Ekata is a middle child in a lethal royal family, and all she wants is to get away to study her passion: science. Her plans get turned around when her whole family falls under a sleeping curse, and she must step up and take control of the government. It doesn’t help matters that her older brother had a bride show happening for his impending descent to the throne, and now major kingdoms and sects across their world have come to try their hand at marrying into this family (p.s. the bride show includes both men and women). Ekata must transverse this weird, mysterious, and deadly situation to help her family (who sometimes she wonders about leaving asleep) and kingdom amidst this chaos.
All in all, this book has great characterization. Ekata and Inkar were my favorites, especially because their slow burn romance. It certainly aligns more with politics than traditional romance at the beginning, but the slow burn truly accents this story in the best way possible. It was wonderful in my opinion to read about a political story that emphasizes marriage strengthening an individuals claim to the throne, but at the same time the romance isn’t the main part of the story.
Moreover, the setting of this world was also something I enjoyed. A winter kingdom on top of a mermaid-ish (I pictured them like mermaids but I still don’t know if that was correct) kingdom that trades the former magic? AMAZING.
Now this story is highly representative in my opinion. There’s an f&f romance, non-binary MC, and the title “duke” is actually a unisex title in this world. Not to mention unlike most political fantasies there were no misogynistic and homophobic comments getting thrown about. It was soooooooo refreshing. I hope we see more of this in upcoming novels, whether that’s Claire or other authors overall.
But besides all these great qualities: it took me forever to finish this novel, and for me, the urge to pick up the book and continue is everything. It says a lot when I feel as if it’s a chore to read a book, and I only kept going because of the great aspects I mentioned above. I was really sad about feeling this way for this book when the first 200 pages had me so intrigued. Overall, TWD, in my opinion, went on longer than it needed to, and I think that hurt my personal enjoyment, sadly.
Even though TWD wasn’t my favorite, I’m very excited to try Claire’s other book! She’s an author I’ll be keeping my eye on for years to come.
Thank you NOVL for sending me an ARC to review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.