Synopsis

Rielle Dardenne has been anointed Sun Queen, but her trials are far from over. The Gate keeping the angels at bay is falling. To repair it, Rielle must collect the seven hidden castings of the saints. Meanwhile, to help her prince and love Audric protect Celdaria, Rielle must spy on the angel Corien — but his promises of freedom and power may prove too tempting to resist. Centuries later, Eliana Ferracora grapples with her new reality: She is the Sun Queen, humanity’s long-awaited savior. But fear of corruption — fear of becoming another Rielle — keeps Eliana’s power dangerous and unpredictable. Hunted by all, racing against time to save her dying friend Navi, Eliana must decide how to wear a crown she never wanted — by embracing her mother’s power, or rejecting it forever.

Review

3 stars

First of all I am grateful to Sourcebooks Fire for giving me the opportunity to read this much awaited sequel!

I absolutely adored Furyborn and  I could not wait to read Kingsbane!
When Kingsbane landed on my Kindle I think I screamed so loud that I awoke my neighbors.

Sadly I struggled with that story. As it gets many good reviews, I guess it’s a case of “it’s not you, it’s me” . I hope to help you decide if the book still could be your jam and  will go with my likes and dislikes

Let’s begin with the positive:

The world building is still excellent. You have fantastic beasts, angels, magic etc. Claire Legrand knows how to write to make you see this fictional world.

The plot is strong with twists you won’t see coming. There is action, you move nearly all the time, meet new people, have threats to avoid and quests to fulfill be it get ancient artifacts from the Saints or find a cure or ….

We get to read about the back story of the characters and about what happened to the angels. Believe me, the humans were not flawless here and they did trick the angels!

I never saw that ending coming! As this is a trilogy it ends on a cliffhanger so you’ve been warned.

BUT

Here come my dislikes

I really disliked the characters.
Of course in book one we know that Rielle was the bad guy. But I rooted for her and really loved her as kickass girl! I wanted her to have excuses.
Here…
Here she changed so much and I could not stand her. In that Claire Legrand did really a fantastic job depicting a villain. Power was so tempting. But I had problems with the grasp Corien had on Rielle. Why was she attracted to him like that? She just seemed kind of selfish in her search for power. I would say she became power drunk and accumulated bad decisions.

On a side note, if I did not like Eliana at all in book one I warmed up to her character in this sequel. She is trying her best but she is also a very conflicted character and not easy to like either. She is stubborn and decided to do things her way. That led to mistakes…

As I love above all else character’s driven stories it was really difficult to feel concerned with their ordeals.

What bothered me deeply too were the numerous sex scenes. I am a romance reader so I am used to hot scenes but not in YA books. This CAN’T qualify as a YA!
The way these scenes happened and how Rielle wanted it made me feel uneasy. I did not like how she seemed to use Audric and … well you got it for as much as I loved her before I disliked her here.

I think if this book would have been labelled as adult I would have been prepared and probably not bothered by these scenes.

I like my relationships to be focused and exclusive but that was not the case. I loved Audric and each time Corien happened felt like a deep betrayal. The relationship between Ludvine, Rielle and Audric was also …peculiar and probably not fitting for a YA story again.

Would I recommend this book?

If you have read and loved Furyborn I would say read it and make your own opinion.

I know that I will read other books by Claire Legrand as I loved not only Furyborn but also Sawkill Girls (unique story).
I guess you can’t love all books from an author…

Have you read Furyborn? Did you love it? Do you want to read Kingsbane?

Thanks for reading

Sophie