I really liked this book and how she got over someone. I enjoyed the romance and the friendships. I liked she came to enjoy her family. I liked that she was able to get over a boy and move on with her life. Great story.

This was a much better book than Blood Heir. In this novel, the main character is stronger. It also had a stronger world-building! Thus, I recommend this for fans of Sarah Wolf!

I have been looking forward to getting back into the world of Ana and Ramson. I think this book was better than its predecessor, Blood Heir. Ana is still on the run, but she is finding her strength to fight back and take what is hers. Let's not forget the struggle for Affinite freedom. She has journey ahead of her and a world to save.

Sometimes, I hesitate to read a sequel because I loved the first novel so much that I don't want the second one to mess that up. And then the second is forever stuck in my head and I pine for the times when it was just me and the first novel in my head. Red Tigress didn't ruin Blood Heir for me, but it didn't make me love it less either. Blood Heir > Red Tigress. Red Tigress got super political and back stabby and there was less passion and romance.
All my favorite characters were back (some in different roles). Ana and Ransom start out together at the start of the novel, but through a series of unfortunate events, they are quickly drawn apart by fate again. I must admit that I love the push and pull of these two characters... they never can seem to decide if they want to love each other forever or use each other for the greater good/biggest gain to themselves. I also love that every single character in this series is flawed. Not a single one could be labelled the "good guy" and in a story of antiheroes, the villains have to be especially double crossing and convincing. If you're looking for a good "bad guy", this series has plenty of characters to pick from.
If you're looking for a happy ending, you won't find one here. Prepare for war...

*eARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, I also purchased a finished copy from Goldsboro Books*

While the release of the first book was shrouded in controversy, cancelled, and then released with an edited version, the release of Red Tigress was relatively quiet. Blood Heir ends with the death of Ana's brother, the traitor Empress rising to the throne, and Ana vowing to gain back her crown.

Red Tigress starts a few weeks after those events. The majority of the book takes place in Ramson's homeland, and features the ghosts of his past. It does work, but sometimes feels a little pointless to the overall plot of the series, which is (I assume), Ana becoming the Empress. The main villain is barely seen in these pages, and the only part that will really affect the third book is the ending. A rather sad ending, in my opinion.

Ana is growing as a person, coming to terms with her power and how she wants to rule. She has the chance to see how Affinites are treated in a different country, how government can run on a system of checks and balances, and I think this will let her grow into a stronger person.

4/5 stars

I received this book from netgalley for an honest review. This book gives me game of thrones vibes. It was very action packed and kept me interested. I was hoping for there to be more romance with Ana and Ransom though.

Like its predecessor, Red Tigress moves along at a fast pace. Before I realized it, I was already halfway through the book. Along with the pace, I also particularly enjoyed the descriptive detail and the ending battle. Zhao's writing is evocative, and I savored a lot of the imagery. I especially loved the descriptions of Linn taking flight and Ramson's dip in the pool. The final conflict is detailed, a real nail-biter as the main characters fight for their lives. The ending of the book is a different story. I am not a fan of how the book concluded, and it's made me eager to read the final book with the hope that the ending will be better.

Ana remains ruled by her emotions, impulsive and only recalling the consequences after. This is why Ramson is crucial. He is her opposite, thinking and planning before making a move. He gives her structure and stability. Other than being the true heir to the throne and having a desire to help her people, there isn't much to demonstrate Ana's ability to rule. She needs to undergo a fair amount of growth before she can prove herself fit to rule. I hope the next book provides character development in this area.  

Red Tigress was a slightly better than average read but I couldn't help question many of the things the characters did or did not do. The final conflict is a highlight of the novel. I look forward to reading the final book.

A solid follow up to Blood Heir, expanding on the world and the intrigue. Loved seeing new kingdoms and the new POV we got in this followup!

This is the long awaited sequel to Blood Heir and I could not be more excited to dive back into the world. Red Tigress has the cold feeling of peril and high stakes that the first book had and I enjoyed getting to spend more time in the world and seeing how the characters continued to develop. It was great to see how each of the characters, especially Ana, become more fleshed out especially as a character drive reader it helped me to sympathize and root for their journey.

A decent follow-up. I’d have liked more action in the story though.

I also missed the banter from the first book. It definitely adds to the characters and the story.

I think it still sets up for the next book nicely.

Thank you to Netgalley for this wonderful ARC!

Ana and her friends escape to the Kingdom of Bregon, where Ramson was born, seeking an ally to help defeat Morganya's forces and regain her own kingdom. The writing in this book is amazing! I love how the author made me fall in love with this world and all of the characters. I was very excited to learn more about new characters and side characters in this book. I am thrilled about Ana's growth in this book of the series and am excited to see the rest of her journey.

I'm behind on my reading due to personal reasons but I went to finally go read this and couldn't find it on my kindle and it has been archived.

I have brought a physical copy of the book and will update my review once I've read it!

Sorry!

Giving it 5 stars because I know I'm going to love it.

I absolutely loved Blood Heir but this was the perfect sequel to it. Blood heir did an amazing job setting up a background story but in terms of plot development it kinda fell flat until the end. Red Tigress picked up in the areas of plot development and had more in depth character analysis with all the characters. It was an easy read but very detailed and engaging. Cannot wait for the next installment!

Omg buy it already. Zhao is a new insta-buy author for me. This sequel was so amazing, and the growth from Ana, Ramson, and Linn alone is stellar. I can't believe I have to wait another year for the third book! It's so good.

What a fantastic book! I loved the first book and was thrilled to receive an advanced copy of the sequel. I dont want to give too much away due to spoilers and this being the second book, but I thought the plot and characters were extremely well done. Amelie is becoming one of my favorite authors! I can't wait to continue reading books by her.

I absolutely loved this book!! It was everything I wanted in a sequel and I loved being back in this incredible world!! Red Tigress took place a few weeks after the end of Blood Heir and Morgana's tyrannical reign is destroying the country Ana loves and will do anything to protect. This book was packed full of action and a ton of political scheming and manipulation!! I loved every minute of it!! Watching Ana step fully into her abilities and becoming more of the Queen we all want her to be was inspiring and we cannot forget the devilishly handsome Ransom who had his own set of troubles to overcome in this book. I cannot wait to see where the next book takes these two and how their journey will end!!

While I was a fan of Blood Heir, Red Tigress is a very strong follow up. The writing is much tighter and the recap of book 1 (of which I recall very little) was extremely well done. Good character development…I especially appreciated learning more about some of Blood Heir’s minor characters. Nice setup for the next book.

Blood Heir had an overly simplistic plot, filled with clichés and predictability and much as I’d hate to compare the two, so does Red Tigress. While Blood Heir’s message about human trafficking and Othering was compelling enough to overshadow the lack of complexity in the overall storytelling, it is much harder to do overlook Red Tigress’ flaws as the latter is pure fantasy storytelling. Despite this, Red Tigress is more engaging, the characters are well-developed and the book as a whole feels more compelling. Reading it makes me so satisfied and leaves me doing a happy dance.

Plot, Prose and Pacing: Satisfying But Lacks Emotion and Logic

Picking up on the cliffhanger of Blood Heir, we are thrown into the deep end of the pool in Red Tigress. Cyrilia is in turmoil. Ana and Ramson are still on the run as Ana’s true identity finally exposed and a false ruler sits on the Cyrilian throne. Linn is imprisoned and Morganya is on a crusade to punish non-Affinites by spilling their blood in retribution for their alleged crimes against Affinites. And, to make matters worse, Morganya is after an artifact said to grant the holder more than one Affinity. To stop Morganya’s cruel tirade, Ana has to travel to Bregon to get to the artifact before she can. But Ramson has other plans of his own, involving his old crime boss, Alaric. As fate would have it, Ramson, Ana and Linn find that all paths Naturally, their paths end up crossing and Ana, Ramson and Linn find themselves confronting a threat that would disrupt the order of their worlds.

To say much more would be giving a bulk of the plot away and this is definitely one of those books you have to read for yourself to truly appreciate the work of art Zhao had created! Blood Heir suffered from an overly simplistic plot, making its shortcomings readily apparent. But, it’s safe to say that Red Tigress, despite it’s own handful of cliches and predictable plot lines, was a satisfying read. Zhao’s talent with writing and storytelling has definitely improved and Red Tigress feels well-rounded and well thought out. I loved how the plot developed from the first book and it was well-paced. I rarely found myself bored and instead, I clung to the pages with dear life, always wanting more from the chapters.

However, despite how readable Red Tigress was, the most frustrating part about it is the lack of emotional depth in certain scenes. While I found a lack of emotion in the characters in Blood Heir, this time, it’s the writing. There are also multiple elements not fully explained which left them feeling hollow and pointless. Scenes full of emotion are abundant in Red Tigress but, what is supposed to be an emotional beat that leaves an impact on the characters are often cut short and reduced to a single paragraph. Perhaps, it is to highlight the urgency of the situations but it leaves the moment feeling a little hollow. Like, I just started to feel for the character and next thing I know, it’s like okay, on to the next plot point. I wish the characters were given some time to process and work through their emotions on the page rather than in Zhao’s head.

Another thing that really bothered me that might be an “it’s not you, it’s me” situation is how some things are so ridiculous, it feels like it belongs in a Korean drama. One such example, there is a major character described as insane/mad on the page. We do learn about this character’s background and history but there is a lack of justification for the character being labelled as insane. It didn’t make any sense to this character’s motivations and in the end, the character felt like a caricature for an evil villain. Another example, right off the bat, Ana and Ramson are journeying together but have gone out for the night to meet their own informants etc. Not long after, Ana learns where she needs to go to make her next move and she’s like, okay, I’m going to go off across the world, Ramson will understand. And I’m like . . . what? They had a designated meeting point; she could have met up with him before gallivanting off to save the world. And, it makes absolute sense that Ramson is like, okay, you’re not coming to our meeting point; that’s okay, I’ll chase you wherever you go. Characters communicate very poorly in Red Tigress.

And, this is a minor spoiler but, the ending of Red Tigress happens because of a miscommunication! I was appalled at the ridiculousness of these plot points.

Characters: Emotional Bundles I Love

Red Tigress‘ saving grace is it’s characters. One of the things that bothered me the most about Blood Heir was how the characters were just devices to drive the plot forward and they lacked any kind of emotion or even stakes in the story. I could not find any emotional connection to the characters, I detested their cookie cutter designs and to be very honest, reading Red Tigress was a little bit difficult as the characters were so bland that I had forgotten all of them save for Ana and Ramson. Although Red Tigress is equally as plot-driven, the characters have really grown into the shoes Zhao has handed them. While I disliked both Ana and Ramson in Blood Heir and Linn was a blip I didn’t even remember, I absolutely loved them here!

Ana is more than your monstrous girl with the monstrous blood affinity; she feels, she cares and she has developed stakes in the story. Her throne is threatened and so are her people; she is very righteous and believes that she can change the way the Cyrilian monarchy runs the country. I like that we can see a lot more hopefulness and maturity in her; she also has a lot of diversity in the ways she thinks, feels and acts. And although she still mostly acts and unleashes her powers without thinking her actions through, this time, she is driven by more than just “I’m a monster so I should act like one”. I also liked that we got to see a little training montage of Ana learning how to use her powers but it was far too short and not informative enough.

Ramson has gone from Kaz Brekker wannabe to crusader for justice! I may have exaggerated on the last bit there but it’s the truth. In Blood Heir, it felt as though Zhao wanted Ramson to be a criminal mastermind with a heart of gold when he’s actually just a boy with a troubled past with a heart of gold. He felt so cookie cutter and lacked any sort of real characterisation; it was frustrating to read. But in Red Tigress, we learn so much more about Ramson and his origin story in Red Tigress and I can finally fall in love with him; not because he’s so devastatingly charming and handsome but because he’s unrealistically perfect! No matter his purpose in life, he always finds himself back at Ana’s side, protecting her and loving her. He is the brains to Ana’s brawn and that’s the perfect love story right there.

Ana and Ramson’s romance here also felt more grounded in reality. In Blood Heir, the attraction between the two hardly felt at all natural; it felt like Zhao was forcing them to be together. But there’s an understanding between the both of them in Red Tigress even though there are too many obstacles in their separate lives they need to resolve before they can spend forever in each other’s arms. Together, they seem more mellow, grounded and for lack of a better word, in love. It’s not a passionate kind of love, in my opinion, but rather, the kind of love born out of mutual respect, trust, understanding and acceptance. And that’s the best kind! Except for (spoiler!) that one very strange and very out of place kiss which had me frowning like an old lady clutching her pearls. It just didn’t feel like the kind of time and place to be making out.

And while I wanted to do a reread of Blood Heir to prepare for Red Tigress, I decided against it because, to be honest, I thought I had misplaced my copy. So, unfortunately, I can’t compare Linn to her characterisation in Blood Heir because I don’t remember her and I didn’t find her significant enough to note in my original review. However, I absolutely fell in love with Linn! I could feel her pain and her suffering through every page on the book, I knew her heart and her actions. She really came to life on the page as she sought her own path to freedom while helping Ana and Ramson on theirs.

Worldbuilding: Not Much to “Sea”
Red Tigress takes readers out of Cyrilia and to a whole new country, Bregon. I appreciated that we get to see a whole new world and learn more about the landscape the characters are in. But, as much of the story takes place within the Bregonian royal grounds, we are only afforded a handful of meaningless glimpses into the country. We learn little about their lives nor how Ana, Ramson and Linn’s appearance in their city would affect them. But, I did enjoy the world being crafted; some elements felt a lot like Venice as Bregon is a water locked country. What made Bregon stand out to me as well is that although they are technologically modern, their politics, economics and society are stable and thriving, women were not allowed to hold high positions in the kingdom because women were believed to be ill omens. How this played into the story exactly is not clear as it did not seem to play much of a role at all.

However, the two countries that we have learned of honestly felt a little bit like the two magic worlds of the US and the UK in Harry Potter as Bregon has their own term for Affinites: magen. I felt this was completely unnecessary as it served no real purpose to the story to call them something else, even though Bregon treat their magen as equals and live harmoniously with them. After all, they still practiced the Affinities they had no differently and had no different system of magic. It would have served the plot a lot more if they were also called Affinites as human trafficking still plays a big role in the plot as it would have symbolised the sameness and difference in how they are treated but instead, the magen became an isolated group of people readers rarely interacted with.

In conclusion, Red Tigress was a fantastic read that really rivalled it’s predecessor. Most of the time, I struggle with loving sequels because they often pale in comparison to fantastic debuts but this is one situation where I am wonderfully satisfied. If Zhao continues on this upwards path, the ending to the trilogy is going to ruin and devastate me. I cannot wait for it to happen!

I loved this story. I really enjoyed the first book and I have been looking forward to diving back into this world and reading about the characters again. I would recommend reading this book.

The growth between the first book and this second one is amazing! The second book is just as good, if not better, than the first. Probably because this book really focuses on the plot advancement and with the cliffhanger at the end of the first book, the action and adventure was highly promised. And this book delivers! And of course, after reading this amazing second book in the series, I desperately need the third now! I'm excited to see where these characters are going to go based on these first two amazing stories.