Kestrel’s father, a famed general in the empire of Valoria, has given her a choice: marriage or the military. She possesses a strategic prowess desirable in the military, and her best friend’s brother would marry her in a heartbeat. But in truth, she wants neither option. Instead, she finds herself drawn to her slave, Arin. As her feelings for him grow, she talks with him, confides in him, unaware that he is planning to overthrow her people and reclaim what once belonged to him and his people.
This was an interesting read—in part because I was on the fence for at least half of it. It takes a while to get going. There are some inconsistencies in the world-building that irritated me, some characters’ decisions and behavior didn’t totally make sense. But by the end I was more or less sold. Once it did get going, I was hooked. There was enough originality in it to feel new. And the ending leaves the characters in quite a state. It sets up the rest of the trilogy for lots of tension and difficult decisions. I’m very interested to see what happens next.
The idea of the winner’s curse and how Rutkoski used it in the story was great. It’s first used when Kestrel bids an exorbitant amount of money in order to win the slave she can’t resist. But it comes into play more than once later in the story in heart-wrenching ways. Yet (surprisingly) it never felt contrived.
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