A Vow so Bold and Deadly Review

    Emberfall is torn between those who support Rhen and those who support Grey. Grey agreed to wait two months before attacking Emberfall. In this time, Rhen has shut out everyone, including Harper who wants to help him reach peace. Lia Mara is struggling to rule Syhl Shallow the way she wants to. Now used to the peace that not having magic has brought, some of her subjects are mad about a magical prince and scraver standing by their queen. This leads Lia Mara to doubt her ability to be the queen she needs to be. With the time for conflict drawing nearer, everyone must decide who they are loyal to, especially when an old enemy with the power to destroy everyone returns.

    Keep in mind that everyone has their own opinion. This review is only my opinion, and you may have your own, different one. I would take into consideration what I say, but do not make a decision about the book solely based off of this review. Let's begin:

    I continued my buddy read of this series with the release of this book. In fact, we timed our reading around the release. This series really is a good one to do a buddy read for, and I highly recommend it. I absolutely loved the first two books and especially adored the first one which I had to force myself to not get ahead of my buddy read for. This book was a bit disappointing considering how strong the other two are.

    For the majority of the book, it felt as if nothing happened. Kemmerer focused a lot on the lead up to the war and it just moved very slow. I had no problem putting it down when I finished my biddy read pages for the day because of this. Towards the end was when the action picked up and it felt a bit more like the first two books. However, even still, the end seemed anti-climatic to me. Some aspects and issues that were built up a lot were taken care of very easily, and to me, this undermined the previous books a lot. I am not going to say specifics to avoid spoilers, but I am sure you will most likely understand what I am talking about once you read it.

    I enjoyed Iisak's story a lot, probably because he is one of my favorite characters. There was one specific moment that I enjoyed since I had been looking forward to and hoping it would happen. Sadly, though, this was another moment that I felt like was anti-climatic, and I wish that we would have had a few more pages of it to make it feel complete.

    The ending of the book was left very open for the book that was supposed to end the series. It did not feel like a true ending to me, and I felt a bit unsatisfied because of it. It almost seemed like Kemmerer focused so much on the preparation to the war that she forgot about a lot of important parts of the book and rushed through them at the end. Now, this may be a somewhat good thing because it means she can revisit the world if she wants to. I, for one, would love to see a piece focused on Nolla Verin. The very open ending of this book definitely makes that a possibility. However, it still feels too open, and if Kemmerer does not come back to this world, I will forever feel incomplete with this. I think Kemmerer simply wasn't sure if she would want to continue the story in some way, and she really let that indecisiveness show.

    There were a couple of other plot points that didn't really make sense to me, but I don't want to discuss them since they will be spoilers. I will simply say that one in particular towards the end did not make sense to me or the person I did my buddy read with, and I think the end would have been better if this part happened in a different way that makes sense.

    There were positives to this book, but not enough to mask the disappointment I felt or to make me feel even close to what I felt for the first two books. One thing I did really enjoy, though, was the growth in Rhen and Grey's relationship. I love sibling relationships in books, so I did really like watching how this one played out. It was probably my favorite part of the book. There were also some moments that did get emotion out of me. I do still really care about all of the characters too.

    I do, again, have to give props to the cover designer and mention how gorgeous it is. All of these books definitely make my shelf prettier and are some of my favorite books visually.

    Overall, this book just wasn't on par with the first two and left me feeling unsatisfied and disappointed. It was not a bad book- it just wasn't as captivating as the first two. Since the first two were so strong, this one seems worse than it actually is because you are bound to compare the books in the series. I am hopeful that some sort of novella will be written that will make the ending feel more complete.

Rating: 3/5 stars 

Author: Brigid Kemmerer

Publisher: Bloomsbury YA

# of Pages: 416 (hardcover)

Genre: YA, Fantasy, Romance, Retelling

Series: Cursebreakers (Book 3)