A review by princessleopard
Princess of Death by Cortney Pearson
5.0
Preface: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This book was genuinely enjoyable, which isn't something I get to say very often. The prose was gorgeous. The characters were fleshed-out and likable. The set-up for the plot is a little hackneyed (and it sounds like the same is true for the sequel), but I didn't mind. The world is unique and interesting, from the divided sea, to the little touches here and there (magic, the rove, finfolk, etc.). There is a hateable villain (who will hopefully get more motivation in later books), but the other characters are understandable, even if they're antagonists. And, best of all, while this is obviously a set-up to a trilogy, it tells a coherent story all on its own. We see Cali take responsibility for her actions and her people, and do her best to fix it - and even if the end result isn't quite what we'd hoped for, it still feels as though the journey we've gone on has been worthwhile, and not just empty lead-up to something more fulfilling.
(Also, I really love the names throughout the whole story. They have a really pleasant blend of that elegant fantasy feel without ever quite being overdone.)
I do have a few quibbles here and there - just little things that don't quite make sense, like the ecology between the two lands being so different even though they're apparently only a few days apart (although the timeline might have gotten fudged because magic). There's a love triangle, which I'm not generally a fan of, but it's passable here because both love interests are genuine and likable people, not just cardboard cut-outs or obviously evil. Again, there are a lot of dangling threads, but I'm curious to see if these actually end up being wound together somehow. I would have liked a little more fleshing-out of some of the background characters - Vera is the biggest example, but also Roland and maybe Ayat - but we might get that in the future. Ultimately, it's a little hard to judge the flaws of this novel without knowing what will come next. But I will definitely read the next book, and (hopefully) the third.
This book was genuinely enjoyable, which isn't something I get to say very often. The prose was gorgeous. The characters were fleshed-out and likable. The set-up for the plot is a little hackneyed (and it sounds like the same is true for the sequel), but I didn't mind. The world is unique and interesting, from the divided sea, to the little touches here and there (magic, the rove, finfolk, etc.). There is a hateable villain (who will hopefully get more motivation in later books), but the other characters are understandable, even if they're antagonists. And, best of all, while this is obviously a set-up to a trilogy, it tells a coherent story all on its own. We see Cali take responsibility for her actions and her people, and do her best to fix it - and even if the end result isn't quite what we'd hoped for, it still feels as though the journey we've gone on has been worthwhile, and not just empty lead-up to something more fulfilling.
(Also, I really love the names throughout the whole story. They have a really pleasant blend of that elegant fantasy feel without ever quite being overdone.)
I do have a few quibbles here and there - just little things that don't quite make sense, like the ecology between the two lands being so different even though they're apparently only a few days apart (although the timeline might have gotten fudged because magic). There's a love triangle, which I'm not generally a fan of, but it's passable here because both love interests are genuine and likable people, not just cardboard cut-outs or obviously evil. Again, there are a lot of dangling threads, but I'm curious to see if these actually end up being wound together somehow. I would have liked a little more fleshing-out of some of the background characters - Vera is the biggest example, but also Roland and maybe Ayat - but we might get that in the future. Ultimately, it's a little hard to judge the flaws of this novel without knowing what will come next. But I will definitely read the next book, and (hopefully) the third.