dragonwriter 's review for:

Empress Crowned in Red by Ciannon Smart

2.0

adventurous informative mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Mood: 🙂😵‍💫😴😪🫠

Jazmyne finally has the golden throne, but without her magic, she cannot be named doyenne, only regent. Unfortunately, that’s not her only problem. Kirdan has saved Iraya, and they’ve escaped together, leaving the Lost Empress still a viable threat to Jazmyne’s throne. The council members aren’t thrilled with having a magic-less doyenne, the pirates expect her to lead them to a lost treasure she had no clue how to find, her mother’s ghost needs to be put to rest, and there’s a whole new threat in the Unlit, with an old enemy coming for revenge. Meanwhile, Iraya is fine with leaving Jazmyne in charge--until Kirdan and her loyalists convince her that Aiyca will suffer under Jazmyne’s inept rule. When Jazmyne realizes that she needs Iraya’s power to face the Unlit and comes crawling to her, Iraya realizes that Jazmyne simply isn’t ready to rule, and promises to come back with an army to help fight off the Unlit. But Jazmyne has to hold the line while she waits, while Iraya has to step into the unwanted role of politician and Lost Empress.

There was a lot happening in this book, and it was very overwhelming. I had a hard time keeping up with everything that was going on. Jazmyne is on her way to compete for pirate queen--wait, no she’s not. Wait, yes she is--ope, she’s passing the title to one of the pirates… No, she has to go on the pirate quest after all--oh, they’re NEVER going on the pirate quest? The map is good enough? Okay. Iraya is on her way to the Skylands--oh, no she’s not, she has to go to Kirdan’s kingdom and deal with his family, but she still REALLY wants to go to the Skylands! She rejects Kirdan’s romantic intentions, then tells his family they’re engaged.

Delyse is pushing Iraya to do things her way, then seems to respect Iraya’s rise to rule, then is honored when Iraya makes her her second, then tries to kill her.

There were THREE betrayals in this book. There was just SO much going on! But Jazmyne’s hate-fueled obsession with Iraya did make me cackle. It seemed like the girl could barely go three paragraphs without thinking about Iraya or comparing herself to Iraya, while Iraya was busy trying to get everything together and bring back the army as she promised. In my opinion, there needed to be fewer side quests for this book to be enjoyable.