The Kiss of Deception-the One When I Should Have Paid Attention to the Title

Hello Everyone,

I have a lot of mixed feelings when it comes to this book. I can attribute most of them to the portrayal/hype of this book. When I was hearing things about this book on Goodreads and Booktube, I heard a lot about the mystery and fantasy aspects of the plot, without hearing much about how romance based this book is. In retrospect, I don’t think that I would call this a predominantly fantasy book. The story is set in a fantasy world but some of the other fantasy elements weren’t as fleshed out as most predominately fantasy books are, which was one of my major qualms about the book. Here are some examples of what I mean:

- I had a problem with the pacing of the book. While the band was traveling through the desert, the traveling felt very drawn out as a way to make time for character development. This was the same way while Lia was waitressing with Pauline, where the story felt like it dragged on a lot in order to account for character development. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing because it ended up that I very much enjoyed the ensemble cast that Pearson created

-When it came to plot points involving drama or suspense, I leaned one of two ways: Not understanding the purpose or logistics behind the action (because there didn’t seem to be much at stake) or not really caring about the characters that were involved in the action. For instance, Walther was one of my favorite characters in the book. He was smart, caring, genuine and seemed to be the king that Morrighan was in desperate need of. So Pearson’s direction with his storyline absolutely tore me apart. However, the direction that Pearson decided to go with Gretta’s story arc didn’t really hit me as hard. If anything, I felt more for Walther than I did Gretta and the baby.

- In a different vein, I didn’t understand how Lia could have gotten out of the castle so easily (especially with Pauline in tow). It was obvious to Lia’s mother that Lia wasn’t happy about going through with the marriage alliance. Her mother was perceptive enough (with the gift helping her) that she should have been able to see that Lia wasn’t going to stay. Pearson also makes it incredibly clear that Lia is the best asset that Morrighan has at the moment if it is going to make peace with the surrounding kingdoms. Don’t you think that the palace would try a little harder to find the princess if she was the only thing that was apparently going to save them from the all out chaos that was going to come from Venda and the others kingdoms?

-Lastly, I was left with several questions about how the magic system, or “the gift”, actually worked. When Lia was working with the elderly women to try and understand the book that she had stolen from the Scholar, while also trying to understand how the gift worked, I thought that we were going to get a very specific “this is how my magic system works” sort of a deal from Pearson. However, where she could have been very specific about the gift and exactly what the gift would allow Lia to do, Pearson decided to use the gift as a reason for the assassin to keep Lia alive.

Honestly, I think that Pearson was going for a more romance centered fantasy and it has just been hyped in the wrong category. The choices Pearson made (in reference to my qualms above) seem like deliberate choices made in favor of the romance aspects of the book, which is what I would categorize the book as ( a romance with some fantasy elements worked in). All of these choices seem to give Lia time to interact with her possible love interests or to understand more about the kingdom that she was going to eventually rule (the later of which was much more interesting to me). While someone seeking more of a romantic story with some fantasy elements wouldn’t be too bothered by the exclusion of fantasy elements and their explanations, I wanted more from the story than a love triangle and a solid ensemble cast. This makes me think that I would have rated the book higher if I went into it expecting a character based romance with some fantasy elements rather than a fantasy centered novel with some romance elements.(And I don’t know if this was just me but I never had much doubt about the real identities of the prince and the assassin. Pearson made it rather clear who was who in this particular love triangle even though she intentionally wrote the book with vague chapter titles and sections to make the identities of Lia’s lovers a mystery to the audience.)

In the end, this book was very well written and easy to get through. However, I feel like, if I would have payed more attention to the title and the romance it insinuated, then I wouldn’t have been left wanting so much from the fantasy elements of the book.

Overall:

A solid 3 ½ out of 5 stars

80% out of 100%

-Jaime

#3stars #summerseries2016 #MaryEPearson #Fantasy #Romance #lovetriangle #femalelead