Title: Glint (The Plated Prisoner #2)
Author: Raven Kennedy
Publisher: Raven Kennedy LLC
Publication Date: January 11, 2021
ISBN: 9781737633815
Synopsis:
For ten years, I’ve lived in a gilded cage inside King Midas’s golden castle. But one night changed everything. Now I’m here, a prisoner of Fourth Kingdom’s army, and I’m not sure if I’m going to make it out of this in one piece. They’re marching to battle, and I’m the bargaining chip that will either douse the fire or spark a war. At the heart of my fear, my worry, there’s him—Commander Rip.
Known for his brutality on the battlefield, his viciousness is unsurpassed. But I know the truth about what he is. Fae. The betrayers. The murderers. The ones who nearly destroyed Orea, wiping out Seventh Kingdom in the process. Rip has power sizzling beneath this skin and glinting spikes down his spine. But his eyes—his eyes are the most compelling of all.
When he turns those black eyes on me, I feel captive for an entirely different reason. I may be out of my cage, but I’m not free, not even close. In the game of kings and armies, I’m the gilded pawn. The question is, can I out maneuver them?
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I breathed a sigh of relief reading Glint. After reading the first book in the series, Gild, I was dead set that this series was going to be awful. I had to be sure, so I tried Glint earlier this month. And you know what? While it’s not the best fantasy/romantasy book on the market, it was leaps and bounds better than book one. I’m into this series now a little bit more and my curiosity is piqued to continue to see where this goes.
While the writing leaves a little something to be desired, the world building has me hooked. Pacing is wild and fast in book one, leaving the reader spinning. As FMC Auren doesn’t know very much about her own world, neither does the reader. Everything is new, confusing, and tinted through Auren’s very biased lens. In Glint, Kennedy slowed things down a bit more in this second book and Auren begins to have a shift in her worldview. Her understanding of how the world works expands and she begins to see that there is more out there than she originally thought. She learns that there are people who might respect her, but her view is tainted by fear and years of abuse. She’s having to overcome her own manipulated thoughts and wade through years of misinformation to understand what is truth and what is deception.
As she grows, I’m coming to like Auren a little bit more. She is incredibly frustrating at times. As the reader, it’s easy to see that she’s been manipulated. The world hasn’t been kind to her and she makes decisions with that information in mind. It’s actually a bold move of the writer to create this FMC who is often infuriating and makes a lot of bad decisions. In getting to know her better, the reader develops empathy for Auren and begins to root for her to choose herself and to find her inner strength.
I expect this series is going to have a complete transformation as it continues, and that’s what I’m most excited about. While the writing quality isn’t perfect, there are a lot of positives to this series—enough that I’m willing to continue reading.
Has anyone else read these books? Any differing opinions?
Happy reading!
Worn Pages and Ink 