Review Detail

Twylla has been blessed by the Gods. She will marry a prince and rule the kingdom with him. The blessing, though, comes with a price and for Twylla, it means her touch is deadly to anyone not favoured by the Gods. The queen uses Twylla as an executioner for anyone who angers her or she needs out of the way. Leif, a new guard assigned to Twylla, sees past the image she maintains for the court but doing so could put both their lives in danger. Some secrets shouldn’t be told.

First, the cover of this book was beautiful in its own right but now, after reading the book and knowing the context behind it, I love it even more. The concept of this book was really interesting and I really liked the world that was created. The mythology of the Gods and how it tied into Twylla’s situation was one of the main reasons I kept reading. The story overall was a little slow and a bit predictable but the action did pick up in the last part of the book.

Twylla was a character who was obviously lonely and craved approval from others, especially a parental figure. She had only one friend due to her touch being lethal and her job as the court executioner. She was miserable but she never really did anything to try to change the situation for herself. She was the type of character who reacted to things that were happening to her instead of taking charge and causing things to happen. I liked that she wasn’t cold or closed-off, even though it would have been easy for her to be that way with her job.

I did like Twylla and Leif together but I found it hard to believe in their romance when it happened so quickly. Same thing with Twylla and Prince Merek. It felt like it went right from the getting to know each other stage to the love stage. I found their relationships were more like friendships that were being mistaken as love since they were the only two age-appropriate boys to be nice to Twylla.

I thought the most interesting character of the book was the queen. She was definitely evil and enjoyed violence. She was manipulative, could be nice one second then sentencing death the next. She knew exactly what she wanted and she was going to get it no matter what the cost.

The mythology of the Gods, the Sin Eater and Daunen Embodied was my favourite part of the book. Every time the book started going into more detail, I found myself reading faster because I wanted to know more. I’m hoping the next book has even more to give us readers, even though it’ll probably be a long wait.