A River of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy was one of my favorite YA books I’ve read this year!
It started slow because it had to describe the rocky relationship between sisters Eva and Isa, but after the introduction of Bacca there was a steady pace. Watching Eva hone her powers under his teaching was awesome, and the world-building was amazing! It felt as big as it should be, with a rich history of past queens and the Great War.
One thing I LOVED about this book was just how strong the protagonist Eva was. She knew where her strengths were and where her weaknesses were, and she never turned into that whiny protagonist I always hate reading in YA.
There were really only two problems I had with the book that caused me to dock off a star.
One was the relationship between Eva and Isa. I felt like it could’ve been done a bit better. Although I love how Joy used flashbacks to show us how the sisters’ relationship fell apart, pretty much whenever Isa showed up she acted like a comical villain. I wanted there to have been more to her besides the same “I’m better than you, little sister” thing over and over.
My second problem was with the plot of the book. By the book’s end there were a few major questions that were never answered, and I think at least one of them should’ve been. It’s great that the book really went into the plot point of one sibling having to kill the other for the queendom, but it went too much into that. For the length this book was, I wanted to know more than just about Eva and Isa, such as more of Bacca and Prince Aketo, not wait until the next book for all of it.
I’ll still read the next book, but I’m hoping the sisters’ relationship will take a huge seat back now that their fighting is (mostly) over!
It started slow because it had to describe the rocky relationship between sisters Eva and Isa, but after the introduction of Bacca there was a steady pace. Watching Eva hone her powers under his teaching was awesome, and the world-building was amazing! It felt as big as it should be, with a rich history of past queens and the Great War.
One thing I LOVED about this book was just how strong the protagonist Eva was. She knew where her strengths were and where her weaknesses were, and she never turned into that whiny protagonist I always hate reading in YA.
There were really only two problems I had with the book that caused me to dock off a star.
One was the relationship between Eva and Isa. I felt like it could’ve been done a bit better. Although I love how Joy used flashbacks to show us how the sisters’ relationship fell apart, pretty much whenever Isa showed up she acted like a comical villain. I wanted there to have been more to her besides the same “I’m better than you, little sister” thing over and over.
My second problem was with the plot of the book. By the book’s end there were a few major questions that were never answered, and I think at least one of them should’ve been. It’s great that the book really went into the plot point of one sibling having to kill the other for the queendom, but it went too much into that. For the length this book was, I wanted to know more than just about Eva and Isa, such as more of Bacca and Prince Aketo, not wait until the next book for all of it.
I’ll still read the next book, but I’m hoping the sisters’ relationship will take a huge seat back now that their fighting is (mostly) over!