A review by vireya
Throne of the Fallen by Kerri Maniscalco

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

If I could rate this book higher I would. I love KM. I own all of her books. I’ve been following her since she first released Stalking Jack the Ripper. (if you haven’t read it go do it!) I was super excited when Kingdom of the wicked came out and I adored the books. And now she’s done it again as an adult novel. I was thrilled.

MMC:
Keri Maniscalco is incredibly talented when it comes to world building and plot. Her characters are always fascinating and the princes in Kow are some of my favorites. The way they lean into and are so tied with the world itself is incredibly written. They were side characters and yet I wanted more of them and this book delivered. Seeing Envy’s thought processes and motivations be expanded upon so thoroughly was absolutely wonderful. Throughout kow we got all these snippets of him and seeing it fulfilled and put under a microscope was exactly what I needed. I was practically giddy to be back in the world of Kow and to know all his secrets finally. We knew from that series that all the princes had individual curses as well as the one that held them all and seeing Envy’s was everything I wanted from him.

FMC:
Km writes amazing female main characters and Camilla was another. She was at times predictable. It’s a problem I had with KM’s other 2 FMC’s as well and I figured out
she was a fae princess
pretty early on. But her headstrong I know exactly what I want and I will get it attitude made me love her. So often in romantasy we see these fmc that seem that way at first and then end up becoming so connected to the relationship that they lose their spark of individuality(looking at you feyre) Camilla didn’t do that even as she fell in love with Envy. She remained her own person with her own desires and motivations.

World building(only complaint):
While I don’t think it’s necessary to read Kow and this can be read as a stand alone where you will get what you need to understand the world as it pertains to this story; I do feel like a lot of the world building is lost if you haven’t read them. She really develops the world there with all the different courts and the histories that are so crucial to that series and she knew coming into the prince of sins series that most people were coming over from Kow. I think she shoved off a little of that extra work she usually puts into her books to really build the world and relied a bit too much at times on the idea that people would have previous understanding of where they were.

Spice
Oh lord ms maniscalco knows how to write smut. It was hot. And I thought the buildup to them finally having sex really paid off. Especially with how it played into Envy’s character development and accepting the chance to be hurt again. It wasn’t just sex for the sake of sex. It added to the story. It wasn’t randomly thrown in there like it’s so easy to do with romance novels as a whole. I loved the dual perspectives and how sometimes we would see and experience it through her enjoyment and at others we got to see the way that envy takes so much pleasure from pleasing her. I don’t think it took away from the story. I don’t think it was overly done. It was very well written and tied into the story in a significant way.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes romantasy. Especially if you’ve read Kingdom of the Wicked.

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