A review by helynalc
Traitors of the Black Crown by Cate Pearce

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

I'm pretty mixed on this book. Some parts were so so good and interesting: Raena, a hidden heir of a ruined family pretending to be a man and a knight, at that; a cruel king, a widowed duchess in a very tight political position - just a nice mix of characters. I also really loved the old Queen, Zarana's POVs at first, it was an interesting perspective. The history of the world was told in a bit of a disjointed manner, but it was relatively easy to put it together. And I was Ready. For revenge, and war, and romance, and drama.

But the story was sort of slow, and the plot not exactly what I expected. Which is not bad, to be honest. It was a bit too slow in places, though. My favourite parts were absolutely where Raena and Aven were together, and their relationship evolved, and the romance started and all that. They were: cute. But then they were separated for a long time, which was sad. And the entire Raena's revenge storyline was shadowed by the attack of the

Boens. Which was also just so strange, I couldn't really put together how I should have felt about it. They were previously described as a misunderstood, sort of beaten down people but then they were these almost...barbaric underground creatures when they attacked... so I'm not sure.

It was interesting, though, especially the Zarana parts. And I found the ending a bit underwhelming...but maybe it's just because it felt like they had to cut the book somewhere because it was getting too long, so it wasn't a natural "finale point".

There were really a lot of interesting pieces, though, and I'm still curious what is going to happen. It's quite a long book so the sequel will not be easy undertaking, but perhaps! :)