Reviews with content warning for Blood - The Traitor Queen

On reste sur un 4.5 pour ce second tome. Je continue à dire que j'aime énormément l'écriture de Danielle L. Jensen. C'est l'une des rares fois où je lis, une romance, ainsi qu'une intrigue purement politique sans une once de magie ou de fantastique, ce qui est un point très positif.
Ce tome-ci est plus rapide dans ses événements, nous sommes directement dans la guerre, pas de retour en arrière possible pour notre petite reine traîtresse.
Ce qui m'a plus, c'était clairement le voyage, la découverte de nouveaux paysages, de nouveaux endroits. J'aurai aimé en savoir plus sur les soeurs de Lara, surtout sur la suite de leurs vies.
Encore une fois, je ne me suis pas assez faite surprendre, et c'est pour ça que je n'ai pas mis 5 étoiles. Et aussi par les 2 derniers chapitre. J'aurai aimé un "jugement" plus incroyable que ça. Ça m'a semblé sorti de nul part, on a pas eu vent de ce phénomène auparavant... Donc bon.

Hâte de voir ce que Kerris et Zarrah vont faire, vont être dans ce prochain tome, débutant une nouvelle duologie..

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juliettewood's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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belle13's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Amount of spice:🔥
Explicitness: 🌶️🌶️.5

❤️Marriage in (Major) Trouble
❤️Slow Burn
❤️Adventure and Action
❤️High Stakes
❤️Great Supporting Characters
❤️Sisterhood
❤️Pining and Grovelling

Lara’s character arc in this series is SO GOOD. I completely fell in love with Lara in this book in a way I just couldn’t while reading the previous one. The stakes were so high and poor Lara and Aren just could not catch a break, it was an emotional roller coaster and I enjoyed every second. It took me two full years to pick this up because the ending of the first book made me so angry but I’m so glad that I finally did.

I would recommend it if you loved The Bridge Kingdom and want more of Lara and Aren but with even higher stakes.

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themoodreader's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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samellecooke's review

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

Where it seems like most people preferred this book to The Bridge Kingdom, I preferred book one. This book just didn't land for me. It was good, but not great. The flow was choppy to me and got worse as the book progressed. I read one review that said they felt the beginning was rushed. In a strange way for me the entire book was equal parts rushed and equal parts painstakingly slow.

The will they, won't they of Lara and Aren became too repetitive for me. Just make up your mind already. This approach could work, but in this case I didn't feel like it was executed well enough to be pulled off. The ending is what really did me in, however, resulting in the low star rating. The sharks essentially "choosing" Lara's fate was silly to me. Killing her off at the last minute to only resuscitate her the next moment and then have the book end 2 minutes later was annoying and reader's emotional bandwidth.

I was looking forward to reading the remaining two books in the series, but now am not so sure.

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sleepysapph_'s review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I have mixed feeelinggsss, but overall I really enjoyed this and it honestly helped bring back the joy of reading for me.

So, the things I liked:

- I absolutely loved getting to see the interactions between Lara and her sisters. It gave Lara more depth while also adding to the story without muddying it. Honestly would’ve been happy to see even more of them throughout the book 😩

- The actionnnnn. Getting to see Lara fully unleash herself and fight was *chefs kiss*

- Getting to see different parts of the world and the way they functioned. I feel like it really widened the universe and kept it from being this small condensed thing. It really showed the gravity of the decisions being made and what the consequences looked like.

Now for the things I wasn’t particularly fond of, and to be fair this will have spoilers so like.. proceed with caution:

- Although I understood why Aren was rightfully pissed off, it did start to annoy me and I genuinely rolled my eyes a few times. But all men are dumb so I can’t be surprised that fictional ones are too.

- The ending. So much was happening and I kept being like “there’s not enough pages left for this”. And maybe it’s just my personal preferences BUT:

1) I wanted to see Lara’s father suffer WAY more than he did. It felt too easy, was over in the blink of an eye.

2) I desperately wanted more time with Aren and Lara actually HAPPY, like hello????

3) I’m supposed to believe all these people spitting at her, wanting her dead, screaming profanities at her etc. all decided to chill because.. the sharks didn’t eat her… okay ya sure totally!!!

I’m interested in reading book 3, but from my current understanding it doesn’t follow Lara and Aren, and if that’s truly the case.. I’m not sure I care enough to read about anyone else.. IM SORRY OKAY 😭😭

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hellodebbies's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

One of the best read this year !!

I really enjoyed the plot and how it unfolded at the end. It was a bit slow during the desert part but that was fair honestly. The characters were awesome and the tension between Aren and Lara was perfect ! The ennemies to lovers was incredible and I said that as someone who isn't fond of them.

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annick's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

Much more plot and adventure than book one. But I lost interest after they left valotta. And the romantic drama in the third act was tiresome. The injuries and shark waters weren’t believable.

Heist in first act was good. Thankfully swift. The desert adventures added variety.

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