A review by ashurq
The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson

5.0

Princess Lia is about to be married to the prince of a neighboring kingdom–a prince that she has never laid eyes on. The idea of marrying someone she’s never seen is horrifying to her. On the day of her wedding she runs away to start a new life with only her maid as company. As she starts to settle into a new town, two handsome men show up at the inn that she’s working at. One is an assassin sent from a third kingdom to hunt her down and the other is the prince that she left behind.

I liked this book a lot. It alternates between perspectives fairly often so you get a pretty good feel for what’s going on the whole time. This isn’t something that I usually like, because I always feel like I want the author to get back to my favorite narrator, but I felt like it really worked in this case. I definitely did not see the twist towards the end coming. I literally had to go back and read through some of the past chapters to make sure I wasn’t going crazy.

The characters. I liked Lia because even though she was a princess, once she left her home she was 100% willing to work and do manual labor to make money and earn her keep. She just wanted to be normal and she never acted like she was entitled to anything. I also liked that she didn’t fall for Kaden or Rafe right away. There wasn’t any instalove going on and once she picked one of them she didn’t really go back-and-forth about it like some characters I’ve read. There were two guys trying to get her attention, but it didn’t turn into an awkward love triangle.

Overall I thought this book was great. It’s the first in a series called “The Remnant Chronicles” and I’ll definitely be reading the rest of this series! The next book, The Heart of Betrayal, comes out July 7, 2015.

Overall Rating: 5
Violence: Heavy, especially towards the end of the book but not too explicit.
Sexual Content: Mild
Language: Mild
Smoking/Drinking: Moderate