women. Is it an inclusionary world where a woman can become pretty much whatever she wants to (as Sage seems completely able to do with little fanfare) or are they married off at the whims of the family patriarch to get them out of their hair? Like... the societal rules are so scattered (except where Sage is involved, apparently) that I can't pin them down.
The fact that Sage snuck into the army disguised as a squire (despite the Queen's hand in making it happen) should have involved some sort of reprimand, especially since her decision wound up creating a man-hunt for herself and the youngest prince, a battle in a foreign land, and numerous dead men on her hands.
And yet, at the end of the book, Sage is awarded an ambassador position for her country—but her best friend Clare now needs to go live with her because, now that this best friend's fiancé died in the battle in order to save Sage, Clare would need to go back to live with her abusive father and be married off to some terrible man without her getting any say in the matter.
Consistency? What is that?
And villains? There was not one clear enemy in this whole book, just vague armies and also a half baked assassination plot by some noble. If even your villain is boring and bland as hell, you've officially lost me as a reader.
As a lover of well-thought out and terrible villains, this book was most Definitely not for me.
Anyway, the entire book felt like a blur. I was told about dialogue rather than just being given the dialogue itself. The entire assassination plot in Casmun was so very predictable and boring. The entire book was just boring, and I'm so disappointed, honestly.
Well, I'm definitely curious as to what the third book could possibly be about as this one seemed to wrap itself up rather neatly.