Synopsis:
Asleep for a hundred years, awoken by a kiss. Aurora’s life was supposed to be a fairytale.But since discovering that loyalty to the crown and loyalty to her country are two very different things, Aurora knows she can only dream of happily ever after. Once the enchanted princess, savior of her people, she is now branded a traitor.
Aurora is determined to free her home from the king’s tyrannical rule, even if it means traveling across the sea to the kingdom of the handsome and devious Prince Finnegan—someone who seems to know far more about her magic than he should. However, Finnegan’s kingdom has perils of its own, and any help he gives Aurora will come at a price.
As Aurora and Finnegan work together to harness her power—something so fiery and dangerous that is as likely to destroy those close to Aurora as it is to save them—she begins to unravel the mysteries surrounding the curse that was placed on her over a century before…and uncover the truth about the destiny she was always meant to fulfill.
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟
This should've been the first book. While A Wicked Thing was a quick, light, not-bad-but-nothing-special-either read, Kingdom of Ashes
was something compelling. The world was more complex, the characters
and their relationships were more interesting, and most of all, dragons. I've said I've never read a good dragon book before. This was a good dragon book.
Finnegan could've been the sarcastic, charming, hyper masculine love interest that YA seems to love. Aurora could've been the weak, passive heroine who instantly falls in love with a guy that treats her like garbage. But their relationship was nothing like that. I'm really unhappy with the unequal power dynamics I see run rampant in YA romances, and that's exactly the path I thought Aurora and Finnegan would go down. Then Rhiannon Thomas punched me in the face and said "f*** that."
There is no insta-love here. Finnegan doesn't get possessive. He doesn't try to seduce Aurora. He backs off, let's her make her own decisions, and romance only happens if Aurora wants it to happen. I definitely don't think theirs was the most original, interesting romance I've ever read, but Thomas succeeded in writing a healthy, balanced relationship where many, many other YA novels of similar caliber fail.
The dragons were cool. I liked them a lot better in the beginning. As the novel progressed, they began to feel more like an interesting prop that a unique, fleshed out facet of the world. It's because of this that I realized that this series suffered most from lack of space. I think if the novels had been longer, this series could've been really, really good. But both novels are only what, 350 pages? Where another reader might see a nice, short, quick read, I see squandered potential for more.
Overall, I liked this duology. I liked it a lot more than I ever expected to. It's a shame that it wasn't able to be more.
Finnegan could've been the sarcastic, charming, hyper masculine love interest that YA seems to love. Aurora could've been the weak, passive heroine who instantly falls in love with a guy that treats her like garbage. But their relationship was nothing like that. I'm really unhappy with the unequal power dynamics I see run rampant in YA romances, and that's exactly the path I thought Aurora and Finnegan would go down. Then Rhiannon Thomas punched me in the face and said "f*** that."
There is no insta-love here. Finnegan doesn't get possessive. He doesn't try to seduce Aurora. He backs off, let's her make her own decisions, and romance only happens if Aurora wants it to happen. I definitely don't think theirs was the most original, interesting romance I've ever read, but Thomas succeeded in writing a healthy, balanced relationship where many, many other YA novels of similar caliber fail.
The dragons were cool. I liked them a lot better in the beginning. As the novel progressed, they began to feel more like an interesting prop that a unique, fleshed out facet of the world. It's because of this that I realized that this series suffered most from lack of space. I think if the novels had been longer, this series could've been really, really good. But both novels are only what, 350 pages? Where another reader might see a nice, short, quick read, I see squandered potential for more.
Overall, I liked this duology. I liked it a lot more than I ever expected to. It's a shame that it wasn't able to be more.
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