I started reading The Remnant Chronicles right when the first book was released and I really loved it. Now that I've read the last book in the trilogy I'm adding my reviews for all three books here. If you like YA fantasy with romance then give it a try.
The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. PearsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Category: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Content: It's been a while so I can't remember
The Kingdom of Morrighan is steeped in tradition and the stories of a bygone world, but some traditions Lia can't abide. Like having to marry someone she's never met to secure a political alliance. So she flees on her wedding day. She settles in among the common folk, intrigued when two mysterious and handsome strangers arrive—and unaware that one is the jilted prince and the other an assassin sent to kill her.
I don't usually like love triangles in YA novels, but this one was different. The Kiss of Deception is mainly about Lia, but we also get the perspective of the prince she has run away from and the assassin who has been sent to kill her. After we get to the point where she meets them both, not knowing who they are, this story does something interesting. We as readers are not told which is which and are left to figure it out. Every time I decided I knew which one the prince was and which one the assassin was, I soon realized I still wasn't sure. This really kept me turning the pages.
It's soon apparent who Lia is going to fall for, even though we don't know if he is the prince or the assassin. I was really rooting for one over the other and hoping he was who I wanted him to be. I thought all of the characters in this were really well drawn. I thought a bit more world building could have been done initially on the background of the world, but overall I thought this was very well done. It ends with two people in a very sticky situation, but the ending is also really sweet at the same time.
The Heart of Betrayal by Mary E. PearsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Category: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Content: From what I remember it's clean
“For we must not just be ready, for the enemy without, but also for the enemy within.”
While The Kiss of Deception was focused a lot on romance this second book in the series really turned up the volume on the tension and intrigue. While I still like The Kiss of Deception better, The Heart of Betrayal was every bit as good. This was one of the strongest second books in a series I've read. The book started pretty much where the last book ended. What I found interesting about this book is that Lia becomes quite adept at deception. Something she was very angry at both Rafe and Kaden about in the last book. This deception leads to the betrayal that the title alludes to.
While I love Rafe, and was happy to read the chapters from his perspective, I felt like we got to know Kaden more than we got to know Rafe in this book, so hopefully we get into Rafe's head more in book three. This book was at times heartbreaking, and with the way things were left at the end I was really eager to know what happens next.
The Beauty of Darkness by Mary E. PearsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Category: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Content: A couple of sex scenes. One non-descriptive, the other a bit more-so, but not graphic in any way, An attempted rape.
“I left and went to the roof, where it was only me, a thousand blinking stars, and the beauty of darkness stretched to the ends of the universe, snuffing out the endless games of courts and kingdoms.”
I loved the first two books in this series and I was really eager to read this one when it was published, but somehow life got in the way, and an endless stack of books that I was obligated to read, and so this book got lost in the shuffle for two whole years. It also probably didn't help that I seem to have a bit of an aversion to actually finishing trilogies I start. I'm blaming it on the fact that I really do not like endings. But now that I've finished it, I'm so glad that I finally got around to reading this book. For the most part I liked it. There were some frustrating times, especially involving Lia and Rafe, but I can happily say that it ended well for all of the characters I came to love. I do feel like a novella with a certain couple and a baby would be a wonderful idea. I would like to see how that story unfolds.
This book was less focused on individual characters and more focused on conflict and the world as a whole, which was a departure from the two previous books, but somehow it worked for me. There were of course the issues I usually have with YA books where the characters seem older and more experienced that they should, and I did feel like there were some things that happened too easily with the end battle, a couple of which were not all that realistic to me, but overall this was a good YA fantasy-romance trilogy and I'm looking forward to reading the spin-off series set in the same world. As far as I know none of the characters from series are featured in it, but who knows, maybe we will run into a few of them in cameo appearances.
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