Much like book one, This Cursed Crown caught my attention and positively dragged me to the finish line! Overy has such a great command of her prose. Snappy where it needs to be, slow where it needs to be, and above all else engaging and well-edited. Also big kudos to the pacing, very well done, though I think the ending went a bit too quickly for me, I wanted more time in the scenes before the next moment unraveled.

I continued to love the sister relationship (and all the relationships!) like I did from book one. It went to high and low places, happy and heartbreak, and I still can't pick a favourite sister (lol!). The courtly intrigued continued to be stellar, I do so love the machinations of royals.

The myth of the firebird is so fascination. I'm itching for even more books that pull from that mythology.

Thank you for giving me the chance to read This Cursed Crown--a perfect end to a fabulous duology!

This Cursed Crown was a compelling read and a satisfying conclusion to this duology. The spectacular world building from These Feathered Flames was expanded upon and just so immersive. I could picture the story unfolding around me and honestly, I wouldn't mind living in Tourin (I love snow!). TCC is a great mix of a character and plot driven story as the two sisters deal with the fallout of their actions from book 1. I loved the court intrigue and how I engaged I was in figuring out who the big bad causing all the problems was and let me tell you, it's not what you think! (It's better!!)

I don't want to give details, but the ending was brilliant. It wrapped up all the threads and made me want to go back and reread These Feathered Flames and when I did, I saw the hints!! I love when books have excellent follow through and This Cursed Crown definitely does.

Overy's writing is once again easy to read--it's lyrical and has so much voice. You really see the personalities of the two sisters coming through in every word. I enthusiastically recommend this book and cannot wait to read more from this author! 14/10!

I was a big fan of the first book in this series, and while I was happy to see what happened to Asya and Izaveta in this book, it did fall a little short for me. Mostly, I think the problem was that it was just a little bit too long. According to GoodReads, it's 512 pages, which may not be accurate, but it certainly felt like it was somewhere in that range. Izaveta spent a lot of the time feeling sorry for herself for being heartless and then going right ahead and doing the wrong thing anyway, which got a little monotonous, as did Yuliana almost dying repeatedly. I'm glad I read this because I did like both Asya and Izaveta a lot in the first book, so it was nice to see their journey conclude.

A fine sequel, THIS CURSED CROWN builds on the myth of the firebird but makes it its own thing too. We are immediate brought back from the events from the first book and this sequel puts our characters through hell and back. So many satisfyingly twists!

This was the perfect ending for this duology. I loved seeing Asyas growth throughout this book and how she comes to understand her sister and the firebird better. Both sisters stuggle to come to terms with the choices they made in the first book and how they want to go forward from there. Lots going on in this book and the ending was perfect.

5/5 stars
Recommended for people who like: fairytales, courtly intrigue, dual POVs, magic, fantasy, The Bear and the Nightingale, sister stories, Russian folklore, morally gray characters

This review has been posted to Goodreads and has been posted to my book review blog and Instagram as of 10/4.

The book starts off focused on Asya as she navigates the political waters of court, searches for answers regarding Iza, and tries to find Yuliana. I definitely felt for Asya in the first book, but I really feel for her in this one. She hates the intricacies and machinations of the court, but desperately wants to find answers about her sister and ensure that the throne is still there for her when she (if she) returns. It was interesting to see Asya grow during the course of this novel. She carries so much guilt from what happened at the end of These Feathered Flames and is still resistant to cutting her human ties, as Tarya is still urging her to do, but at the same time she also grows to understand her sister and the Firebird a bit better. There aren't really any easy choices for her in this one, and a lot of her actions involve balancing what she believes with what she wants.

Iza is in an interesting boat, we don't get her POV until several chapters in and, as mentioned in the synopsis, she's trapped in a tower in some unidentified location. There's a part of her that struggles in realizing that she's still alive, that the end she thought was coming, thought was going to cleanse her conscious, did not in fact come. Iza grapples a lot with the choices she made in the last book, both on page and off, and a lot of her arc is trying to figure out who she wants to be, outside of what her mother expected and trained her to be. Iza is still manipulative, but she's also more willing to let people into her plans and trust other people (mainly Asya, but a couple others) to see their goals through, either Iza's way or a different way.

The sisterly bond is still very strong in this book, with both Iza and Asya wanting to ensure the other is well and protected. Asya's decisions in this book mirror Iza's in the first one: Her desperate search for answers and her own questionable decisions in this book can be tied directly into her hope that Iza is still alive somewhere, much like how Iza's questionable actions in the first book were directly related to wanting to protect Asya from the anti-Firebird people at court. There is still some tension between the two of them, but I liked how it played out and I think Overy did a good job showing that kind of ride-or-die relationships siblings can have. Regardless of how they felt about how the other's actions, Iza and Asya were always willing to step up to defend one another.

Nikov is a recurring character here. It'd been a while since I read the first book, so I remembered there was something going on with him, but couldn't remember if we knew what it was (and if we did, what it was). He acts as a good friend to Asya and serves as someone she can share her hopes with. At the same time, Nikov has a lot going on himself and has some of his own machinations to account for.

Yuliana is also back in this one and as someone who's much more clearly on Asya's side. Yuliana regrets a lot of what occurred at the end of the last book, and kind of struggles to understand how Asya could have already forgiven her for all of that. Yuliana actually ends up playing an integral role in the book at multiple different points, and, more minorly, we get some more romance with her and Asya.

After the conclusion of the last book, I wasn't entirely sure what the main conflict would be. Iza being gone was clearly going to be an issue considering no one liked the Firebird still and the queen-to-be was gone. However, I wasn't anticipating the conflict/villain that showed up and was pleasantly surprised at how well it plays into the original firebird myth (as well as Russian folklore in general). I don't want to be spoilery, but I absolutely loved the villain, and not in a 'oh they're sexy' kind of way, but more in a 'this is a quality villain' way. There's underlying manipulations, there's betrayals, and there's lies, but then there's also outright aggression and fights and magic, and it all ties nicely into everything.

You can definitely feel the stakes of this book and I definitely had moments were I thought everything was going well and then saw how much of the book I had left and knew things were going to hit the fan. There were also multiple points where I wasn't sure if people were going to make it through, and honestly sometimes they didn't.

I will say that the ending was...a lot. There was a lot happening, a lot of hope and then hope getting ripped away, and then more conflict, etc. I think I would've liked an ending that was a little further from the edge of ruin, perhaps one that ended just a handful of pages before where it did. At the same time though, the way that it ended did right things, so the conflict probably resolved in the right place.