Thank you Macmillan Publishing for this book in exchange for an honest review
Synopsis:
Princess Theodosia was a prisoner in her own country for a decade. Renamed the Ash Princess, she endured relentless abuse and ridicule from the Kaiser and his court. But though she wore a crown of ashes, there is fire in Theo’s blood. As the rightful heir to the Astrean crown, it runs in her veins. And if she learned nothing else from her mother, she learned that a Queen never cowers.
Now free, with a misfit army of rebels to back her, Theo must liberate her enslaved people and face a terrifying new enemy: the new Kaiserin. Imbued with a magic no one understands, the Kaiserin is determined to burn down anyone and everything in her way.
The Kaiserin’s strange power is growing stronger, and with Prinz Søren as her hostage, there is more at stake than ever. Theo must learn to embrace her own power if she has any hope of standing against the girl she once called her heart’s sister.
Review:
Ember Queen is the last book in the series and I was a bit hesitant to see how it would go. Ash Princess was a great concept at the beginning and I loved how the world was built and the details around Theo’s character. The second book, I wasn’t as big of a fan. I found that there was too much dialogue and everyone was fawning over Theo. For me the second book was what I like to call a gap filler. Where you need to get from A to B but need something in between. I found that the most intense and interesting part of Lady Smoke was in the last few chapters of the book which ended on a cliff hanger.
With one amazing book and one book that wasn’t as appealing I was really torn to see how Ember Queen turned out.
Theo emerged from the fire mine and is stronger than she was before and now she has the ability to use her magic to its full extent. While I love the fact that Theo is finally strong enough to take back her title as Queen and rule of the people in her realm, I wasn’t a big fan of how she couldn’t remember anything that happened to her in the mine and how she became a lot more powerful. This to me was just a case of ‘well it’s like this now so get used to it’ There wasn’t a depth to how her magic improved and what she experienced down in the mine, it was simply just because. I would have also liked Theo to have a bit more development in this book and have her character actually be strong and less whiny like she was in the third book. I feel like characters that have come from a hard past and want to rise above it, shouldn’t sit there and whinge to gain the sympathy vote, they should act and do to reach their goal. But I’m not a very empathetic person, so that could just be my opinion.
The pacing before the final battle was pretty good and gave you enough detail to hang on to the edge of your seat in anticipation of what was about to happen. It was good to see Theo learn to trust in her friends and listen to their advice but that’s the only area where I saw her character development. To me she didn’t seem to age or grow up over the course of the series.
The closing chapters were really well written and it ended the series nicely and it was great to see such a unique use of power or magic so to say.
Overall I wasn’t a massive fan of Theo in this book, again I feel like she didn’t grow up, she didn’t learn from her mistakes and she didn’t take charge. I think if there was better development with this character I would have enjoyed the book more.
Rating: 3.5/5
ISBN: 9781760559113
Publisher: MacMillan Publishers