The Remnant Chronicles: The Kiss of Deception, the Heart of Betrayal, the Beauty of Darkness

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I really really liked this book. It wasn’t a five star read, it had too much romance in it, but it was still filled with a brilliant world building, secrets to unfold and enemies that could be friends and friends that could betray you.

Mary E. Pearson is the NYT bestselling and award-winning author of eleven YA novels and one novella. Her works include the completed trilogy, The Remnant Chronicles, which in a starred review, Publisher’s Weekly called “masterfully crafted.” Her favorite activities as a child were climbing tall trees imagining she was a hero in some fantastical world, or running along fence tops and roofs pretending she was a spy with a bagful of amazing gadgets. She was rarely herself. Amazingly, she never broke a bone until she caught a basketball in gym class. Catching real balls was not her forte. These days she continues to live in make-believe worlds she creates in her books. Her latest 2-book series, Dance of Thieves, allows her do all kinds of dange Mary E. Pearson is the NYT bestselling and award-winning author of eleven YA novels and one novella. Her works include the completed trilogy, The Remnant Chronicles, which in a starred review, Publisher’s Weekly called “masterfully crafted.” Her favorite activities as a child were climbing tall trees imagining she was a hero in some fantastical world, or running along fence tops and roofs pretending she was a spy with a bagful of amazing gadgets. She was rarely herself. Amazingly, she never broke a bone until she caught a basketball in gym class. Catching real balls was not her forte. These days she continues to live in make-believe worlds she creates in her books. Her latest 2-book series, Dance of Thieves, allows her do all kinds of dangerous things without breaking any bones. So far.

The Kingdom of Morrighan is steeped in tradition and the stories of a bygone world, but some traditions Lia can’t abide. Like having to marry someone she’s never met to secure a political alliance.

Ohh when you don't get along with the main character, it's really hard to enjoy a book that is mostly from their perspective and that girl is such a damn princess it's hilarious when other characters act like she's "not like other court girls" just because she wears pants and wait tables, especially since not many exciting things happen. But Lia was not alone in my distaste for her. Also, the prose in this book is incredibly beautiful. Pearson has such a command of language. Every word is included for a reason. It's flowery, but never to the point of becoming purple prose. Instead, each word works together to create a rich and beautiful world that I fell in love with. This is one of my favorite fantasy world I've read in recent months. And don't get me started on the whole first daughter, the gift, ancient texts, magic, the gods, scriptures, blah, blah, blah...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I get that you need some serious world building in a high fantasy novel, but I found myself either not paying attention or fast-forwarding over most of the scenes/passages pertaining to it. They felt like big chunks of boring info dumps and I realized that I really didn't care to know or find out about Lia's sight/gift whatever-whatever or how it came to be. In hindsight, this is probably why I liked the prince's and the assassin's POV's better than the MC's. Ugh, this book. I rarely give much weight to fantasy titles. They're almost always called "dramatic word of dramatic word" or "dramatic word and dramatic word", but I realize in hindsight that I should have paid attention to The Kiss of Deception because, I kid you not, this book is all about kissing. And while I'm not overly concerned with the conventions of genre, I'm amazed that anyone can consider this a fantasy.

Publication Order of Picture Books

The Prince: *steps aside for a monologue* She is lovely! Such spirit! I have never seen the likes of it! Whoever thought she could be so special, so different! This is the girl I had hoped never to marry?! I'm in love! I'm driven mad with hunger!

My stomach lurched, and I shifted my gaze closer to the bottom of the hill, where wagons lumbered on the road far below the citadelle, heading toward the town square, perhaps laden with fruit, or flowers, or kegs of wine from the Morrighan vineyards. Fine carriages pulled by matching ribboned steeds dotted the lane as well.

Publication Order of Children's Books

Pauline has a sweetheart, Mikael, who is in the army. She believes that he will eventually come find her. She soon finds that she is pregnant with his baby. The world snapped to silence. The tall grass waved above us, hiding us from view. He gazed down at me, his elbows straddling my sides, his chest brushing mine, his face inches away.