A guard’s son with a secret claim to the throne becomes the rebellion’s reluctant weapon — and the king’s greatest threat.
- Score
- 76.8
- Spice
- 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️Sweet
- POV
- dual
- Ending
- HEA / HFN
Tropes
Content warnings
Curated signals, not an exhaustive guarantee.
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What readers think
Readers widely praise Grey's transformation from stoic guardsman to a fully realised, emotionally compelling protagonist, and many consider him a far more interesting lead than Rhen. Lia Mara is frequently highlighted as a refreshing heroine — compassionate and principled rather than action-driven — and the expansion of the world into Syhl Shallow is seen as one of the book's strengths. The most common criticism is that the Grey/Lia Mara romance feels underdeveloped or low-chemistry compared to the first book's central pairing, with some readers finding it bland until the final act. A significant subset of reviewers were also jarred by Rhen's sharp character regression into cruelty, which divided opinion between those who found it a bold narrative choice and those who felt it undermined his arc from book one.
Read it if
- · Readers who fell in love with Grey as a side character in A Curse So Dark and Lonely
- · Fans of political fantasy with rival courts, succession disputes, and shifting allegiances
- · YA readers who prefer emotionally grounded romance over high-heat content
Skip it if
- · You need the original Harper/Rhen dynamic to remain central — this book sidelines them
- · Low-burn, low-chemistry romance frustrates you; the central pairing takes a long time to ignite
- · You struggle with protagonists who make morally questionable decisions without full accountability
If you liked this
- · For fans of An Ember in the Ashes — rival-nation romance with political stakes and a soldier torn between duty and desire
- · Like A Curse So Dark and Lonely but with a quieter, more diplomatic heroine and heavier court intrigue
- · For fans of Graceling — a reluctant fighter questioning where his loyalty truly belongs
In this series
Part of Cursebreakers — read in order:
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