The Traitor’s Kiss by Erin Beaty | Book Review

Title: The Traitor’s Kiss

Author: Erin Beaty

Series: The Traitor’s Cycle #1

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, High Fantasy, Romance

Publisher: Imprint

Publication date: May 9th, 2017

Pages: 352

My rating:

An obstinate girl who will not be married. A soldier desperate to prove himself. A kingdom on the brink of war.

With a sharp tongue and an unruly temper, Sage Fowler is not what they’d call a lady―which is perfectly fine with her. Deemed unfit for marriage, Sage is apprenticed to a matchmaker and tasked with wrangling other young ladies to be married off for political alliances. She spies on the girls―and on the soldiers escorting them.

As the girls’ military escort senses a political uprising, Sage is recruited by a handsome soldier to infiltrate the enemy ranks. The more she discovers as a spy, the less certain she becomes about whom to trust―and Sage becomes caught in a dangerous balancing act that will determine the fate of her kingdom.

“She’d taken this job out of desperations and questioned it often despite Darnessa’s assurance that she was suited for it. Now she saw it was the best decision she’d made in a long time. It was a sept toward freedom.”

Okay, I don’t know if I went with pretty low expectations, but though this book wasn’t my favorite, I still had a great time reading it. It’s been on my TBR for a really long time, so I finally decided to pick it up.

Overall it was a solid fantasy story, with a nice plot and characters, and it didn’t take me that long to read as I thought, which was great because tall books tend to do that to me. I had a few issues at times with some of the characters, but I didn’t hate it, so that’s a plus.

“You’re in a command position now. These aren’t mistakes you can afford to make. You must see the bigger picture. Acting quickly has its merits, but so does patience.”

The storyline ended up really surprising me, because somehow when I first started I didn’t think it was going to be that political driven, and it ended up having a much more complex plot than I first thought. The story focused on conspiracies and the politics of that world, and I really enjoyed those parts.

I would say, however, that the characters weren’t my favorite. At the beginning of the story I quite liked them and I found them interesting, but as I continued reading they became a bit more cliqued and less unique, and though I didn’t completely hate them, they weren’t my favorite either. They had a good development and dynamics between them, and the romance wasn’t bad, but it’s true that it was a bit too insta love-y for my particular liking.

Another thing that got me a bit confused at the beginning was that one of the characters referred to himself with another name, and though that was lately explain in the book why he did that, I found that a bit unnecessary at times, especially when he wasn’t talking to anyone.

Also the main problem I had with the book was the black villain trope, which was such a let down, because so far the book was actually pretty good. But yeah, I’m a bit tired to see that trope, especially when the descriptions of white people were pretty wide and complex and you knew even how many freckles they had, but when it came to black people, they were only described as “they had tan/dark skin”, which was kind of a bummer, to be honest.

“You may think about my offer for a few days, but I doubt anyone else in the village will offer you a place. I’m not taking anything from your future. We both know you cannot be matched, wild Sage.”

The story itself was pretty easy to get into, and it took me less than expected to finish it, which was great. It was very action packed and had lots of fast paced scenes, which made the experience much better for me. I would say it started to get much better towards the end, because I had a full picture of the world and the characters.

Overall, it was a solid story, and despite not being as unique as I firstly thought, and having a few issues with the characters and the tropes used in the novel, I had a good time reading it, and I’m considering continuing with its sequel, just to see if it gets better.