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A review by yogicath
Queen of Ashes by May Freighter
4.0
This is book two of the Empire of Shattered Crowns and the main characters are Prince Thessian of Hellion, and Queen Emilia of the Dante Kingdom who has lost most of her family after they were overrun by barbarians and betrayed. Her life is so different from her upbringing, alone and locked in a tower, thought to be cursed by her family and the citizens of the kingdom. Now she is treated as the queen and is working on trying to join with Prince Thessian to have him win the fight with his brothers for Hellion and therefore all the kingdoms. All she wants is somewhere to live in peace and freedom. Thessian has had to bring lady Riga back with him, but got badly injured on the return journey, only just being healed on arriving back at the Dante castle and receiving stronger healing. Thessian is trying to build allies within the Dante kingdom, but has issues to deal with as his second in command, Sir Laurence joins other team leaders within his travelling army, to go for a bit of light relief, only to find themselves somewhere completely unexpected. That cause quite a few issues and even huge damage to the city! Emilia gets plagued by night terrors and nightmares haunting her every bit of sleep, until she finds out something much more insidious is responsible. Her assassin Clayton of House Escariot is supposed to have found the man, Julio, Thessian has been hunting for years, after finding him experimenting on children at a research facility in Darkgate, to his disgust. Somehow he had managed to escape after the king was killed, only for some ghostly figure that looks like him being spotted by the servants!
Emilia decides to hunt whoever is responsible for her night terrors and also check out the strange disappearances of this ominous figure in the castle, through what must be a secret passage! Lady Riga as Thessian found out, is a fire mage, whose secret has been kept, from fear of the Church of the Holy Light, who have decreed mages to be evil, like Emilia herself was cursed from her birth due to some old prophecy! She finds that characters who were not well featured in the book she now finds herself appearing within, during this second reincarnation. Discoveries of who might have actually been funding these sick experiments comes as a huge shock to Thessian, making all he had believed be thrown into turmoil! For Emilia, she needs to find out why the bishop has been trying to take her down and why certain Lords of the kingdom are refusing to support her. There are also difficulties with her own guards and soldiers, who take umbrage against those of Thessian being in charge of them! They especially don’t like the fact that the new Head Guard is a female, Lady Cali, who is in love with Sir Laurence! Ambrose is still the best side character in the stories, always having been caring for Emilia since she was a child, helping her to reach the guild and Lionheart, as well as Emilia using her knowledge from the book she is now starring in, to make decisions and gain some influence and funds of her own. I can’t wait to see what Lady Riga will get up to, as well as Lady Cali, Sir Laurence and the wild beast child he rescued. So much happening, but Queen Emilia still needs the church to allow her to be recognized and crowned, before she can have Thessian take over, and she has an imprisoned bishop to bargain with! I received an ARC copy of this book from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.
Emilia decides to hunt whoever is responsible for her night terrors and also check out the strange disappearances of this ominous figure in the castle, through what must be a secret passage! Lady Riga as Thessian found out, is a fire mage, whose secret has been kept, from fear of the Church of the Holy Light, who have decreed mages to be evil, like Emilia herself was cursed from her birth due to some old prophecy! She finds that characters who were not well featured in the book she now finds herself appearing within, during this second reincarnation. Discoveries of who might have actually been funding these sick experiments comes as a huge shock to Thessian, making all he had believed be thrown into turmoil! For Emilia, she needs to find out why the bishop has been trying to take her down and why certain Lords of the kingdom are refusing to support her. There are also difficulties with her own guards and soldiers, who take umbrage against those of Thessian being in charge of them! They especially don’t like the fact that the new Head Guard is a female, Lady Cali, who is in love with Sir Laurence! Ambrose is still the best side character in the stories, always having been caring for Emilia since she was a child, helping her to reach the guild and Lionheart, as well as Emilia using her knowledge from the book she is now starring in, to make decisions and gain some influence and funds of her own. I can’t wait to see what Lady Riga will get up to, as well as Lady Cali, Sir Laurence and the wild beast child he rescued. So much happening, but Queen Emilia still needs the church to allow her to be recognized and crowned, before she can have Thessian take over, and she has an imprisoned bishop to bargain with! I received an ARC copy of this book from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.