The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson
Review by O’Daara Akinmusire
I came across the Kiss of Deception series when I was browsing through a list of recommended books in a blog. None of them seemed to intrigue me, and I was thinking about refreshing the page when I saw the mysterious woman with the sword on the vibrant green cover. Clicking on it, I discovered that it was under the genre “Fantasy”, one of my favourites. Curious to see what this was about, I read a sample chapter and the blurb. It was amazing!
Our heroine, Lia, is a seventeen-year-old First Daughter of Morrighan, destined to become the Queen of Dalbreck. This future is not what Lia wants for herself, so she runs away with her best friend, Pauline. When she finds safe refuge in Terravin, she is unaware that the mysterious strangers she comes across are here for her, with one being her prince, and the other an assassin.
My favourite part of the book is at the end, where Lia gets taken to Venda by her assassin. I love this part because it is so tense and dramatic, and we begin to wonder if Lia will make it out alive.
I also like it because we were introduced to some new characters. I also liked the part when Lia buries the dead soldiers by herself for hours on end, because this shows her selflessness and her respect for fallen soldiers who have died in battle.
Some other parts I like about the book are the poems in between every other chapter. This is a part I love about fantasy books, as they are magical and make your imagination grow. I also appreciate the maps at the beginning and end of the book, as they help me to map journeys and estimate how long it would take for the characters get there, if 1cm on the map was 100m in reality and they travelled 50km every day. These are very infinitesimal details about the book, but they make the novel all the more enjoyable.
This is a book for people ages 13 to 18, and I would not advise reading it any younger than that.
O’Daara Akinmusire
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