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mnikole_yy 's review for:
The Red Palace
by June Hur
2022 Reading Challenge #47: Based on a Real Person
2022 Goodreads Challenge #21/20
For this prompt of the challenge, I was planning on reading a biography of someone or a memoir perhaps, but then I saw June's book sitting on my shelf and thought "oh yeah, you're getting read" and the book turned out to be based on Prince Sado of Korean history, so here we are.
I was between 4 and 5 stars for this book. It was June's first time writing romance into her murder mysteries and the romance came off as heavily k-drama inspired (not that I'm complaining, we know I love my k-dramas). This novel I think was also the fastest that I've solved one of June's mysteries, to be honest. Not that it wasn't done well; rather, I think I just love her books so much that I've started to understand her formulas of creating a murderer lol
The murders were wrapped around the rumors of the Crown Prince's outbursts of anger and that he was the culprit for the crimes. Palace nurse Hyeon is wrapped into this massacre on her own terms. I think that we spent a lot of time trying to debunk these rumors, as no one wants their Crown Prince to be a guilty convict, but for some reason I wish we had more time spent with the prince in the novel. I think we had more than our fair share (especially after a certain scene, iykyk) 100%, but I don't know. For the novel being based on him, I guess I really just wanted to break into his brain and explore his tragic past. Fortunately, that is why June left us many references in her Author's Note to research on our own, so maybe once I do a little research on him myself, I'll have that feeling resolved :)
Overall, I'm extremely excited for her next book to come out. YES, I still have to wait a year. Heavy thumbs down. BUT I've been following her since FoSG, so I am anticipating the next read to be even better. For now, I'll settle on 4.8/5 stars for Red Palace.
2022 Goodreads Challenge #21/20
For this prompt of the challenge, I was planning on reading a biography of someone or a memoir perhaps, but then I saw June's book sitting on my shelf and thought "oh yeah, you're getting read" and the book turned out to be based on Prince Sado of Korean history, so here we are.
I was between 4 and 5 stars for this book. It was June's first time writing romance into her murder mysteries and the romance came off as heavily k-drama inspired (not that I'm complaining, we know I love my k-dramas). This novel I think was also the fastest that I've solved one of June's mysteries, to be honest. Not that it wasn't done well; rather, I think I just love her books so much that I've started to understand her formulas of creating a murderer lol
The murders were wrapped around the rumors of the Crown Prince's outbursts of anger and that he was the culprit for the crimes. Palace nurse Hyeon is wrapped into this massacre on her own terms. I think that we spent a lot of time trying to debunk these rumors, as no one wants their Crown Prince to be a guilty convict, but for some reason I wish we had more time spent with the prince in the novel. I think we had more than our fair share (especially after a certain scene, iykyk) 100%, but I don't know. For the novel being based on him, I guess I really just wanted to break into his brain and explore his tragic past. Fortunately, that is why June left us many references in her Author's Note to research on our own, so maybe once I do a little research on him myself, I'll have that feeling resolved :)
Overall, I'm extremely excited for her next book to come out. YES, I still have to wait a year. Heavy thumbs down. BUT I've been following her since FoSG, so I am anticipating the next read to be even better. For now, I'll settle on 4.8/5 stars for Red Palace.