A review by bookedbrunette
Capture the Crown by Jennifer Estep

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense

4.0

𝐇𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐚 𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐛𝐮𝐭, 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬, 𝐈 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐬 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐞. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Capture The Crown

Jennifer Estep

433 pages

FC: Delmira, REIKO, Grims, Leo

This truly felt like a DND campaign in the best way. 

The world building was verbalized in a way that kept us immersed without letting anything of the plot on. I adored the world. The multiple monarchies, the long list of kings and queens (annoying but, makes a fantasy A FANTASY lol), the wildly supernatural beasts that represent each place and are kept by monarchs like pets. It was just really insanely good. Plus the world should have felt HUGELY like a melting pot but it was done so delicately that it never did. 

Something else that surprised me was that all of these characters were full fledged adults. Gemma Ripley, our MC and Crown Princess of Andvari, is 29 years old. Her rival, leonidas Morricone, is 31. I LIKE that they’re a little bit older because the decisions they make are never stupid. If this book gets five stars on anything, it’s lovable and moral characters. Not all of them are moral, and a lot of them are evil, but even those were written well. Expect a good villain! But the characters were so smart. Just so clever and witty in their remarks, so intelligent in battle strategy and very sly when it came to politicians. Any type of situation, they got it thought through.  

I really, really loved the drama of it all as well. There was death and slaughter of battle but…there was soap opera drama moments included with multiple royal families, fiancés, and balls. Some cheating and trifling is fun when all the characters are smart and silly. 

The conversations are fun to read at least 😂

One other thing I wanted to touch upon was the evidence of a clear scope of mental health in the authors perspective of this book. Gemma deals with some very absorbent and full nightmares and memories from a traumatizing time in her childhood. She suffers from high levels of PTSD and sorrowfully lives while the trauma claws at her insides. I was at first annoyed with the amount of times she brought up this traumatic event but…I realized it’s because she’s really never gotten a break from those horrible memories, you’d understand why she talks about it a lot. Another thing that was mentioned was very harsh child abuse. Some royal families are evil but some are villainous. Any king who has to whip down a child in order to feel powerful, is no king of mine fr. 

Good story. All in all. Solid, solid story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse