Vicious Princess (Netgalley) Review

Vicious Princess by Karolina Wilde
Genres: Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, Fantasy & Magic, Romantasy
Format: eARC
Source: Netgalley
Goodreads

There are only three rules at Ezkai Always obey your instructor. Never leave the Castle Grounds without permission. Don’t ever screw your instructor.
I break one before orientation even begins. Can you guess which one?
When I arrive at the unforgiving fae city with the snowy mountains looming over it, I have two
Join the legendary Order of ancient soldiers.Climb the ranks and gain the power I need to avenge my family’s murder.But before I can join the Order, I must survive six months of ruthless training. Failure means exile… or death.
That, I can handle despite being the only human among the brutal, beautiful fae who would love to see me bleed. I’ve survived worse–my body is riddled with a thousand scars that serve as a reminder.
What I didn’t expect?
The hot, mysterious soldier I spent one passionate night with… is now my instructor.
When he offers to mentor me—recognizing the ambition burning inside me—I know I should say no. It’s too risky.
But I want what he’s offering. I want to rise to the top. And maybe… I want him, too.
Vicious Princess is a seductive, blood-stained romantasy for fans of Fourth Wing, Throne of Glass, and Kushiel’s Dart, where power, passion, and vengeance collide.

 Julie’s Review:

 

Vicious Princess: Dark & Spicy Fae Military Academy Romantasy (The Trials of Death and Honor Book 1): This was a Netgalley read.

Vicious Princess is a fast-paced fun read. It’s over 400 pages and I read it in a handful of days, which is saying a lot. The action starts and never stops, the stakes are high, violence and brutality are all around, and the spice is spicing. This isn’t exactly one of those oh this human is special and is stronger than all the fae, because there is a particular group chosen (human or fae or any other creature) – the Decarios – who have exceptional strength and abilities.

Our FMC, Phoenix, is strong and completely driven by her need to avenge her family’s murder. And no one will get in her way. So she joins the fae academy as the only human, to try to complete to join the Order, for her personal vendetta. And yes, she gets beaten up and nearly unalived quite often, but she perseveres. She also has a special affinity to the bow as her primary weapon, and she spends a lot of time training with her bow to bond with it, and to learn its name. (Though why the cover is a dagger and not a bow, I won’t ever understand. Why do so many fantasy covers have to have a sword or dagger, especially when it doesn’t play the main weapon role in the book?)

The MMC, well, apparently is a tough softie for her. You see, she has a no strings situationship with someone she meets at a bar, who – oops – turns out to be her instructor. That’s a fun trope! But I wanted more yearning and tension in their forbidden relationship. It was instalove and that was that, with him putting way too much at risk – both their career goals, his family, everything – for his feelings for her.

I enjoyed it until the very end, when the book got confusing. It jumps “two months” into the future, and the POV changes. But it stays in first person narrative, and it took me a hot second to figure out we were inside the head of someone completely different, not Phoenix. I don’t know if that was meant to set up the next book, but I think it would have made more sense in an epilogue with a change to 3rd person narration. Very confused at who this new character is but also very curious to get to the next book.

Also, I joined the author’s list to get a chapter POV from the MMC’s perspective. I was wanting to get more of the vengeance plot, but I get that will need to be an overall series plot and not an individual book plot. I can’t wait to see her get her revenge.

Tropes you may enjoy:

• Strong/revenge quest FMC
• Elite Fae military academy
• Instructor/Cadet forbidden romance
• Insta-love
• unique magic system
• touch her and die
• intense trials and missions “try not to die”
• he falls first
• nickname “princess”

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