Review by Booklist Review
Ever since the King of Morta conspired with her cousin Vasilia to kill Queen Cordelia and eliminate the complete Blair line, Evie has vowed revenge on King Maximus and his family. Evie finally finds her chance when the Regalia Games commence. Royalty and subjects from all the kingdoms are there competing in various tests of strength and skill. There are also royal balls and parties and, par for the course for Evie, assassins. Using every bit of her own cunning and political acumen, Evie seeks alliances and a way to crush the King of Morta, playing the long game as generations of Blairs have done before her. Estep has crafted another winner in the Crown of Shards series (beginning with Kill the Queen, 2018). Evie is as headstrong and loyal as ever, and almost all of the series' fan favorite characters return, including Maven, illegitimate sister to Maximus, whose evil character gets a little more shading to make motives clear. This addicting series remains a fun thrill a minute and is highly recommended.--Lynnanne Pearson Copyright 2020 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
Queen Everleigh Blair of Bellona has survived the Seven Spire massacre, assassination attempts, and other battles on her unexpected journey to the throne. Making allies with other nations is crucial at this juncture as she is faced with the growing threat of war with Morta, whose king murdered Evie's family. Now Evie is bringing her best fighters to the Regalia Games on foreign soil, hoping to bring the other royal families to her side, while plotting her own vengeance against King Maximus and his Band of Bastards, and keeping her subjects and loved ones safe from harm. She just has to survive the games first. VERDICT Estep (Protect the Prince) knows how to create strong and relatable fantasy female leads. Evie's rise into her power in deeds and magic is a fabulous, inspiring read. Solid writing, bold characters, and action-filled sequences create an exciting finish for this trilogy. [See Prepub Alert, 9/16/19.]--Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Estep concludes her Crown of Shards trilogy (Protect the Prince, 2019, etc.) with a young warrior queen's long-delayed vengeance.When the murder of Bellona's royal family set Evie on the path to claim the throne herself, she swore to kill the man responsible: evil King Maximus, of neighboring Morta. Now, after forming some alliances, she's ready for the task, as well as ready to keep fending off yet more attempts on her life. As in the previous books, the task of fighting magical assassins is made easier by Evie's unbeatable secret power of simply being immune to magic. Evie and her friends, the members of her former gladiator troupe, travel to the Regalia, a tournament of skill, with plans to use the festivities to confront and defeat Maximusa villain so over-the-top in his sadism and arrogance that he's hard to take seriously. It's hard to take any of the threats Evie faces seriously either: Whether it's hordes of assassins, a magical tidal wave, or the supposed unmatched arcane power of Maximus himself, Evie's trump cardher magical immunitycontinues to save the day. It's sadly predictable, as is the plot itself; the finale is telegraphed early on, and a supposed twist at the end is nonsensical. The supporting cast suffers, too: Lucas Sullivan, Evie's lover who drove much of Book 2, does nothing here but gaze at Evie with alternating lust or worry; Paloma, Evie's bodyguard, gets a potentially interesting subplot...that is resolved completely off-page. The endless descriptions of parties, dresses, attractive peopleand the constant narrative claims that our heroine is supposedly good at intriguejust add to the sense that we've been here before.A disappointing conclusion to a series that certainly wants to be epic and edgy but only manages to settle into its own ruts. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
