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I have to admit, this isn’t the first time I’ve picked up this book.

After seeing the great reviews on GoodReads/Amazon, I ordered it and waited patiently for it arrive.

But I made the mistake of not opening the book up first with the ‘Look Inside!’ feature and didn’t realise it was in present tense.

Now, I should tell you that I’m fairly new to the world of present tense reading. I’m not really sure why authors are doing it. If it’s because they think younger readers have a lower attention span due to social media and the like, then that’s just offensive. I had Facebook, Myspace, BeBo and whatever else when I was a teenager. Yet I still found time to read, and poor old ‘past tense’ never did anything to offend me!

So, because it read strange to me, I put it down again and that was that.

But then I was feeling generous and gave it a second chance. I tried my best to push past it, and by the end I was used to the different way of storytelling and now I’m keen to order the second one. Why – you might ask? Well, let’s dig deeper.

 

The characters

The book is centred around three sisters who have to try and kill each other with their magic powers to become queen. It’s not hard to see why it was picked up by an agent/publisher – it’s an intriguing plot idea. But because it’s written in third person, and tells three very different stories at first, it’s hard to know who the hell everyone is.

I was like who the eff is this boy Jules? Oh.. Jules is a girl? Now who’s Luca, or Luke? Why do they have to have such similar names? And who the eff is Cait? Why am I supposed to care if someone slept with Matthew? I don’t know who he is!

Yet you do grow to understand their stories, and then it starts to get interesting.

 

The plotline

The story of three sisters having to kill one another is obviously a good one. It sets you up straight away for lies, deceit, tension, drama and more. But it takes a while to come into fruition. And it’s a bit slow at first and can be hard to remember which queen has which power. Especially considering one is called Arsinoe which reminded me of arsenic yet her power wasn’t poison. Confusing.

Despite all of this, there were times when I couldn’t put this book down. So that has to count for something.

 

The ending

As you can probably imagine, this book ends on a pretty big cliffhanger. And I’ll admit, I’m intrigued to see what happens next in this world of magic. I’m going to go and order book two shortly and crack on reading it!

 

Star rating:

3.5 out of 5. I’d only recommend this one if you read a lot. Don’t make this your first foray into you fantasy YA. Please? Come back after you’ve read Cassandra Clare and Sarah J Maas.