A sheltered princess goes to war and discovers that all is not as it seems in her kingdom, finding her heart and her strength in the process.

There were a few -- a very few -- things I liked about this book. I thought the elf-analogue people were interesting, although the name Magus fooled me into thinking they were a type of advisor to the king for a while. And I thought the tension between Ava and Aldin was engaging.

However, the book had multiple problems with pacing, character development, and craft that I found impossible to overlook. (In fact, this was a DNF for me -- I made it about halfway though, and then read the ending.) The pacing and character flaws are linked. It feels as if each character is one of those talking dolls equipped with five sentences each -- "I'm brave!", "I don't like being isolated!" etc. The author has put all these dolls on the Plot Train and sent it off at top speed, allowing each doll to say one or two of its five Themes at each of the many stops along the line. At the end of the journey, we disembark, befuddled and with windswept hair, only to discover that we are once again at the place we began, and the dolls have not changed at all.

In the first chapter, we learn that Ava is "isolated" and has to stay shut up in the Terem. She also spars with her friend, goes out to help peasants, talks to her Magus friends, attends court. Her time in the Terem spans maybe five pages of the book total. The book is full of contradictions like these -- as an example, Ava thinks her father is terrible, but she's shocked to discover that he's the cause of the war; later, he's quick to acquiesce to the treaty. The characters' thoughts and feelings shift to accommodate the plot, rather than the other way around.

A good amount of character building occurs in the form of contrived conversations that the characters in question would, realistically, have had long ago, or in less direct forms. For example, when Ava asks her stepmother, "What if I don't want to be someone else's reason for living? Is it so terrible to want to live and fight for myself?" Given who Ava is, this would have come up in their relationship long ago, and it feels expository in an unpleasant way to hear it so directly.

I will say also that the theme of isolation is one that runs through the book, although I don't think this is intentional. She's isolated in the Terem. Bridger isolates her while she's traveling with the army, under the guise of "if you spend time with the men, they'll know who you are". (She later refers to the soldiers as "her friends" when the book needs her to see the soldiers as individuals whose loss is personally affective, although she never said a single word to any of them.) Callan and his family plan to ransom her back to the king. Aldin imprisons her. At every point in her journey, she is more isolated than she was at the beginning of it. This never appears in any of her introspection.

As far as craft goes, I will keep it short -- there is not really space to cover all of the sentences I highlighted as Bad Sentences, so I'll just cover the two instances that stuck out to me the most.

The book's first sentence is "If you sit still long enough, at the edge of the sea, you get the feeling that all of time itself is marching past you." This is an interesting and evocative image. However, it's immediately undermined by the beginning of the next sentence: "Today it is not time marching past...". Like, great? I've imagined something and now I have to immediately throw that nice image away for something else? Similarly, the sentences later on -- "A gust of wind blows, sending the fallen leaves into the air. But they don't fall, they dance in perfect circles around us." Fallen leaves that don't fall. All right. I understand what the author is going for, but the repetition of "fall" makes the language awkward to understand.

And partway through, as Ava spends time with the Turnskins (werewolves), her love interest's sister explains (doesn't explain) the werewolf marriage bond: "Something about the wolf magic binds us in a way that you couldn't possibly understand...". This just feels condescending to the reader.

I think there are the bones of a good story here (although, crucially, I think Ava should've chosen Aldin, not Callan...) but as-is, this book feels like something I would read on FictionPress dot com in 2005.

This was an okay read but one I will probably not read again. The plot was fun but predictable and I kinda lost interest in it.

Wow what another amazing world written by this author!!

The characters were amazing!! I enjoyed reading and getting to know each individual character. Each character brought forth their own personal story and problems that they had to fight through. Ava was such a strong willed and sassy character and I felt a connection with her from the beginning.

The storyline was addicting and it reeled me in completely!! Ficklin has done it again. She has brought forth a new magical world with new headstrong characters and an unforgettable plot twist that I never saw coming!! This story is chalked full of love, romance, action and suspense!! I love this story so much that it makes it into my top five faves of 2021!! I loved this story so much and I hope there will be more from these characters in the near future!! I highly recommend this read!!

I wanted so much to like this one. It had everything I look for in YA fantasy: strong female characters, wars, and dark and swoony devils.

Unfortunately, about halfway through I began to realize that I just was not connecting to Ava or any of the characters. I wanted so much to like and fall for the Shadow King but I came to really just not like any character in this, they all just made me angry.

Overall, I did not enjoy this, but there is an audience out there for this.