⛰ What It's About

Duel POV of two protagonists - the second-born prince & the rebel king, Tristan Faasa - & a high-born lady of a neighbouring kingdom & spy/assassin, Sara. When Sara is betrothed to the current King Michael Faasa, she travels to his kingdom with a secret agenda of assassinating all the Faasas. She finds herself bumping into Tristan and a dark connection starts to build, but this relationship may make them both question their goals and compromise their positions. It is also apparently inspired by an alternate ending of The Lion King.

🔍 How I Discovered It

Overall I really enjoyed this book. I would definitely recommend checking trigger warnings before reading. I really felt the characters and I found it was easy to read and intriguing. The romance was dark and dirty and this was a new experience for me, I won’t say it is my favourite type of romance but I thought it was done well for the genre. The male love interest was dominant and yet, didn’t overshadow the female protagonist which I thought was masterfully done.

What I Liked About It

I thought the speed of the relationship between Sara & Tristan wasn’t insta-love & felt fairly believable.
Sarah as a character was portrayed as a very resourceful and strong female lead and having a relationship with Tristan didn’t change that about herself, which I respected. Tristan respected her strength and never tried to change her. Yes there were a lot of mild BDSM kinks, but this was clearly a sexual preference rather than a reduction of Sara’s strength and independence, as it done in many other novels.

What I Didn't Like About It

The ending felt a little too convenient and fast - how the protagonists managed to get themselves out of certain situations towards the climax of the story and the reader was given a vague description of how this occurred or not told at all. It made important scenes feel a little too convenient for my taste.
I didn’t exactly like that Michael’s mental health was demonised and seen as a weakness, even though it developed after he made some terrible decisions. He was sometimes referred to as mad and weak, which just didn’t sit too well with me. I personally felt that Michael wasn’t a terrible person and made cruel decisions because of how he was raised and who was whispering in his ear. I just felt so bad for Michael in this book, I’m not sure if this is a dislike aspect or maybe it was written well to make readers feel that way. It still hurt.

If you like dark romance that isn’t too dark within the romance & you are okay with the trigger warnings.
If you like a touch of villain-gets-the-girl vibes.

Content Warnings