I do so love Alma's writing. I took this to a doctor's appointment and didn't even notice when the doctor was delayed for hours. I was lost in Ms. Alexander's world! ( )

Unfortunately, my expectations were too high for this book. I greatly enjoyed the previous book in this series. Anghara had such amazing adventures in the previous book running from her half-brother who usurped her throne away from her. She started out young and inexperienced and grew in understanding, power and self-determination in that book.

Now in the sequel, Anghara is still on the run from Sif, but the first half of the book she is disabled in mind and body and can barely walk, talk and think. Everything to save her has to be done by the men and others around her. It is quite an odd first half of the book.

The last 100 pages of the book redeemed my expectations. Anghara was again the strong Queen who had to struggle to gain her kingdom back from the usurper. The book did a good job of bringing the story to a close and tying up all the loose ends. ( )

http://roseread.net/wordpress/?p=304 ( )

This book was not quite as good as the hidden queen. I felt like it went way too fast. Not that this is always a bad thing, but there didn't seem to be much traveling, just boom they were in a new location. No descriptions of the journey, nothing. Maybe I'm just used to longer more drawn out descriptions. The story was still very good. although i kinda missed the viewpoint of Anghara. Kieran is nice and all, but just isn't Anghara, the person we suffered through in the Hidden Queen. Again, not a bad thing, just something different that kinda threw me a bit. Still a great read! went quickly and was hard to put down. recommended! ( )

Very good - but not as good as the Hidden Queen. ( )