The Kiss of Deception (The Remnant Chronicles #1) Book Review

The Kiss of Deception – Book one of the Remnant Chronicles by Mary E. Pearson

Overall rating: ****

Romance: ***

Reading Rate: ****

Pages: 492

Buy it on Amazon: Here

The Remnant Chronicles have been on my TBR for quite some time now. When a read along was posted with some fellow Bookstagrammers I jumped at the chance to join one for the first time.

We are first introduced to Lia the Princess and First Daughter of Morrighan as she prepares to flee from her arranged marriage to the Dalbreck Prince. She and her lady in waiting escape to a beautiful seaside town to try and start their lives over where unbeknownst to Lia she meets the Prince she was meant to marry and the Barbarian Assassin who was sent to kill her.

There are a lot of pieces to the world that you are introduced to early on in the book without explanation such as the First Daughters, Gifts, and the concept of the Ancients and the Gods. I was constantly on the lookout for more information and answers to my questions. While I didn’t get all that I was looking for in the first book there were certainly a lot of gaps filled in, the author has a very “all things in due time” writing style. I know this can be frustrating for some readers but I really enjoy the way she keeps me on the hook and wanting to know more.

What I liked:

• This book gets tons of credit for being the first in a long while to throw me for a huge loop. I am usually good at predicting things in books and I really felt while some things were the standard fantasy story line there were still a lot of elements that really surprised me.
• I was sucked in!!  I made it through the book in about 2 days even though it is almost 500 pages long. I immediately wanted to dive into the second book but made myself hold of for the Read Along discussion 🙂
• The detailed world and characters keep it interesting and keep me guessing. There was a decent amount of world building done in the first book and also a ton of questions that were posed. I looks forward to learning so  much more in the next two books.

What I didn’t like:

• This really is not a negative but more a notable element.  This is firmly a YA book, while there are detailed fighting scenes and love elements to the story line so far everything has remained PG-13. I personally would like to see a little more steam, but the story is still very good without.

Synopsis:

In a society steeped in tradition, Princess Lia’s life follows a preordained course. As First Daughter, she is expected to have the revered gift of sight—but she doesn’t—and she knows her parents are perpetrating a sham when they arrange her marriage to secure an alliance with a neighboring kingdom—to a prince she has never met.

On the morning of her wedding, Lia flees to a distant village. She settles into a new life, hopeful when two mysterious and handsome strangers arrive—and unaware that one is the jilted prince and the other an assassin sent to kill her. Deception abounds, and Lia finds herself on the brink of unlocking perilous secrets—even as she finds herself falling in love. 

The read along is for the Remnant Chronicles Trilogy Remnant Chronicles Trilogy as well as Pearson’s Dance of Thieves leading up the release of the final book in the duology Vow of Thieves releasing in August. So look for lots more review goodies to go!

Have you read the Remnant Chronicles or Dance of Thieves? Tell me what you think of them below in the comments.