Review: First book in the series
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 07 5, 2012
Please note that this is the FIRST book out of two. It was not mentioned anywhere on the Amazon page, and I was disappointed to be left completely hanging at the end.The love story in this is great, and I really enjoyed it. Though, like many reviewers, I did notice that it dragged on a while. The hero was pretty obvious about liking the heroine, and his friends tried to egg on the pairing as well, but Vianne was annoyingly insecure. Don't get me wrong, I loved the romance, and had the book ended differently, I would have happily gone back and read all the parts where one or the other of them was hinting at their feelings. I like to read and re-read that in a book.But my disappointment in the ending completely overshadowed any of my initial enjoyment of the book. Which is a shame, because I LOVED the book starting out. But like I said, it is the first book, so the author just abruptly ends things. No closure whatsoever. I found the description of the book to be misleading. "Yet to save her country and avenge her Princesse, Vianne will become what she must, say what she should, and do whatever is required." This book spent so much time on the romance portion of the story that there was not a whole lot of time spent on Vianne stepping into her role as Queen. She spends a lot of time vowing that she does not want to be queen, but it is really only in the last 10% of the novel that Saintcrow has any of the characters really doing anything besides fleeing.After reading reviews of The Bandit King (the next book), I have no desire to waste even more of my time on Saintcrow's books. This book could have been excellent, SUPERB even, if she had cut out half of the romance and insecurity and made the story into just one book. Saintcrow is a good writer, and I was captivated in the beginning, but she squandered my attention, and by the end of the book, I was severely disappointed. I ended up returning this for a refund, and will probably overlook any of her other books I come across, even if they're in the library and free. I'm not going to waste my time.