The Kiss of Deception (Remnant Chronicles, #1)

by Mary E Pearson

[Ashley]

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4.5 Stars

Overall, I adored The Kiss of Deception! The idea of the book is just so fabulous. A princess has an arranged marriage with the prince, but she's never even met the guy so she certainly doesn't love him, so she runs away. The prince sets out to find her, doesn't tell her who he is, and she falls in love with him anyway!

The best part about this book was easily Lia. She was a total badass! This girl really knows how to stand up for herself (and others). She has no problem getting in a man's face and telling him off. It was pretty damn epic!

There is a love triangle in this book, but it wasn't bad. I think that's because although there were two guys, Lia clearly knew which one she wanted. She cared for both of them, but she knew she liked one more and she made that pretty evident (at least to the reader). And the two guys were really, really interesting. You know one's the prince and one's an assassin, but you don't know which one is which (unless I'm totally retarded and missed something obvious). So although you know a bit more than Lia does (she doesn't know either of their true "professions"), you're still kind of in the dark as a reader. It was fun trying to figure out which guy she was actually falling for! I totally thought that Rafe was the assassin and Kaden was the prince... oops!

I have to admit, the last quarter of the book did start to bore me just a little. There's just tons and tons of traveling and after a while I felt like nothing new was happening. Then the actual ending was kind of a let down for me. I feel like... nothing really happened. There wasn't any huge build up or climax. It's like it approached a climax, but ended before it actually got there. That left me a little unsatisfied overall. It suggests that book two should be very interesting (and possibly even avoid second book syndrome!), but I think that's largely because the end of book one was actually lacking.

And then there's the side story, which is riddled with bits of magic, politics, and war. It slowly built up as the book progressed, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how it all pans out. It almost felt Game of Throne-esque in that combination.

But even so, The Kiss of Deception really excited me! It was a fun book to read and tough to put down (most of the time). Lia stole the spotlight for being such a badass, but I loved the side characters as well. This series is definitely one to watch out for!