A review by astraia_sun
Blackveil by Kristen Britain

3.0

I wanted to give this book five stars, because it was well written and I liked most of it a lot. But I can't give it that because I can never, ever get over the fact that apparently it's okay to rape someone who's unconscious if they're a man and it's "for the good of the kingdom." It not only smacked of being horribly contrived, but the rape was never brought up, whether in a negative light or to be explained. If this had been a woman who'd been unconscious and raped, I'm pretty sure it would have been "worse" in the eyes of the author... maybe. Otherwise, I can never, ever like Estora for doing what she did (no matter how hard Ms. Britain is trying to get the reader to like her, the fact that she raped Zachary while he was on death's door is absolutely repugnant, whether it was her "choice" or not). If the characters had ever brought it up, with Zachary asking why, or even forgiving her, I might have been a lot more okay with how things ended up. But they all just ignored it, and apparently no one cared beyond the fact that the conspirators betrayed him in general. Nothing was said about Estora's actions, I suppose because she was manipulated. She still had choices, and in my firm opinion she made the wrong ones. Of course, this is a fantasy kingdom, but that doesn't mean it's okay for a character to behave that way and not have it dealt with accordingly.

Absolutely disgraceful.

As for the rest of the novel, I really enjoyed walking through Blackveil, Karigan's reactions and choices, getting to know the Eletians better, and Estral's and Alton's little romance. I'm giving the book three stars for all of that.